Habanita Molinard for women

Very old, and very pretty. Something slightly medicinal about it, dare I say, geriatric, but not really. It’s just ‘old world’ it’s literally like putting Guerlain’s Shalimar and L’huere Bleue into one fragrance. For powder lovers only!

Don’t be fooled by vintage Habanita puritans! The modern EDP is a HEAVY nod to the vintage juice! The vintage has a smoky leather-like undertone that is very prominent among the backdrop of powdery vanilla and raspberry. This stuff is pretty much permanent on whatever you spray it on! Lovely with “red painted claws” it’s statement-making, but with a soft fur on the outside (the powder). If you can only find the modern EDP you’ll still be getting the Habanita experience. Molinard is still considered ‘niche’ and is still privately producing their time curated fragrances. The vintage is on steroids and the modern EDP is a MINISCULE amount softer. 😂 Beware spraying either with abandon! You’ll fumigate yourself and others around you. Habanita still dresses in black. 😘

On first sniff, I get root beer frothing over the lip of a glass bottle. The licorice note persists into the drydown, joined by smooth black leather and a whiff of spiced vanilla chai. Spies meeting over hot drinks in cold weather, perhaps? Or teenagers flirting over cold sodas in August? While the clove note says winter to me, I can see the sharp mentholish benzoin being deliciously cooling in the heat. Truly a scent for all seasons.

My favorite part of this perfume was the big opening-dry, Amber, powdery vanilla. Gosh, it’s so pretty. It is powerful in the opening, and won’t be for everyone, as it definitely has a vintage flair. As it dries down, it tames itself but retains that dry amber powdery essence I so enjoyed. It hung around on my skin for about 5 hours, but was intimate on me after the 3 hour mark. I only had a sample someone had shared with me of this, but I will grab a bottle if I ever come across one! This perfume is perfect for the Christmas season.

This is for the old juice that gets oxidized perfectly in patina color. Top notes are getting vague. I can barely smell riped fruit let alone bergamot and then the show was taken by powdery leather, majestically. Such alluring and mysterious smooth leather that feel velvety thanks to orris. This beautiful state stays so long before animalic musk emerge to its drydown. Habanita is indeed a landmark of perfume artistry

A fire made out of ebony wood. This is my impression.
Fire.
Wood.
Exotic country.
High temperature.
Night.
Love.
The one-liners on the Pros list describe this unique magic potion very well.
It's shocking, but stunningly beautiful and complex.

Testing again from a sample of the vintage formula.

Two words: melancholic & mysterious.

Imagine the resolute, steely exterior of a woman. She has seen some things in life. But there’s this soft and vulnerable side to her when she is comfortable enough to let her guard down with you. However, not just anyone has the privilege of seeing this softer side of her.

That’s the way Habanita unfolds herself. She will eventually with time open up and reveal all her mysterious secrets to you.

Resinous vanilla, dark leather, and powdery florals. Delicious and sexy combination.

I have always been attracted to fragrances that are wayyyy before my time. Perhaps I was born in the wrong era. Habanita just ticks all my boxes. And man do I have a type! I am happy that the fruity, citrus top notes are fairly understated on me and that it keeps the most mysterious alluring notes front and center. This is a beautiful work of art. A Timeless masterpiece!

Femme Fatale Russian Spy.

Beautiful powdery heliotrope and orris, makes the leather slightly dusty, almost suede, slightly animalic imo, humble florals, vanilla weaving through each of the notes, the vetiver makes everything a little more robust. I know the history of this perfume tells us it was created for women intended to mask the smell of cigarettes but I can only imagine how delicious pipe tobacco, cigarette and cigar smoke would smell lacing through this fragrance. The benzoin and musk in the base is sweet, fluffy, heavenly. Not the way you’d describe a femme fatale Russian Spy but the composition creates a harmony that flickers between feminine and masculine, soft and rugged. Such a gorgeous and unique perfume. I’m beginning to really enjoy leather x orris x iris.

This vintage is marketed as an EDT concentration but has the longevity of a really decent EDP. I could still smell it around my neck and décolleté the following day albeit a cozy, musky, warm, vanillic and slightly resinous skin scent.

ok, am outstanding perfume but as i know it was the very first vetiver perfume for women in the history but fragrantica doesn’t mention the vetiver with the ingredients!! am having lovely time now with la cologne and i advice you guys to have if the original one is hard on you :)

Gorgeous powdery fragrance. The orris and leather are two most prominent notes for me. They make the fragrance very unique, spicy, sexy, powdery and vintage. The fragrance does come out a little strong and a little too masculine for me. I think the ambery leather note is what makes it a little too blunt and straightforward for me. But definitely a very unique fragrance!

Oh, sigh…there used to be the best perfume store in Paris called ‘Catherine Perfumerie’, now closed. Tucked away in a Passage across from the Hôtel Meurice, tiny, and filled to the brim on revolving (think vertical racks like the dry cleaners have) shelves with 1000’s of perfumes. Discounted prices, and you’d leave with $100 worth of samples easily. Not like current clerks who act like giving ‘A’ sample vial is directly coming out of their paycheck! And the vendeuses who worked there knew, with encyclopedic knowledge and acumen, perfumes. I travelled a lot for business and would always stop there to stock up on my favorites: Caleche, Amazone, Ô de Lancôme, Mon Peche extrait, My Sin…and my new best friend, Habanita.
I first smelled it on a co-worker. It drifted after her whenever she walked by—subtle, soft, mysterious. I was hooked. It is a divisive fragrance, as you’ve probably read here on other posts. Some claim it smells musty, old lady, dated. Dated, perhaps. It is certainly nothing like the current affaire for bubble-gummy, saccharine sweet fruit fragrances. All of which, across the board, to me smell formulaic, repetitive, utterly forgettable. Habanita harkens back to when women wore long gloves and chic black wool crepe cocktail dresses, with sleek up-dos and understated jewelry. Where heads turned because a woman entering was so quietly elegant, you just had to take it all in. Perfumes in this era never, or at least rarely, screamed. Wearing Habanita, if it meshes with your chemistry, is a veiled, wafting fragrance that trails you rather than announces you. It is powdery soft, but then comes the woody leather spine that holds up through the day. I was often asked, at the end of the day, long after I could no longer smell it, “What are you wearing?” Id always ask, “Is it something you like? Or want to avoid?” They always said they loved it, or wanted to get some for their wife or girlfriend. My affinity for this mysterious, seductive scent has lasted nearly 40 years, and I still love it for evenings out.

I miss the days when people behind the counter were experts in their field, not just their particular line, and not incentivized by promos and contests to “sell the most”. The only American counterpart to Habanita was Ralph Lauren’s ‘Tuxedo’, sadly discontinued and the dupes smell nothing at all like the original. Happily, the various reformulations of Habanita have stayed true to the original I bought in 1982! If you like evocative, elegantly mysterious fragrances, give this a try. The EDT is great for daytime, but the EDP or parfum really shine at night.

I bought a decant of the EDP and one of the vintage EDT for comparison. I liked neither on first test. Two days ago I tried the EDP (which I understand to be a slightly different scent profile from the EDT) and… yes? Yes! I now recall stepping into a bodega-type store in Houston, Texas, back when I smoked, and buying a pack of cigarettes from somewhere overseas. They had a scent not unlike this—sweet, powdery, exotic.

The EDP is powdery, but sexy, sexy powder. It smells sophisticated and I can certainly see it perfuming cigarettes, although there is no tobacco in the composition. It will take a few more days for us to get to know each other—there’s more under the powder that I haven’t sussed out yet. Musk? Leather? It’s smooth and warm and yet also strangely fresh (but perhaps that’s a scent memory of my 20s).

Curiosity now demands that I give the EDT a second sniff too. For science!

I can't give a list of notes that emerge over the time wearing it but I can say that putting it on is exactly and I mean EXACTLY like walking into a house or an apartment you're going to rent and seeing a mysterious wooden cubby in the hallway. It's exquisite construction is remarkable so you ask the property manager about it. "No idea" he flatly states. "They all have 'em." After living there for a while the cubby blends into the background but every once in a while you pull the doors open and wonder what it could be. Google is no help. Then one day you host a party and invite your coworkers. Babette from accounting brings her boyfriend who turns out to be an eccentric, quirky man with a beard trimmed to form a perfect point, his moustache into two perfect erect curls. On your 15th trip from the kitchen to the living rooom you pass him holding forth in the hallway next to the cubby. He explains in delighted detail how the cubby was constructed, why it is so ornate and prominent and the absolutely obsolete and currently obscure yet at that time commonplace and daily use it had 100 years earlier. From then on when you touch the cubby's carved wood you become deeply aware of the gulf of time separating you from an era that had such a deep need for something like this. For a moment the ghosts of the people who used it then seem to gather and stand with you. It is a beautiful thing, a bit strange to those who live in a different time, but beautiful nonetheless.

It definitely does evolve over the time you're wearing it and I think it goes through every single fragrance "type" out there as it evolves. Each stage is beautiful--powdery, floral, leather/woodsy. It is always mysterious though. Always hard to describe and to conceptualize. But always beautiful.

Molinard - Habanita (1921) EdT, Vintage from the 1980s, splash

"I see you undressing me with your eyes... Don't stop now, you're only half done...".

Every year on my birthday, I decide to be extravagant and douse myself in a vintage collectable from my little stash of treasures. I had a few in mind for 26, but as fate worked its magic, a beautiful vintage splash bottle of Molinard Habanita in EdT, which I'd ordered from a fantastic seller on Etsy (Hanna if you're reading this, you're an absolute star) based out in Italy. What would you know, the gods that govern logistics and international shipping decided to bring in this bundle of wonderfulness on my birthday, and I simply couldn't be happier.

The most sumptuous packaging befitting Habanita, from the 'roses on black' gift wrapping paper, the gorgeous bows, the little ornamentation, the gilded envelope and golden seals, I only wish I could've done an unboxing for ya'll because Hanna's packaging was so grand. She even sent me the gift of a necklace for my dear mum, since I'd told her during one of our conversations that it was from my mum that I get my taste in perfumery, for she had wondered how a 25-year-old lad came to love a grand dame of the likes Habanita.

I have forever been in love with Habanita, I have it in the sublime, and very true to the original, EdP recreation and in the newly imagined La Cologne as well.

Before I delve deep into the vintage, I must say that Habanita in EdP as it is now available remains a very successful reformulation and is oft praised by many a critic as being a very close approximation of the vintage EdT, which has been discontinued for a while now. So fret not if you can't get your hands on a vintage EdT or Parfum, the EdP is a good reach too.

History, the beginnings are interesting because Habanita was never really conceived as a perfume, it was supposed to scent cigarettes. Just so that the rebellious flappers of the 20s could appear elegant whilst being chain smokers and not simply reek of stale cigarette smoke. This is the very first 'tobacco' perfume, but it doesn't contain a hint of tobacco. Though having said that I think that honour technically goes to Caron's Tabac Blond, I'm not too sure what the general consensus on this is.

You could buy sachets of Habanita to put in your cigarette cases (so that the scent would permeate into your cigarettes) or a tiny liquid vial with a glass rod to drip a little of the liquid directly into a cigarette and thus perfume the smoke that emanated. If only millennial-cool Emily knew that her great-grandma Helen was the original vape girl, oh well.

I believe somewhere down the line people simply started using Habanita to scent themselves directly, which is when Molinard decided to bring it out formally as a perfume to be applied on oneself, 1921 being the widely accepted launch year for the perfume. To me, Molinard exemplifies the true essence of French perfumery from Grasse, with Habanita boasting a supposed 600 ingredients in all, working to create a nuanced melange of sultry, purring notes and accords.

Bottle, it is a gorgeously moulded Lalique flacon, an original creation of Rene Lalique, with the murals of many a lady in their nakedness cheekily attempting to cover themselves with shawls. Probably my favourite perfume bottle design. The screw cap is beaten golden metal and filigreed. It is a splash bottle.

Scent, in this vintage EdT, it opens rather differently compared to the EdP, the butch Leather is front and centre from the absolute start, with the Galbanum, Petit Grain and most importantly the Mastic gum resin peeking in shyly, the Leather decides to let the top notes sway in and out of stage curtains giving you a momentary freshness from the Petit Grain (far too shortlived) the tiniest bit of mildly green-resinous-dustiness ala Galbanum and the Mastic.

Note: Mastic is a resin from Yemen, obtained from a shrub and smells a bit like pine tree resin and follows after olibanum in scent profile. Milky tree sap?

The Leather in here is NOT the oddness that prevails in modern perfumery and does in no way smell like car seats and the like. It smells like Leather that is worn against bare skin, salted by sweat and has a slightly funky overtone to it thanks to the undertone of Musk. Mind you the original formula for Habanita is a 'Russian Leather' base, it was never a simple Leather construct to begin with.

But the heart is important because it is what helps restrain the otherwise potent Leather accord, the Nutmeg and Heliotrope are most potent giving it the signature spiced powder feel. Habanita is spicy and it is powdery, of its Guerlain peers Shalimar and L'Heure Blue, and distant Caron cousin Tabac Blond, this is by far the most focussed on the spice of the three and there is unparalleled depth and floral darkness here.

There is an oiliness from the dense and rather indolic florals, the Grasse jasmine, the Rosa centifolia and Ylang-Ylang bring in the sweetness but the 'sweetness is cut' and grounded by the Vetiver and Cedarwood in the heart. There's enough in here to tame any manner of sweetness. There's also an odd Raspberry note which plays a very adept game of 'hide and seek' and is only perceptible when your skin warms up. This Raspberry note is nowhere to be found in the EdP.

The powderiness here is thick, in a mature and rather sensual way, there is something about this that would make one think of the smell of well-worn and broken-in Leather which has been powdered to mask the scent of wear.

The base is heavy and with a Benzoin-forward Amber, a perceptible dose of Vanilla, Patchouli, Oakmoss, and the aforementioned Musk which ISN'T 'clean' thankfully.

Feel, this has never been a simple, decent fragrance, in every day and age this has been the scent of the morally dubious seductress, it is only for the femme fatale and she doesn't border on the spectrum of the good or the kind, bad is in her bone and she's smirking at you even when you tell her she owns your heart, she loves you sure, but with irony. The powder is proper and the leather is lustful. Habanita's elegance is only skin deep, a deeply disturbing voluptuousness lies barely hidden from the discerning eye.

This is probably why I relate immensely to Habanita, there is a side to me that is prim, proper and preppy but that's just the face that deals with the world at large and there is a darker bit of debauched longing lurking deep beneath, if you've been privileged enough to see that side, I've probably marked you with my teeth or nails, and if I've been subtle I've left you with a bruised heart.

Your very own,
The Perfume Vigilante

Before the musk and woods take over, the opening to this perfume fruity. My nose is drawn to the contrast between bitter and sweet, rough and silky. There is this shape changing experience. I am always delighted to meet in a fragrance: flowers and fruits which peep through, just to be hidden by all the deep brooding darkness that is at the foundation. This scent is powdery, with a nasty civet undertone, particularly in the dry down. The lifespan, projection, and silage are all exceptional. Masterpiece!

don’t be put off by the initial blast of baby powder. there’s more to come: green resins, soft spices, plush incense, smoky vanilla and sandalwood, dried flowers dusted in yet more powder… not gonna lie: the powder never fully dissipates; it merely becomes a veil through which you get hints of the warm, velvety mystery that is Habanita. strictly speaking, i suppose she is an oriental — but she’s the weirdest oriental i’ve encountered so far. Habanita might need to be in her own category.

i put her away a few weeks ago, with a sigh. all i got that first try was baby powder and cigarette smoke. pointless. but then, recently, i tried Opus 1144, and it immediately reminded me of Habanita. but Opus 1144 doesn’t smell like baby powder OR cigarettes, so i realised there must have been more going on. some perfumes are temperamental. this is definitely one of them. give her a minute; she’s feeling herself.

musical accompaniment : Bloodletting (album) by Concrete Blonde

/current edp

Habanita...lazy morning, dusty, vanilla, resins, powder cozyness. So feminine and melancholic. People pay hundreds for Dior's Feve Delicieuse, Vanilla diorama...the latest vanillic Shalimar...if you adore these perfumes and don't own a good old Habanita bottle you are missing a great staple...go get at least a sample!

Dusty, musty, fusty, unapologetically vintage! What an indescribable scent she is to me. Like nothing else I own.

Don't misunderstand. I Love My special bottle of Habanita! Gifted to me by the kindest Fragrantican, happily before prices skyrocketed. As my ordered bottle went AWOL enroute to me during an infamous winter storm, I treasure this supreme sacrifice on her part! So precioso.

But I want to add that this vintage lover has not found it to be a man magnet. It is not that I personally avoid fragrances on this criteria, but Unanimous votes from men that it smells EXACTLY like baby powder cannot be overlooked! So if you are looking for something that wafts about oneself with the quality of film star seduction..... you will need to look elsewhere. I find it quite comical that a fragrance at once, dark, heavy, and mysterious could possibly be perceived thus, but so it is. Reason? The talcum here may be the only recognizable note to many uninitiated souls.

All of this said, dark talcum may grow on some! And I certainly would not gainsay the sophisticated yet somehow comforting, niche scent that is vintage Habanita. If all of that sounds good to you, don't hesitate to test the newest version in edp form - the square bottle. It is EXCELLENT. Less talcum, just as much artistry. Highly recommended for those who adore unusual French scents with only the slightest update in style.


Habanita - she who never goes out of style and never blends in with the crowd. Absolutely timeless, if an acquired taste for many. Five Stars and Five stars also for the new version as aforementioned. What a quality house is Molinard!

Original parfum formulation. It opened quite warm and leathery when it hit my skin and right after came the fruit mixed with flowers. As it dried, i could smell a sweet spicy rhum with vanilla that was later balanced with dry moss and wood in the back. I wanted to smell it because of how popular it was and after reading the description i thought that i wouldn't like this but i don't mind it, actually. I associate this smell with a place or a moment, a good time drinking and smoking in a bar; and not as much to a perfume someone would wear, but who am I to deny it to all the fans?

manuelag, you owe Slim5555 an apology. S/he is in fact informed. They're called concreta, and their composition includes wax from the flowers in the juice formulation. Molinard has recreated them for Habanita, Jasmine and Rose to celebrate their 170th anniversary. Check the Molinard website, and please let's remember our manners.

There is not an adjective, adverb, noun et al that I could possibly add but Habanita used to come in small plastic curved containers, about the size of a small spool of thread. Unscrew the cap and the scent is in a wax form which is a lovely and safe way to tote perfume, on the top of each cap was a little hand-painted flower, at one time Molinard would sell the little pots in a set which contained several of their fragrances. Does anyone know how different the new formula is from the original?

Blind buy of a discounted tester on this as I was intrigued by the fragrance's unique place in history and, wow - this is not what I was expecting. I was expecting heaviness, sourness, and an overpowering aftershave-like thwack! in the face... I'd thought Habanita was going to be something really forceful, designed as it was to cut through layers of heavy cigarette smoke in clubs way back in the day. Instead I find this fragrance on me is layered, nuanced and sophisticated; really quite sexy; very beautiful indeed. There's jasmine and/or ylang ylang in the background, spices, some vanilla, a touch of musk for sure but not overdone, and lots and LOTS of leather and smokiness. A really heady but not sweet floral note that I am guessing must be heliotrope? REALLY seductive. Can be worn by any gender as long as you're feeling (or want to feel) elegant, assertive and a tiny bit mysterious. Certainly not your usual bright fruity 21st century fragrance affair; but I don't think it smells dated or old-lady or "urgh, aftershave!" either, just very, very unusual. LOVE.

I'm not sure what else I can add about Habanita. This is what you wear when you wanna kick modern perfumery in the balls.

I have had my vintage eau de parfum bottle for years, thinking it might grow on me. It hasn't, I never really enjoy it, mostly because it is just not my type of perfume. My pale skinned, red haired Raphaelian beauty of a friend tried this on and it suited her down to the ground. On my skin, however, the sweet and thick amber/oakmoss/patchouli combination, with peach notes that my skin never really suits, gives it a medicinal quality. I can conjure up images of a rich, sophisticated but fun 1920's woman, draped in pearls, smoking from a long cigarette holder and generally being glorious as she props up the bar and holds the room.... it just isn't me. A warm, heavy, evening perfume that I suspect will be love or hate, most definitely not a safe blind buy. Reminds me somewhat of an after hours version of the original formula Cinnebar. I will either keep it in my collection for the sake of history, and the stunning bottle, or will finally pass this on to someone who will appreciate it.

An unusual, one-of-a-kind number, with a definite Art Deco 1920's feeling. Some have called it "SHALIMAR's naughty flapper sister", or "a SHALIMAR-scented handkerchief rubbed out into an ashtray".

Like SHALIMAR, one gets the impression of something Oriental-sweet with balsams, amber and vanilla and fruit; but in HABANITA the sweet, powdery, sandy-warm quality is always tantalizingly held at arm's length by stern, bitter notes of gum mastic, geranium, petitgrain, smoky tanned leather and cedar. The sweet-versus-bitter elements continue their repartée throughout the perfume's development, never to resolve, even into far drydown.

An opening accord of gum mastic and benzoin smells startlingly like pure white powder cocaine, and indeed the whole perfume, to me, has a subtle "louche" quality, like something you'd smell at the Kit-Kat Kabarett in Weimar Berlin: omnisexual debauchery laced with an unspoken ominousness. It is an Otto Dix painting come to life. The perfume was originally released in 1921 as a unisex number for scenting one's cigarettes: Early vials of the jus contained an inner glass wand for stroking the curious scent onto one's smokes... thence, in a nightclub, your unusual, bittersweet fragrance would waft mysteriously over the revelry.

A classic I hope never to be without.

I am a man who wears Habanita, who appreciates the beauty of the Lalique bottle (I have an older EDT formulation), and who loves a good heliotrope note anywhere he can find it (especially when there's a smidgen of bitter almond bite), and here it really shines on my skin with the moody leather and aromatic tobacco.

The duality between bitter and sweet, rough and smooth, masculine and feminine, captivates my nose. There is this shape shifting sensation that I am always thrilled to encounter in a fragrance: florals and fruits peek through only to be shrouded by all the deep, brooding darkness that is at the core of Habanita.

Yes, this is powdery. Yes, this has a dirty civet undertone especially in the drydown. Yes, it is not for today. But what is meant for today I frankly don't desire (not very much, at least). I've surpassed the phase of wearing fragrances for compliments, for performance, for validity or prestige. I wear them for the very personal, visceral connections from which they derive. And my love for Habanita de Molinard is testament to that.

i had tried the newer version (in the square bottle) and loved it but i knew that, as always, the vintage is probably on another level altogether. well i just got my hands on a vintage 7.5ml pure parfum in the black square glass lalique bottle with a gold cap. i’m not sure what year or decade it is, but the bottom of the bottle says ‘MOLINARD’, the fl oz and 7.5ml, and, ‘CREATION LALIQUE’ (it’s in all caps on the bottle except for the fl oz and ml which is lowercase, which is why i wrote it like that). if that means anything to anyone. feel free to pm me if you have any info about it or know the age, i’d love to know. ok, on the the perfume. this is the hard part, because i am speechless. i can’t find the words to describe it, at least not on first impression, it is just gorgeous. heavenly. one of the best perfumes i’ve ever smelled and instantly one of my favorites. it’s really really amazing and i highly recommend going for the vintage if you like the newer one, it’s just on a whole ‘nother level.

My skin likes to absorb fragrances like a sponge, admittedly. So was it super faint and fading? It was on me. The perfume starts off very sharp, animalic, kind of Chanel no5 vibes, not all that bad but not my kind of direction. Then it settles into a quite forgettable powerlessness that evaporates into a skin scent. I wish I experienced what everyone is raving about, but on my skin it's too quick to say goodbye. (EDT) 5/10

Classic, not dated. This juice has a presence/sillage comparable to Chanel No. 5, but it's a little less ladylike, less floral, more mouthwatering.

I'm getting top notes of ylang, peach, and heliotrope, smoothed with intoxicating orris root and supported by leather, vanilla, & amber. I love it, beginning to drydown!

No. 5 is the tea party; this fragrance is the , slightly naughty afterparty, a crush of flappers dancing to jazz.

BLIND BUY. REVIEW based on bottle pictured here.
I went for a vintage bottle as I wanted the "full effect"!
There is not a lot to add as this classic has enough reviews to fill a phone book (remember those?).
This smells like if Guerlain's L'Heure Bleu & Revlon's Ciara - had a baby, and that baby had to be really really special because it was being adopted by royalty OR some super classy rich people involved in the NYC theater/stage/plays in the 1940s. In the dry-down you'll pick up an amalgam of vintage Avon perfumes as well (Oh my Lord- I get whiffs of Moonwind herein!) . As TRITE as my description my appear: Habanita is a classic that transcends decades upon decades and should be called Sweet Powder Perfume: The One. This is not for the younger generation at all. Those of us, that are around the mid-century mark will feel somewhat emotional wearing this-- you shall remember scents worn by relatives and teachers from your past. Habanita is a time machine fragrance -- a well nuanced time machine indeed.

I own a vintage bottle - the clear glass bottle has a glass stopper with an engraved 'M." The dark liquid inside may very well be my vanilla unicorn - and I wasn't even looking for one. Habanita is a powdery leather vanilla supported by a smooth blend of floral notes, all rounded out by sultriness from wood, comfort from fruit, and complexity from oakmoss. Dense and mysterious. Moody and assertive. Apply a tiny (tiny!) drop only when the sun sinks below the horizon and the ink of the sky rises.

A vintage bottle will uncover what a masterpiece this perfume truly is and confirm that Habanita should be included on any 'best of' vanilla list.

EDT in large 200 ml bottle (no spray) back on their site for a limited vintage edition... It is now in my Habanita collection with both vintage perfume and EDT, current EDP and La Cologne...

When I smell Habanita I can picture it on Mae West. I have the bottle pictured above and love periodically smelling it but I don't care to wear because it is so powdery. A gorgeous deep, rich, spicy powdery I might add but too powdery to have it follow me around all day. I love Habanita though!

Habanita is Love’s Baby Soft that grew up and became a chain smoking journalist.

this beauty is real vintage glamour in a bottle - taffeta rustling under sable - pearls and stilettos - stockings and lipstick - handbags and powder puffs - perfectly pencilled brows and just the right amount of decollete....oh darling are my seams straight? where are my gloves?

An update:
I have succumbed to the allure of Habanita - so much so that I purchased some on eBay, then forgot about it. Days later I bought nearly the identical EDT on Amazon. Then my eBay purchase arrived - omg! Further, I couldn't help myself and bought on Amazon some "parfum". But it was not. It was an EDT and the seller refunded a fair amount for the error. Now I have 3 bottles of EDT and I am feeling really inept. However, I am spraying myself with abandon!........this stuff is so intoxicating and very long lasting. Simply, it is bliss.

Start off with baby johnson talcum exact smell, and then a mix of Amouage Opus VII and Zadig Voltaire This is Him, and then turns to the cross of Lalique Encre Noir and Miller Harris vetiver Insolent.. wow such a polarizing smell.

That indicates how good the blend is. This is not an expensive perfume but indeed can smell so luxury.

Surely nobody wants to miss this.. My blind buy is now a huge satisfaction.

Note: very lasting, huge sillage though an EDT

What a wonderful, somewhat old-fashion scent bomb. Not dated at all, just a perfect throwback to the past powdery fragrances many of us remember. love it. I mainly smell lilac, orris root, jasmine, and woody vanilla, while the other notes are just well blended underneath. The musk is not skanky on me and the benzoin and amber are perfect and come in pretty quickly. Very sexy and soft. To me there is almost of cinnamon note (not listed) but since I'm not yet sure of what heliotrope smells like, that may be it.

I don't know if this sample is newer or vintage, but I sure would like to know if the new formulations have great longevity.

Well, I just paid an outrageous price for 3 ml of the "parfum". 3 ml!! This was after trying out a teensy sample that I really liked. I have been wearing ii for about 3 hours now and I am totally blown away at how different it is, how seductive it is. It is now soft, spicy and just a bit sweet - like I want to eat it! At first whiff, I was reminded of my grandfather's sweet pipe - a delicate tobacco scent that sometimes wafts through the air as a pipe smoker walks past you. It then gradually morphed into earthiness and a spice I can't quite place. I keep sniffing it and want more. I guess I will have to look up what the sample was (EDP or EDT) because I have to have more. But it would be insane to pay for the parfum again. It has been interesting to read about the various reviews of the two (EDP and EDT). Maybe I need both. I haven't wanted a perfume so much like this since KL.

Oh my this one is really sultry. This is a unique one of a kind fragrance with excellent projection and lasting power. You only need a few sprays...less is more with this one. She is smoky incense and vanilla....very sophisticated. I love that this is not like many of the popular fragrances today..it is not a sweet fruity gourmand but really stands out as something sultry and very sexy. I would that say this is a cool weather fragrance.

2006 Lalique square bottle review. This is purported to be the most unisex batch.

The open gives me chills. It reminds me of a filthy Manhatten or Old Fashion with extra cherries. The booze fades and the powder emerges. Smoke and leather behind the baby powder. It smells familiar, like from a past life. It's 100 years old so it's possible. The powder fades and it becomes flapper era brothel. Maybe that's why it smells so familiar! 10/10

Habanita is very, very beautiful.

In truth, I ignored this classic for a long time and only graduated to it recently from other, more modern powdery fragrances... and I’m glad I saved the best until last.

I don’t get major leather or skank from this beauty. It’s a powder lover’s dream...warm, comforting, hugely powdery and a touch sweet. The ‘dirty’ and leathery notes are very faint for me and just sit gently underneath the clean, feminine powder bomb , giving it a subtle edge and gravitas. It’s an absolute one-off dream. LOVE.

Im very interested in getting a bottle of this magic potion.
Any advices on which edition / newer x vintage / bottle type / ?...
Thanks :)

What a witch !
Sitting on a wooden stool she boils some mixture in a bowl. Difficult to say how it works: is it rather to make him go away –this one who strained her blood so badly or quite opposite - to make him come back with flowers in his hands. A single tea rose – she doesn`t like another ones.
A witch is whispering to herself, holding her long foxy hair to avoid soaking it.A big pendant disappears in her neckline…
Now all the room smells and so does she. Rose & honey, leather, smoke and spices but it `s still not enough for her. Added some fruits, wooden strips, a piece of root dug up in a garden, probably the iris one.
Still not a poison ;-)!
Heaven gets dark and clouds are so heavy- it will rain or even storm is coming. Heat outside.
Smiling to herself she tries.Something else...Found vanilla stick on the shelf- dry and smoky. Tobacco ! What for ?Not to go too far! If he wants he would smoke, but …she took some leaves powdering them between her fingers. Put them inside .Not that bad –saying loudly she pulled heavy, velvet curtains.
Will he remember her !
Stylish,essentional, lasting perfume.Fruits, powder, woods and leather-mixed perfectly, any of them dominates. Linear but powerful scent. Kind a bird of prey. Oldschool when perfume was a perfume if you know what I mean. Wearing it you`re the only one.
Should you know it, reconciling with your skin and love like a friend or hate it like an ex –lover:-)
Will be yours or not

The mysterious smoky/leathery perfume that I can only wear in small amounts, dabs rather than sprays. I really don't enjoy wearing it until it's in drydown phase, otherwise to me it's too heavy, even in fall or winter. I bought it in miniature size because I love the bottle. This has a lot of fruit upon opening, which opens up into a very rich and warm ambery oriental. The only perfume I've tried by the house of Molinard, makes me curious to try others.

Vintage Habanita by Molinard:

O.M.G!! This to me is just pure sex appeal in such a beautiful glossy black bottle with the golden top!! Actually it was my Great Aunt who used to wear Habanita as her signature fragrance,& it was her who then bought me a bottle from Paris which I still have in my vast perfume collection!! My Aunt Grace used to say "Habanita Is The Perfume Of Movie Star's" & By heck she was right as apparently Mae West wore nothing else only vintage Habanita & Carry Grant also!! This Perfume was said to be created for those high class ladies/gents who used to enjoy smoking & it's supposed to blend perfectly with the smell of cigarettes or cigars & actually enhance rather than try & mask out the aroma!! Not Being a smoker myself I can't put that statement to the ultimate test!! But indeed Vintage Habanita does have a beautiful smokey quality to it that I just absolutely adore!! & it most certainly draws a lot of attention & compliments when I Wear her out!! It's most deffo a very up-market quality perfume that very much enjoy's being itself & not anyone else!! Meaning nothing else smells exactly like it!!

Yes a person can indeed wear a Chanel perfume,but when a person wear's Molinard Habanita to me anyway Habanita is far more unique/timeless & Pure Frence chic than any Chanel perfume will ever be!! Molinard deffo nailed it when they invented Habanita & Deffo Habanita is up there with the "BEST FRENCH PERFUME HOUSE" which is deffo Guerlain!! I'm actually wearing my Vintage Habanita as I type out this review & I can honestly tell you that the wafts I keep getting of myself is just absolutely outstanding!! It's dark,mysterious,smokey,balsamic,aromatic,
mossy,beautiful & real sexy all in one very unique perfume!! & just like my Great Aunt Grace it smells absolutely Devine on me too!! They sure don't make perfume like this anymore & Molinard sure is a great French perfume House Indeed!! I have yet to try out the new edp Habanita but I do have the White L'Espirit & La Cologne which I deffo equally love!! Aunt Grace you sure where one very classy lady indeed!! & thankyou for my first ever bottle that I still have & will treasure forever!! & they say perfume is a memory?? Indeed there right!!

I have been wanting to try Habanita for a while and finally got my sample today :-) First impressions - powder and leather. I can totally see a similarity to Toujours Moi, but sort of peppery and a lot smoky. Definitely for evening, or feeling a little daring on a night out. I like it, but will have to wait for the weather to cool off a bit, seems more of a winter fragrance on me.

Deep, rich throw back scent with leather and powder. Sweet Cuban cigar club vibe. I like it but I think I'm happy with my vintage samples. Looking forward to checking out the EDP.

Didn't "get" Habanita til now. Now I do. 1960s. Diana Dors stuffed into satin. Cigarette in hand, ground out cig stub stuck to the sole of her high heeled shoe. Champagne dahhhling? It's heavy, it's sultry, it's dated, it's divine. The dry down is pure heaven, fags thru vanilla and vetiver thru hairspray. I think I'll get me a FB.

So happy to have found and bought that beauty on the web. I enjoy Habanita in every possible version. A musthave.

I'm a fan of Toujours Moi and Shalimar so I ordered some Habanita samples. At first dab, I found Habanita a bit rubbery and smoky but after the first half hour it became more darkly powdery and spices/ musk. It's also got a vanilla almost cinnamon thing going on. I like it as it wears on but all in all I still prefer Toujours Moi. This is a mysterious vampy badass girl( not me) maybe id like to be sometimes! But I I can see how women wear this to feel sexy it would go great with leather, cigarettes and rum and coke. A clubbing fragrance. If you like flapper type scents of recommend this. Oddly i think this one is better in warmer weather.

Finally received a vintage bottle from a lovely swap and OH MY yes! I love this stuff. It’s a very unsophisticated comparison, but to me, this smells like baby powder and rubber tires. It doesn’t have that heavy acetone at first spray that I get from Toujours Moi it is much easier to wear and not as fussy and old fashioned. There is maybe a slight resemblance (the powder) but honestly this is far superior. Wonderful silage. I’m so glad to have this timeless beauty in my wardrobe.

OMG, goes on tobacco and powdery and a little sharp then leather then dries down to civet central; oh heaven

Wearing a sample of the current EDP received today; so similar to the drydown of vintage Bal a Versailles. The tobacco, smoke, leather, without the dusty spicy flowers of BaV. Very pleased to have discovered it because if I ever use up my stash of vintage BaV I can turn to Habanita. Waiting for small bottle of vintage pre-reformulation Habanita to compare the two.

CunningStunt that's one of the best reviews I've read on here! What a story and what a life! The perfect description of the woman who can pull off this amazing fragrance.

In my opinion, Habanita has much more personality than Chanel No. 5 and I'll take personality over fancy any day.

Picture it: 1930's rural Appalachia

My great grandmother (1915-2006) wore Habanita as her signature since the time she was a young woman. She was a poor country girl who rarely wore anything besides her ragged aprons and ankle length scrap cloth dresses back in those days, yet one day she decided to treat herself as a reward for her hard work as the wife of a coal miner and mother of 7 children, and boy did she ever have a treat! She stole that first bottle of Habanita from a privileged woman who tried to take her husband- although they weren't legally married until sometime in the 1960's!
It smelled amazing on her, especially when she chewed tobacco. She also loved moonshine straight from the jar. She was a real woman, barely stood 5ft tall and prided herself on being a rough and tumble type, but when she curled her long jet black hair (much like my own) with sock rolls, burnt a match to make her some eyebrows, rouged her cheeks and lips with some crabapple or blackberry juice, and put on a dab of that Habanita, she transformed from everyday woman to femme fatale.
Hardened by poverty and the oppressive social norms of the early 20th century, she taught me that you can't make anyone happy but yourself, and piss on anyone who doesn't like it. I can still see those glittering deep brown eyes as she stared off into the distance whilst I told her my troubles, and she would always say, "It'll be alright, honeybee." I miss her..

To me, that's what Habanita is about: unapologetically enjoying and celebrating your womanhood, regardless of what kind of woman you are. In the times when men were excused for infidelity because "men are men" my great granny found the strength within herself to say, "Hell no! Get your sorry behind back home!"

She also liked Chanel no.5 but didn't think herself fancy enough for that. She always called it "channel five" haha! What a character.

And... I also bought a 1 oz parfum.

Darker and thicker, but not more potent than the EDP... this parfum is oilier, has more of a rubber essence. I decanted the parfum into a lil atomizer and that worked great. Wonderful lasting power.

Since the EDP of Habanita is my new obsession, of course I had to grab this vintage EDT.

And it kills me to say.... but I'm disappointed. I don't find it super potent and it doesn't smell like the EDP- in fact I find it way too similar to my other love- Shalimar. It's a more polite Shalimar. Which means, I do love it, but it's just not what I expected.

Now, call me crazy.... but I thought I read that shaking perfumes was bad? It disturbs the "molecules" or something like that? So it's best not to judge a scent that JUST came in the mail (shaking in shipping) but rather let the perfume sit? I found that with the EDP this happened. At first I didn't think the EDP was potent at all, but now I do! The EDP lasted on my pillow for DAYS... maybe a week! So I'm sure this EDT is just fine. :)

The EDT (right now) lacks the creamy, sweet, waxy powder-vanilla that flows thru the EDP. This EDT is very leathery, dusty-musky-smoky, and incensy. Just like Shalimar... haha, but def toned down, smooooother Shalimar.

Now, the EDT had a reformulation at some point right? Like estimated the 80s/90s? Maybe that is the problem? My bottle came from ebay, sealed in box. But maybe it's just not the potent powerhouse other people describe?

Later in the day update: Def has soft, but great lasting power. I'm getting heavenly wafts of myself all day. And it's a lighter version of the beautiful EDP-- soft smoky/incense delicious vanilla powder. This is what bliss is. <3 I put on at 7am- about 3 sprays, and then at 8am, 3 more. It's 2:30pm now. The sillage is all Habanita, so it's not similar to Shalimar now. <3

After this EDT has been "sitting" on my shelf, it's much better. BUT, I do still think it's like a less sweet-vanilla-powder EDP. So, because the EDP is so available and cheap online, I don't think the EDT is exactly worth it.

My review is about vintage EDT (shown on the pic above):
80% Similarity to very old vintage guerlain l'heure bleue. Unless I got a decant of l'heure bleue instead of Habanita. LOL
Oriental, powerhouse, not for the office use. Any perfumista should sniff it. It reminds me Tabu and Toujours Moi Dana, but much much better. Going to buy a modern version out of curiosity.

Habanita is utterly heavenly. Divine. Stunning. A masterpiece!!!! It's beautiful. So beautiful. A gorgeous warm, fruity, powdery, soft, enticing - feminine and gloriously sensual, deep enriching luxurious feminine perfume. Such a heavenly rose, sweet and lovely dense jasmine, orange blossom and lilac, heavenly heliotrope, soft smooth leather, musk - fluffy and comforting, deep and intoxicating. Gorgeous rich vanilla and benzoin, creamy, smooth and delicious. Deep dark oakmoss. All ravishingly beautiful. Dark and Exquisite!!!! Such a wonderful perfume. Truly truly wonderful. I adore Habanita!!! And the bottle is also divine.

I have both vintage and new formulas, the vintage in edt , but new formula in Parfam. The vintage one is totally causing me migraine, the new Parfam is much softer and pleasant to me, relaxing and a lot vanilla in the first top note. The old one is less vanilla and more leather/oakmoss. What surprised me the most is the disappearing of topacco accord from the new one,or at least it is much less obvious from first sniffs, unlike the old, that one is leather/tobacco/oakmoss/vanilla all the way. This is how I smell it. Bottom note: the new formula is more wearable, especially if you wear perfume abundantly like me. But if you wear perfume on PULS POINTS or the classic way, then go with the vintage juice. And to be honest, the old Habanita is a must for any Parfumista or any Collector.

Habanita is an easy to wear Oriental.

It's a popular fragrance but I think this is the reformulation not the vintage original. It's still such a good fragrance. I smelled fruits at the first spritz: a synthetic but decent peach, some citrus and raspberry. It's sweet very sweet and quickly turns powdery with heliotrope, rose and violet. The flowers are not my favorite part of the scent however although in the new formula they have more time to shine.

There's also vanilla that is more on the powdery side. The soft florals are not the main attraction as the scent develops into a warmer muscatone. There's a great deal of leather in this scent that can border on the masculine but it's not a bad thing. It reminds me of a lighter Bandit by Piguet.. I am loving every moment that this perfume is on me. It's incredibly long lasting. As a paid entertainer and lounge singer I rely on fragrances like this. They PUT ME IN THE MOOD to sing like an old time lounge singer, a cabaret singer, this is very much that type of scent. Think Marlene Dietrich. If I'm in the mood it comes through my voice and I put the audience in the mood and that's all that counts.

This perfume makes me feel so damn sexy. I feel like I'm wearing a long black evening gown with a slit on the side showing my leg. It's so GILDA with Rita Hayworth singing and dancing and turning on all the men in a nightclub. She is saucy, but sweet, a tigress in need of taming. She has sweet notes of raspberry and roses, but has that civet bite and a bad girl in leather temperament. Somewhere in this scent there may be incense.

I love the vintage but this perfume is a lighter and more feminine version of the original one which was smoky and tobacco flavored and smelled like a tobacco shop in Cuba. This is more on the powdery side but it has enough musk to keep it in the mature and glamorous side of the original.

Gorgeous.

Get the vintage EDT.

I have the vintage parfum from the 80s. Its deep , quality is there but it is so overwhelmingly powdery its other notes have issues getting out of the powder bomb. Now if you love powder, richness, then this is up your alley. I wanted to smell all the lovely reviews here, and looks like the EDT is the way to go.

I had my sample as a gift from a perfume shop in London, where I bought many others. I was incredulous, I smell more than 200 perfumes a year and never have I been so disappointed, considered the hype on this fragrance. After wearing it for three days in a row I have no doubts, this is not smoky, I love hardcore smoky scents, this is just the stink of thrown away cigarettes' butts and nothing else. It's not my chemistry because I smell the same thing directly from the atomizer...No comment!Not even good as an air freshner for the bathroom.

I cannot do a better job of describing it than Beantoes already did: it indeed "smells like roses wrapped in leather and sprinkled with powder and then dipped in a vanillic booze". It is the perfect description. Gorgeous. That said, I actually prefer the modern version of this. Allegedly the ingredients are the same but the proportions are different - I can believe that. That said, it is a pleasure to smell the older formulation.

I pulled this out just to renew our acquaintance and am feeling the love today. To my nose this is a powder bomb: mostly leather, vanilla-amber, oris root, the occasional rose wafting through with a spicy! benzoin kick! The flowers are well blended with heliotrope and ylang-ylang, but no note, except perhaps the rose peeks through, and it's their beautiful marriage that makes for the powder. I have a supply direct from Molinard from 1999, and I have the EDP from about 5 years ago purchased also from Molinard. There are some differences. But overall, the soul and essence are there (perhaps it is more powdery, less spicy now).

To the untrained and "young" nose this will perhaps smell of "old"--all I can say is "Fie on you powder haters." I was wearing this at 25, 30 and now--and it's considerably "older" than I am. It's a classic scent. I personally love powder and enjoy the tremendous complexity of this scent; it is both utterly feminine yet fantastic for a man: sexy, spicy-powder, amber-vanilla-benzoin goodness with silage and longevity that rivals all the fruity-licious-berry-bombs out there (so tiring). Doesn't anyone want to smell the scent of adventure, of travel, of history, of the exotic and erotic and individual?

This is beautiful. Just absolutely stunning. It smells like roses wrapped in leather and sprinkled with powder and then dipped in a vanillic booze. I sprayed it on and my eyes immediately rolled back and closed for a few seconds out of some strange automatic reaction. It's losing some of the floral nuances as it dries but it's still heavenly. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed something with so much powder in it. I wish this sample could somehow become bottomless so that I could go back and spray with abandon until I'm choking on a thick cloud of it. Stunning fragrance. Need to hunt down a bottle of this promptly.

A MASTERPIECE!!! It was about time this formidable lady and I met. And we got on like a house on fire. LITERALLY! She sat there, all ruby lips, intense enigmatic stare and raven wavy black hair and she smoked, and smoked, and smoked. But I didn't mind, its part of her personality. I read she was created in 1921, just as Europe came out of a devastating Great War and all the political and economical circumstances of it. Women held the home front while men were in battle, they even joined them to make their own contribution, they became aware of all the possibilities ahead, they would soon claim the vote, they could choose their profession and direction in life. Habanita was created for the modern woman of every and any age. She is a lady of few words but imense action! There are so many things going on for her, resins, smoke, fruit, leather, florals... Now, the hard facts: benzoin, which can be tricky, comes first and foremost, but in this case instead of a load of gasoline one gets a Smoky, fiery resin wrapped in leather and vanilla to begin with, smoke and leather are very prominent at this stage, then a sweetness kicks in, one would think it's the fruit, but, no, this is a resinous sweetness, with touches of raspberry and peach, but make no mistake, this is pure resin! However bergamot and oakmoss lend a touch of beautiful freshness without any harsh effect, the entire blend is masterly combined!!!
The leather and smoke carry on till the end. A very well composed scent with all notes working to perfection! Longevity is beyond belief so is sillage! Just relax and let this Lady caress your body, your soul and senses. Very sensuous yet unisex due to smoke! This is amazing on a woman, and on a man....lethal! Habanita, you are my new found love!

Scarlett O'hara in her red dress when Rhett Butler forces her to wear it and attend Ashely's party... This is what she would have worn.

Mine by the way, is exactly as the photo shows. The EDT version. I am not sure I can call mine vintage as it reads full ingredients on back:

My hands were literally shaking as I opened to box to get it out. How have I never smelled this in all my years? This iconic fragrance! As I opened it, that box and bottle...gorgeous. So I sprayed it and initially I get a very sweet powdery note. For an EDT this is insanely potent. I can only imagine what the vintage extract was like God how I would love to smell it. So initially it felt like an amplified Johnson's Baby powder with a huge niche quality to it. Sort of dirty.. bad girl disguised in powder. You can't help but continue to smell your wrist. Then the second time I sprayed it (before my shower) I was able to use a heavy hand.. my second impression changed. Yes baby powder but bad ass powder with some skank mixed in. And I don't say this in a negative way. It has strong similarities to Jivago's sweet dreams. There is a vintage feel here but it's still very wearable in today's standards - this feels very niche in nature. I am not smelling any tobacco really as I had read about, nor am I smelling floral or wood. Second time around I do get soft leather.

I am on the fence with this one really. Straight out of the bottle it's intense almost unwearable for me however after I rinse some of it off and it settles this amazing sex in a bottle comes throughI

This fragrance in it's vintage form is one hell of a tobacco incensed floral fragrance. It evokes the cigarette factory scene in Bizet's opera Carmen and I can picture Carmen herself smelling like this. It's smoky, sexy, seductive and very Spanish. This is more or less like the fragrance Maja if youre familiar with that one. It's spicy with a Latin flavor. I have the old vintage bottle (a cologne) and the new formula which is a spray bottle. I love the design of the bottle. I don't know if the list of notes on Fragrantica are speaking on behalf of the new formula or the old formula because they're very different. The old one had aldehydes and citrus/lemon/bergamot which smelled like the opening to a man's cologne. Very citric. But then it softens for a while into a rose-lilac floral scent. But this is not a floral frag at all and its woodsy aspects, it's oak moss, muskiness, leather and animalic notes are what linger for the longest time. There is also incense and benzoin, smoky accords. It's aromatic and hot. I feel very sexy wearing it. The new formula is not as intense and it's more wearable because the leather and musk is subdued, however it's still clearly there and it pays tribute to the original. This is a gorgeous classic fragrance that vintage perfume lovers should get their hands on. I have nothing but love for Habanita. Ole!

I tried vintage habanita, and all I get is wow on the tobacco; bitter, no flowers, powdery aldehyde. I really love it but am not smelling leather or floral. It is BIG tobacco on me.

My first fragrance. I fell in love with Habanita when i was fourteen years old, and then, totally fall for perfume universe.
I still wear it today, actually i return to my first love about six years ago, and it still like love at first sight.

I love this floral oriental and very powdery fragrance, and especially its tobacco tones blended to vanilla. It is probably the most sensual fragrance i 've ever smelled.
The actual reformulation, the Eau de Parfum, is a good interpretation, very faithful to the original one.

Very very longlasting on skin, with a great trail: i am totally addict to Habanita.

This scent smells like the smoking car of a train, with burning incense, dying red roses, and a few leather shoes strewn around.

Way too smoky, dark and heavy for me. I do not want to smell like an old lady with a 4-pack a day habit.

Mmmmm sweet leather, heavy yet soft, strong yet gentle.
Gloriously exotic smelling, expensive, makes you feel like a woman.

Habanita will change depending on where you place her. For me, if I place her on my wrist or anywhere near my face, its POWDER/BENZOIN.
If she's sprayed on my ankles or back of my knees, then I can smell a dry yet sweet peach/raspberry at the beginning. Then lilac, orris root, heliotrope. And it will dry into an ambery peach vanilla.
I've always wanted to smell more of the leather since I love leather in fragrance but I never ever get leather from this one...
If one isnt used to smelling powder in fragrances or if its too close to your face, powder/babywipes is all you will get.

magnifico cipriato d'altri tempi (la formulazione originale risale al 1921) che richiama le vibrazioni di altri classici francesi, come Mitsouko, Toujours moi o Shalimar. Le note di muschio di quercia sostengono dal fondo una moltitudine di impressioni che si susseguono, senza sosta, tra il primo spruzzo e l'assestamento. La sua complessità si dipana su note di cuoio, vaniglia, benzoino, rosa, garofano, ylang ylang, agrumi, legno di cedro, ambra, per citarne solo alcune, in un tripudio di esperienze olfattive istantanee e meravigliosamente equilibrate. Quando i profumi erano sovrastrutturati la gioia del naso non conosceva confini. Molti lo considerano datato: per me Habanita ha il valore di un documento del gusto della prima metà del novecento. Super evocativo. Bellissimo!

This is a beauty from another time... At first I smell strong fresh flowers, then it turns into leather (and reminds me of Ciara By Revlon) and at last it becomes baby powder mixed with delicate citruses. Really one of a kind, and not for timid perfume wearers.
This review is based on a vintage pure parfum.

Has so many twists and turns...

Opens with overpowering baby lotion. Did not get any other opening notes - just Johnson and Johnson's baby lotion, the kind that comes in the pink bottle.

Then the leather, dusty and dry like a vintage purse. The rich rose note starts to creep in. This is my favorite part: an unexpected level of sophistication that brings a welcome sensuality, playing with the muskiness.

The musk morphs into amber. And then, surprise! A sweet, almost candy-like vanilla flanked by a whisper of jasmine. A faint note of bitter oakmoss rounds out this complex scent.

Ends on delicious cedar.

Habanita is a wonderful fragrance that covers a lot of territory. Unfortunately, that's the problem I have with it - it's all over the map! It's a storyteller all right, just not one I'm interested in following.

Vintage: This is an exciting leather perfume that takes you through multiple stages before finally settling into a confident, warm coziness. First spray was almost a chypre leather, the smell of a green, woody, newly cut piece of leather. Within minutes the scent of amber begins to arise followed close behind by a cloud of Johnson's baby powder that's like dropping a huge, open bottle on the floor. A while later their is the aroma of heliotrope, vanilla, benzoin, oakmoss and cedar. And half an hour later I smell burnt rubber tire. Finally, orris root emerges and beings an earthiness to the leather giving the feel of a comfy, worn leather sofa, while the sweetness of a powdery vanilla flows through the air around you.

In the end, Habanita has grown on me but it does take a while to get there. I'm not sure that I'd wear it often but it's an interesting perfume and definitely not boring.

Although it´s not geographically accurate, the scent is like the voice of Yma Sumac. Badass 5 octaves, mystique and depth, full of sweet untamed strenght.
Black beautiful flacon only.

An moody fragrance that seems to wear better in much colder/rainy weather. After the scary first blast in does change into something luxurious and lovely.
I think i have half a bottle? It's hard to tell since the bottle is opaque.

This is an odd one. At first, I adored it-- it smelled like a whisper, like opening the gate to an old garden. There were few bold powder notes to speak of, instead blending into a wonderful, fresh breath that was never overwhelming.

Something seems to have changed with how I interpret it. From the same bottle, I now get powder galore; it's very intense! I assume the weather has a heavy hand in how this EDT blooms.

Even with the powder trying to blow you away, the feminine leather notes shine. It's a good idea to treat Habanita with a light touch in cool times and an even lighter one in the heat, but if you can find the balance, it's hard not to love!

After researching reviews here on Fragrantica and other perfume websites, I decided to revisit incense-based & smoky perfumes. Recently re-tried Habanita by Molinard and OMG...I really really like Habanita, I do!!

As others have stated, the initial opening and application is a bit rough, so rough that it actually made me sneeze! I think the opening accord is quite bitter, very green (perhaps citrus) with bergamot, peach, other fruits...almost foul or rancid smelling! Initially, I moaned, "Oh, no...another scrubber," but based on reviews, I waited and the dry down provided a huge surprise.

On my skin, Habanita morphed into a warm, powdery, mellow, soothing sensuous oriental with LOTS of vanilla, amber, some patchouli, and a bit of warm honey. After an hour or so, I definitely detected a wonderful floral bouquet of jasmine, lavender, rose, ylang-ylang and resinous wood...but NOT a lot of tobacco or smoke...not much leather, for that matter.. Unlike many orientals, the floral bouquet did not completely over power the middle and earlier notes, not at all. For me, all of the middle & base-notes came together and formed a beautifully seductive and pleasing scent.

This fragrance remains close to my body with very minimal silage. And similar to two of my favorite fragrances, Habanita's longevity is wonderful... lasted for hours! I can still faintly smell its delight as I type this review some seven hours later.

The ONLY problem is that my beloved husband, who LOVES Creed Jasmine Imeriatrice Eugenie and ADORES Musc Ravageur continually verbalized his distaste all afternoon long for "whatever it was I was wearing." Told my sister, "I smelled like I had slept in a head shop." He also told me "I reminded him of his old aunt with smudged red lipstick who used to reek of old perfume."

NOT a good visual. Tears of sadness falling from my eyes. Perhaps Habanita will "grow" on him with time.

I believe most people don't understand this perfume because it was created to evoke a place and time that no longer exists. When I first tested it, I felt like it was taking me back to the time it was created.

I know my history, and what scents people loved, and why, in eras long gone. Production of perfumes have changed in our time, and so have tastes, but back in the early 1920's and over the turn-of-the-19th-century, the orientalist art movement helped influence major imports of Asian and Middle Eastern culture, including exotic fruits and incense, deepening base notes for their lasting, mysterious power making women's perfume sink into clothing long after it's been washed off from skin. The labor of washing clothing took a lot more work, and your most delicate underclothes, ones you couldn't just scrub over your laundry board, you'd just air dry with a few sprays of your loudest perfume! Hence the saying of things smelling like a French whore house because often times working girls were the only ones who could afford those expensive oriental perfumes, so strong they masked any body odor, or blended with it to create an altogether different scent!

The heart notes where floral, a bright mixture that often was a crushed mixture of the best, loudest scents from spring and summer to have all year long. Your top notes were ones that were slightly fruity, a gentle opening on the nose before the musk and woods invite you into the "room" or experience of the fragrance. The perfume itself was an experience, like savoring a glass of wine -- you smell it at intervals to let it open each note to you -- and Molinard's Habanita is like a elegant 1920's lady giving you a tour into her mansion... first she leads you through the garden, then into the hallway, then finally into her salon where trails of incense burn, you can smell the old, aged leather of her furniture, and the slight stale smell of aged pipe tobacco smoke from a distance where her husband, no doubt, has decided to hide away from the limelight while she entertains her guests of the evening.

If you've ever been invited to a very old, historic house where all the furniture is just as old as the house, and even though everything has been restored, it has that sense of place accompanied with the sweet stench of decay (cracked leather that's almost like rubber hide, plus powered wood with a bit of green mold). Marry that to the scent of cut flowers that aren't so fresh from the outside garden -- we're talking flowers the favorite flowers every grandmother's grandmother's grandmother has planted for generations and more: lilacs, roses, heliotrope, honeysuckles, hyacinth, orange blossoms, apple blossoms, everything-blossoms -- all flowers no longer living, cut in vases that haven't yet been refreshed, so you still smell the hint of that humid hit of dying boutique, like being at a funeral.

But then at this house you're served something sweet, tarts or pie like peach cobbler, strawberry rubarb, or your glass is filled with sweet summer raspberry wine/cordial, and you get the complexity of how this scent works.

This perfume is a place! It's there for the elite few who like the luxury of this atmosphere that once was the playhouse for the rich and famous from a bygone era. Next time you take a sniff of Habanita, don't just "wear" it, spray it and let it dry on your skin, wait a few seconds for the scent to dry, don't rub it in, close your eyes and then slowly smell, letting each note open new doors for you.

You might experience something different each time. For me, it was time travel.

I don't understand this perfume. It's my second review and i'm wearing it today and i don't understand its appeal. It's just so bathroom air freshner to my nose. Maybe the leathery floral plus powder is giving this effect. I want to appreciate its beauty...rily i do.

At first I did not understand anything, I was invaded by vanilla and leather, rubber style bvlgari black ..... then stabilized and distinctly benzoin and vanilla have softened by removing that horrible feeling of rubber. is a little smoky and animalic.grandi performance .... smells of brothels were the years that I guess ....
but I do not like it because in the end it smells like talcum of my grandmother. remains stale with that sweetness of old widows in black dress .. how old talc. 6/10

Absolutely amazing. I love the thick, heavy, vintage feel of this. The initial spray had me a bit worried that I would smell like new tires all day but within 30 minutes the tire smell was gone and left a warm, powdery, slightly sweet, vanilla haze. This is just a beautiful strong fragrance. So dark and heavy. Not for the faint of heart. I would not blind buy this. Get a sample and let it sit on you before judging it. It is worth the wait.

I can't say much about this that hasn't already been said below--it's a powder bomb, sweet but dry, wonderfully inedible, dark, lovely, and strange. Word to the wise though: ease up on the sprayer and start out smaller than you think. The one time I oversprayed I was overwhelmed by the animalic base which at this concentration bordered on quite disgusting; thank god it didn't turn me off this beauty forever. One shot to the chest and one to the wrist gives wafts all day.

Wow. Habanita has the leathery tobacco of Tabac Blond, the powdery sex appeal of Nuit de Noel, and a metallic green note reminiscent of Bandit--of which, truthfully, I wish there were a tad less. It eventually fades, while the parfum as a whole lasts and lasts. Hands down, Habanita has the best longevity of any scent I've ever worn.

This review is based on a tiny decant. Starts off peachy aldehydes with some florals then dries down to vintage BaV (EdC). Projection and longevity are good on my skin. I'm in love!

I almost lost a very nice fragrance for being too impatient. The beginning of this scent isn't very pleasing to my nose. It MAY be the lime. I'm still new to this and am trying to learn how to tell what's what. Anyway, I started to wash it off and was interrupted to do something that took about a half an hour. I smelled my wrist again. VOILA! A totally different smell. Something that was very nice and Oriental. AAAAAHHHHHHH........so thankful for that interruption!

Ok, after reading everyones glowing reviews, (some not so much!), I had to find myself a bottle of this stuff. I found it at this great perfumery I know which has old bottles of perfume that no one in my neighborhood even has a clue of! No hipsters out here or there would be no more cool niche out here, me thinks! So I was so amazed to find it, my heart all a flutter like the perfume fiend I am, the box, gorgeous, the bottle, vintage vintage glorious vintage, and at spray......interesting....sweet for sure but what am I getting here?

Strong so I am happy right away, I get no bug spray as some mentioned, I get tobacco and its not even a note here? It reminds me a little of Chergui by Serge Lutens. Whats even more glorious than it having a high end niche quality as well as long lasting is that it comes from another time and space and you can smell that. Its like having a little piece of history you can wear. If you like anything vintage and like not so much standing out but like being different from the crowd, this is for you. It is a beautiful creation and am so glad and proud to have it in my collection. As long as I can, I will have this among my favorite loves ;)

A dark, sexy beauty... (review for the vintage extrait).

There are a few fragrances in the world, that provoke such a strong response that you go "wow" when you first smell them. For me, Habanita does this straight away.

I find this a fascinating and utterly deep and intoxicating fragrance. It always evokes emotions in me when I try it. The story goes that the formula was discovered by a chemist working at Molinard in Grasse around 1921, and they released it as a fragrance to perfume women's cigarette papers. Three years later, it was released as a women's perfume in it's own right.

What this is, is a dark, earthy, smoky, deep vanilla fragrance. It's like if Shalimar were a heavy smoker almost! The interesting thing is though, is that there is no Tobacco in this at all! Many people get the smell of old dusty perfume and leather mixed with tobacco. But the real effect of tobacco here is a dark, smoky vetiver, a very dry grassy root which smells of earth and dust. This is mixed with a strong leather note, and with resins, orris root, heliotrope and vanilla. There is also a very faint hint of rose, jasmine and even a dried raspberry note.

The immediate impression I get of this is the 1920's jazz clubs. This is almost the smell of the air in those places. Women's perfume (not like today, this is the opulent, dark amber, rose & vanilla type), mixed with the smell of tobacco in the air and makeup etc. It's so evocative for me. Very deep, very dark, very noir. You can imagine slim young 1920's women with short, dark hair and ruby-red lipstick seducing rich men at the bar, the jazz music reaching a high tempo in the background, cocktails and golden lights, the trail of smoke from women with cigarette holders dancing in the limelight. This is such a "bad girl" type fragrance! In my mind I imagine a very elegantly dressed young woman, red lipstick, black dress, perfect hair, talking to a smartly dressed man at a bar... whispering into his ear, slowly seducing him, and him being totally under her spell with every look from her eyes, and every word she says.

To me this has such a very deep, dark, sensual aura about it. It's sweet but it's earthy and slightly dirty. It's from the era where women smoked and drank as a sign of rebellion. But it's still feminine, just in a dark, bold, powerful and confident way.

I have not tried newer formulations, just this vintage extrait. But what a beauty this is! I have never found another fragrance that stirs up so much emotion for me. The closest thing I would compare this to is Tabac Blond by Caron, also an Ambery, Powdery Tobacco-like fragrance, and with hints of something like Shalimar, but more mysterious. This is such an intriguing one, it's like a dancer that is always tempting you, she's so intriguing that you want to come closer, but you can't, she's almost forbidden. There's nothing you can do but sit and watch her do her dance, mesmerised... until the end.

I sometimes struggle to put into words such an intriguing experience. I would encourage anyone to seek this beauty out. Again it is a fragrance which sets a certain mood... and one which commands a certain behaviour from you. Me, I wear it only when dressed in black, and in top style. Leather, Amber, Vanilla, dry, smoky Tobacco-like Vetiver, if this were released today it would be considered a high-end niche fragrance (like Killian's Back to Black). This was so ground-breaking to me that when I smelt it I was instantly transported to another time and place... it's really just something else! I sincerely hope they never discontinue this one, and I want other people to experience this. Like a piece of history in a bottle... and totally wearable even today. Old, and also so powerful it's almost modern. A perfume which is to me so utterly mysterious and complex. Mesmerising!

I have a 25ml edt spray bottle, it looks from the 80's version as I tell from the look of the bottle(not sure). Literally smells like Parfum, not edt !!! AMMAZING, one spray on my arm and the room filled with vanilla storm, OMG, my nose punched. I also tested a tester from the latest formula, and it is not the same, I prefer the older one. By the way I'm happy the bottle was well kept and smells fresh and nice. I think 3 sprays on the neck in different places are enough for a full night out.

I know this fragrance is well loved by many, but I don't get the complexities and wonderful notes of peach and orange blossom, oak moss amber or musk. I get baby powder. On my skin this is straight up baby powder. It doesn't smell bad at all, it's lovely. But not complex enough on my skin to warrant a full bottle or even another decant.

Hi everyone,
I'm dying to get a bottle of the edt of Habanita. Anyone willing to find their unwanted bottle a new home?

Habanita is old world powdery galore smoothed with vanilla honey and tobacco, that sometimes turns sour and weird.
When its love, its powdery vanilla, smoky tobacco, leather and honeyed benzoin.
And then sometimes it's a bug spray top note:) seriously the opening of habanita edt is sometimes verging on bug spray/ sour mossy note. it ruined for many of my friends who tried my habanita, only to be shocked that it smelled so warm and inviting half an hour later!
so u too dont be off-put by the first few minutes, habanita gets better. And when its' in a good mood, it can be glorious.

scent: 7/10
longevity: 7/10
sillage; 6/10

I don't quite noe what to make of it. Its so heady and strong. This is going in the region of glorified air freshner. Or maybe i'm not used to leather in my perfumes.

Simply gas smell .Nothing else to say...

I would love to try Habanita EDT before purchase it. The discription sounds terribly interesting. Who can help me? I live in Europe.
Please send me a private message.

Edit:
Grazie Italian Fragrantico, for your more than kind gesture!!!

I predicted I would love this fragrance by the notes, and I was right!

This fragrance is certainly "old-timey", almost medieval, but it's just feminine enough to be lady-like, while retaining its badass qualities! That being said, it's still a unique, kinda freaky little fragrance.

The initial blast is "WOW, WHAT IS THAT - IS THAT BARBEQUE SAUCE? BURNING RUBBER? FORMALDEHYDE? FRESH TAR?" and I can imagine it freaking some people out.

Five to ten minutes later, that disappears, and you're left with a long lasting, softer, leathery, powdery vanilla. It's comforting to wear, and something I'm going to have it on constantly this winter!

After testing this theory on a few (somewhat unwilling, one being my other half) subjects... this fragrance definitely reacts differently with different skin chemistry. My skin pulls more of the powdery bits out of the fragrance, where on my boyfriend it's pure burnt rubber. Try before you buy!

Habanita reminds me, in the best possible way, of an old perfume found in grandma's trunk, along with the love letters from the man she didn't marry. Poor grandpa ...

It's leathery, vaguely tobacco-y, sultry, deeply and dryly sweet. A scent that has secrets.

Gently dark, warm, rich, perhaps for taking a wee nap under a sable wrap in the back of one's Daimler.

Such a shame i was avoiding Habanita for so long. I was afraid it'd be another oldfashion scent. Well, it's not.
Vanilla leather masterpiece that's how i see it. Very powdery and sweet. Wonderful quality where 1 spray too much can cause nausea instead of miracle.

THIS is a translation of Alicja's review: A wonderful aroma, full of warmth and madness. Strong. I love it. This is my story :)

Such a beautiful fruity and leathery fragrance!

Usually I dont really care for sweet and fruity scents, I think scented candles are to blame, but this I feel is very sensual and feminine. And of course, last for hours and hours, just becoming more and more soft and snuggly on skin.

I might get a little bit of powder, but the overall feel I get it smoth leather, warm and cozy vanilla powder and fruit. Sadly I can't identify if there is any tobacco or flowers in there. But let's blame that on my lack of experience and knowlegde in the matter.

It is extremly sweet and soft on me, fit for summer nights or colder weather.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!

Pretty amazing, but really masculin and shockingly strong perfume. Great classic!

Cudowny zapach, pełen ciepła i szaleństwa. Mocny. Uwielbiam go. To moja bajka:)

To tell the truth, when I first sprayed on the EDT I purchased on Ebay I felt assaulted. I was choked by a cloud of hairspray alcohol. I thought " Oh, my God, what have they sent me". I have been meaning to try Habanita for a while now. An oriental with fruity flourishes and leather. That has to be some kind of wonderful. Had I made a horrible mistake, or was it a bad bottle? Luckily, the bug spray dissipated in a few moments and it got better. Actually, the drydown is much better. I do like my little bottle of EDT, but I am thinking I might try the EDP as well.

My sample arrived yesterday afternoon and I'd ordered a bottle before breakfast this morning. I think I'm going to need the whole bottle to sort this one out. Yesterday I started with a small dab on the arm and was immediately hit in the face with a powder puff. It took me on this journey from baby powder to ashtray while some delicate florals lurked in the background. Kind of a vintage Emeraude meets Bandit mix up. Then today I applied a more typical dose and I'm definitely getting the Shalimar comparisons. None of these fragrances are my kind of thing. But Habanita is more than the sum of the comparisons. It's a shape shifter and the florals are never really there but alway striking chords in the background. It's beautiful and mysterious with a sweet vanilla that somehow ties it all together.
A masterpiece and a must try!

A soft dry cloud of talcum powder and the leather/tobacco people are talking about. Surprisingly sweet, in an inedible talc way. Towards the end it gets less dense, almost fluffy but never warm, personal, and definately not sensual. Although I like Habanita for its weirdly dark take on talcum powder, I won't buy it for its dated feel and lifelessness.

The smell of European antiquity, made cool again. Here's the thing: as a guy who is an occasional wearer of Royal Copenhagen, it is abundantly clear to me that RC is based on Habanita. Ignore notes lists and any cross-comparisons you might want to make, and just compare the two by nose. RC has a sharp and enduring lavender note that Habanita clearly lacks, and Molinard's composition is more complex and a smoother blend. But they're both very dry, floral, spicy, powdery scents. And they both handle their style the same way. Just talking about Habanita now - think of all the sweet and rich flowers available, ylang, heliotrope, tuberose, rose, violet, etc. Taper the sweetness down to a murmur. Eliminate any dewey greenness entirely. Replace with raspy, bone-dry powdered petals. Throw a pinch of tobacco in there. A healthy dose of cold iris. Clove, and Mitsouko-style oakmoss, very terse and bitter. To clinch the beauty of it, put a little dribble of raspberry in the drydown, let it peek through about two hours into wear, and then recede again into the mist.

That's Habanita. Sultry, modern, a woman moving through time.

I adore this perfume. It is odd and wonderful. Like a night in a night club.

One of the most delicious oriental vanilla dry downs ever. Creamy, powdery, peachy but with a oriental punch. Incredibly unique, smells like no other. I think a lot of people miss out on this little piece of heaven because the opening is pretty potent and sometimes even has an ever so slight gasoline or chemical smell initially (depending on which version it is). I know, yikes...but for me just a little patience brings me to something wickedly delicious and addicting....a real all day long wrist sniffer. If you told me it was $500 a bottle I wouldn't blink. It is a spellbinding and very high quality fragrance.

The dry down is so sexy and the vanilla/almond from the heliotrope mixed with the other notes gives it an almost honey like smell...but without the sickly honey punch that makes some true honey type scents unwearable for me. This smells like the way I WANT honey notes to smell if that makes sense. Mix that with the dark peach, powder and oriental notes and you get something that will stop people in their tracks. I have actually heard "good God!!"

I don't really get much smoke or leather, it is very slight and just enough to keep Habanita from being too sweet or headache inducing. The floral aspects are downplayed to me, this is not a "floral" fragrance...for me, this is all about that incredible well blended Oriental, semi gourmand, sensual fruity vanilla dry down....which is heaven on earth.

Habanita isn't a perfume, it is an experience. A never ending evolution from start to finish. It isn't for the tame or mild or meek. But the dry down is so much tamer and more wearable than I expected. It is like bad girl meets powdery innocence. But Habanita does make me feel a bit like a bad gal for the day. Even if only in the daydreams in my mind. Habanita is probably my favorite fragrance of all time.

Habanita was originally created in the early 1920's to perfume cigarettes. Today it stands as one of the great oriental fragrances of all time. I love how the peachy top notes mingle seemlessly with the heavier notes of leather and vanilla. Strong and unique, Habanita is a welcome change from the light, fruity florals that seem par for course these days.

i remember the story behind this scent goes back in the early 1900s, when women sells cigarettes on a white board held on their hands with a white stripe around their necks, men back then (as they said) cares much about their ladies, so they go out and buy cigarettes from those women around the streets, and when they finish smoking they place their fingers in a small perfume pot on the white board that the cigarette ladies held to get rid of the cigarette smell. so imagine the smell of the perfume pot from hand to another hand, it brings up the smell of cigarette, skin, and perfume. so according to that people wanted that smell, so molinard brought it to life (as i guess that they were the ones who invented that perfume pot... im not sure though). personally i didn't like it much at the beginning, but then it turned quite ok.

be careful, i've sprayed it on my white shirt and it left a yellowish spot, so be careful.

My review is also about EDT edition pictured above. It's unique! I never had such perfumy experience before Habanita. She' s a hooligan with a long thin mouthpiece, shiny red lips and short dress, dancing in a dixie rythm, drinking expensive cogniac more than the gentlemen around, she is rebel, "don't give a damn" lady, mysterious and lonely... Habanita on my skin fits like a leather glove, after the first hard wave of sharp and alchoholic smell begins a sweet journey into the flavour of classy pipe tobaco, vanilla cake, burnt sugar, mellow cogniac, old-fashioned powder... Habanita tells stories, she is dark, deep, warm, I prefer to be with her in a very cold, windy weather, when i feel her lika a cozy black leather jacket. Following the experience of a lady posted review bellow, I perfumed my leather jacket and I can't stop enjoying it. In spite of accepted opinion, my intent is to wear Habanita daily and almost everywhere - ofcource, during the winter. In brief I'm spellbound by this hot Havana lady :)

Habanita is a phenomenon in stultifying the lot of pretentious super-duper niche fragrances which ask for an arm and a leg to grant you the favor of having them. She embarrasses the hell out of them! She is the mulatta step-sister of Molinard de Molinard. The black sheep and the disgrace of an otherwise noted noble French family. She is how I imagine Tia Dalma would smell, during her ventures along with The Pirates of the Caribbean... A nasty shrew that grabs your throat and utters YOUR last rites as you stand shivering in shock and awe! A scent that would stop The Kraken dead in its tracks! And she surely knows a trick or two. After all, she is around for about a century now... And rumours have it that she is still haunting the narrow, cobblestone alleys around Victor Hugo Boulevard in Grasse, where she was born, in order to find the chance to whisper to her siblings: "DO NOT be like me, for you shall always be alone..."

Smells the best 2-4 hours after applying, the aldehydic strong smell settles and out comes the vanilla! This part I like enough to suffer through the first hours.

What can I say.. It is really balsamic, it gives some sweet, warm and syrupy feeling. One of perfume who I do not planning to wear, but I really respect it. This perfume is very classic and I think that this can be very friendly with leather in colder season.

Historically, this was developed to perfume cigarettes. There's something so transporting to me about 1920s fragrances, and I am absolutely fascinated by what a cigarette perfumed with this would smell and taste like. I wouldn't dare spray the current formula on a cigarette!

Well, today I found what that would be like. Although perfumed cigarettes are no longer legal here in the US, cigars are under a different set of regulations. At a cigar lounge I asked around about perfumed cigarettes. Something clicked in the clerk's brain, and she led me to a box of small cigars. Acid C-Note cigars - and they are exactly what I was looking for.

Try them out if you are curious!

Very powdery... Leather... I don't really feel for wearing it myself but I did spray it on my motorcycle leather jacket.... I still can smell it after 3800km! It is an interesting smell. Sadly, like many classic fragrances, other fragrances have been inspired by it, including car deodorizer.... I didn't like the big powder of it at first, but at night I sprayed a bit on my arm and my nose reached for it as I fell asleep. It is comforting. It's a really good quality perfume. I also own Molinard de Molinard which I wear often and has nothing to do with this, except the quality...

Wow! This fragrance packs a punch! I barely sprayed a tiny spritz, and 10 hours later, I can still smell it. Amazing longevity.
This is a very full bodied scent, with heavy smokiness and powder. I can smell the leather but it is a very thick heavy leather, not like the one in Kelly Caleche. It reminds me of Vivienne Westwood Boudoir, a deep, dark sexiness, although Boudoir smells "dirtier". The dry down is warm vanilla and amber, with some of the "dustiness"". This is a special occasion scent, not something to be worn everyday, definitely not for work. I tested this in the midst of summer. Wonder how this would be in colder weather.

My initial reaction when I first tested Habanita, I took a whiff and it opened my eyes with surprise. This is an exciting perfume, to say the least. It stands alone amongst many that have been marketed. It is a unique fragrance that cannot be duplicated or counterfeited in any way.
It's sensual, it's dark, it's smoky, it's leather, it's powder, it's rubber, it's a sharp assault in your face that drys down to an unusual scent that's very difficult to describe but absolutely one of a kind. On me, there are no flowery notes. It drys down to a powder that wraps itself around leather, tobacco, musk, oakmoss and benzoin. It's warm and smoldering. Not a warm that you wrap yourself in a blanket with warm. Habanita exudes a sexual warmth. It's musky in its own way, not a typical musk that one expects that is so common on the market today.
Each time I wear it, I pick up different nuances of this quaint perfume and I am looking forward to wearing it in the different seasons. This was a blind buy for me and I am delighted with it. It's a red lipstick, dark eyeliner and boots kind of perfume. Others won't recognize it, which is a good thing. You'll stand alone and be remembered. It's a wonderful addition to my perfumes.
I don't reach for Habanita very regularly. I can't even say I wear it that often. But when the mood strikes me, it's a frag that is so unique, it I know my entire demeanor is different. This perfume is meant for a person with a zest and passion for what they are about to do because it is a strong fragrance for a woman that can pull it off. Definitely not for the weak, not for a wallflower, and not for the shy. If you want to be remembered, and not necessarily in a good girl way, then this perfume is one to try. After all, how many perfumes do you know that smell of leather, smoke and benzoin, tempered with woods and moss notes? What an incredulous combination. This is a power-house scent, but not for power in the boardroom. It's for power elsewhere.
Whenever I wear it, men seem to be hypnotized and comment on it. Strangers even. This is the one fragrance I'll wear that strange men will ask me about, comment on or want to get closer. Habanita lays low but is the strongest, most compelling perfume I own.

Spicy sweet at the opening with a waft of leather. The sweetness and the leather carry all the way through, a very animalistic composition. Gives the impression of smoking in a dark bar drinking amaretto on the rocks. Seductive, warm, enticing, a bit dirty. Very strong -- a little dab'll do ya.

A generous fellow fragrantican included a terrific sample of Habanita in our swap. It gave me rather a shock! As I was expecting a dark and leathery aura, powdered vanilla goodness came as a surprise indeed.

Something intriguing kept me coming back for more, even while I was far from comfortable with the ( for me ) heavy sweetness. And then......... a seasonal miracle occured! The weather turned to spring, and all of a sudden those cloying notes became a deep and balmy resin, just touched with cigar smoke!!!

Now I am haunted by my stupidity in not buying a bottle of this lyrical and sultry beauty AT ONCE. If anyone should care to swap or sell their bottle, I'm a happy candidate!

Too much leather, smoke and burning rubber smell in there for me. Smells almost "dusty". I would have preferred more rose, rasberry or vanilla in it to off-set the heaviness. It is catwoman dressed in her full gear smoking her cigarette in a musty corner of a grungey, dimly lit bar. lol

I had read so much about this fragrance from many varied sources....here ,basenotes blogs and facebook. I really needed to try ,so kept eye out. Received a 100ml bottle with 40ml remaining. Oh isn't the bottle divine!!!!!! The "rubbery texture" is great. Now to the fragrance itself....Fabulous......
On me ,it sits comfortably even garnered compliments,happily for 5ish hours,

Habanita is not a fragrance you can just spray on your wrist, sniff and decide if you like it. You really have to give it a proper wear. I feel the same way about Mitsouko.
Like many other pre-80's fragrances Habanita takes some time to develop and is very nuanced.
Habanita opens a bit harsh and medicinal. My bottle predates the oakmoss ban. Very mossy. As it begins to mellow I get subtle vanilla, benzoin, lilac and leather.
Give it another 30 minutes and the powdery orris root and heliotrope kick in with a bitter twist from the bergamot.
Once completely dried down Habanita smells like leather, tobacco and bubblegum.
I'm a fan.

First initial spray I am hit full in the face with powder. Like an angry nanny has just slammed down the Johnsons&Johnsons again. ARGGGGHHHHH. Luckily, as it dries down the baby powder disappears and this smoky, leathery gorgeous fruit and spice appears. I'll just say the nanny apparently moonlights as a dominatrix and leave it at that.

Heaven`s sake! This is exactly what I am looking for.
What a lovely classic scent! It has a slightly smoky & leathery note when you first spray, but that note dissipates leaving you with a powdery-woody base with a hint of vanille. It is hard to describe, but Habanita is a must have masterpiece if you are a confident 30s woman. I love the bottle too!

I personally find this classic EDT more charming than the beautiful, untamed, reformulated EDP (though I must admit the new bottle & ad are OH so very stunning #dreamy eyes)

I guess the strong sandalwood in the EDP makes it off-putting for me. Yes it emphasizes sweetness and soften the aggressiveness I get from the original EDT, but it also ruins the sense of "crisp-ey-ness" I feel from the EDT that I really adore.

Needless to say, this is still my favorite version of HABANITA ;)

I didn't smell leather in this, but a smokiness that's powdery sweet. I dislike powder intensely, but something tempers this powder so it isn't one-dimensional (I guess that is the vetiver?). I find that interesting, so I'll be trying this again, perhaps in the summer.

As others have said, yes it is leathery-dusty-powdery with just a touch of vanilla. Yes, at first it is so sharp it numbs your nostrills. But I love Habanita. The same way I love a classic houndstooth Chanel deux pieces, but would never wear it. If there was a perfume museum, Habanita would be on a pedestal in the main gallery

What a masterpiece. I almost doomed it at the first sniff, for the sweet powder. I´m happy i didn´t.
Just the history and idea of Habanita is stunning (...Molinard introduced Habanita in 1921, not as a personal fragrance but as a product to scent cigarettes. It was available in scented sachets to slide into a pack of cigarettes, or in liquid form: "A glass rod dipped in this fragrance and drawn along a lighted cigarette will perfume the smoke with a delicious, lasting aroma") Amazing! And the Lalique flacon hits the nail.
Habanita smells velvety smooth and teases senses eroticaly.
It might be the balance (and tension) between its main attributes - woman (lipstick, powder, rose) & man (tobacco, leather, motor oil).
It has a dark side, some mystery. It´s not only pretty scent and nothing more. This is the kind of perfumes I love and that is what I´m missing in recent producton.
This woman is not sweet dull doll with trendy look. Nothing phony
This one is the real thing. She is more likely a person with bad past, difficult girl, that fires straight with live bullets.
And the man would die for her.
Kind of like the song "you're too much, for one man - but not enough for two"... but here is the right guy.

Habanita has survived through the power of time since 1921 and is now called "the most tenacious fragrance in the world" ...all for a reason

Because it's worth it!

Powdery , leather, musky sweetie, old-fashioned but oh so sexy. i am fascinated! i might be able to love this perfume. It reminds me a bit of Bal a Versailles, does anyone else smell the similarity? Two of my fav's

Habanita, with its oily leather and dry, old-fashioned, dead-smelling florals first brings to mind a plague mask. I think plague masks are fascinating and historically iconic, so I mean this as a compliment. The opening of Habanita transfixes me. It puts me in the mood to go look at morbid surgical instruments in museum displays.

Sadly, after a half hour Habanita becomes an overpowering sour powder bomb that makes my eyes water and nose itch. I keep a mini of this because I like the bottle so much. If there is one thing Habanita is not, it's "pleasant" or "boring". Sorry, that was two things.

So, I have owned this completely unique and intriguing fragrance for 2 years now. In those 2 years, guess how many times I've worn it? NONE. I've, on occassion, spritzed the tiniest of dabs on at night, just as I'm about to fall asleep, then i forget all about it for a year. Maybe I've just been scared. This is definitely NOT a safe fragrance, especially in the cheap, synthetic candy world we live in today.

Well last night, I was feeling a bit nostaligic, vintage and dark and opened my perfume cabinet and there this little bottle sat, staring me in the face. Naturally, because I think this bottle is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I spritzed it on, and climbed into bed. WOW. I have always enjoyed this fragrance, but only now, am I truly appreciating it. Talk about a POWERHOUSE. I found PerfumedBrunette's review so intriguing and the more I read, the more I opened my heart (and my nose) to this masterpiece.

What is it about this prefume that is making me feel giddy, sensual and completely confident, all at the same time? It could be the simple fact that it was created in 1921, an era I should have lived and am always searching to recreate in fragrance(although I'm pretty sure I did live there, in my past life, and is why I have such a strong love/connection for all things Deco). Is it the fact that this bottle is the perfect representation of the juice contained with in? I mean, just look at it! Black and gold and Deco all over! How much do we love that Deco Siren on the bottle??!! Yes, its all of those things, but it's also the fact that I am litereally transported back in time. A time when Chinese silk screens lined beautful, dark and opulent lounges. I can place myself in this lounge so easily. I am smoking opium from a hooka, perfectly draped in a deep saphire blue velvet dress, wearing balck lacey lingerie underneath and dripping in Deco jewels on top. Powder puffs scented of dark amber sit on top of a gorgeous vanity, in the womens waiting room. Ladies touching up their lipstick, powdering their noses in the hazey mirror of the smokey air. That's what this smells like to me. Dark powdery amber, laced with resins and lipstick, soaked into velvet and warmed on the skin. A haze of 1920's glamour and Pure.Genius.

So today, for the first time, I am going to wear my beatifull Habanita in public and go about my business, knowing that I have a very special, very sexy secret. You will most likely get a whiff of this secret (there's no getting around that) but you'll never guess what it is, unless of course, you are like me and are privey to the special knowledge of this intoxicating creation...and if that's the case, then I think we should be friends.

P.S. My husband adores this on me...all the 3 times I think he's actually smelled it. He finds it arousing. That should have sealed the deal for me long ago.

This olfactory experience is a trip to a sophisticated bar which is opulently adorned with leather settees and dim lights.
A beautiful woman sits demurely smoking a long havana. Her lips are red and she has a mane of dark wavy hair.
She sits aloof, simply drinking in the atmosphere and hasn't a care in the world.
She exudes an air of class and every man in the bar eyes her from afar, wishing she could be his.
She belongs to no one but herself and as she gets up to go, she tosses her head, allowing her hair to cascade demurely down her elegant back.
Habanita, you are one of a kind, a masterpiece and I shall adore you forever.

To my mind, a great leather fragrance has to strike a perfect balance between traditional masculine and feminine notes (and, like leather itself, most great leather scents are unisex). Habanita, along with Caron's Tabac Blonde and Chanel's Cuir de Russie, are masterpieces in the world of leather fragrances, and each one strikes this balance very adeptly.

What distinguishes Habanita is the predominant vetiver note. Vetiver (so hard to describe, but I would say it is nutty-grassy-woody) is a very common note in masculine fragrances, and it is both unusual and refreshing to find it used in such a pronounced way in Habanita -- a scent marketed to women!

Like Tabac Blonde, the leather note (cade/birch tar) hits you almost immediately and fades into the background relatively quickly. What comes next is so contradictory but so beautiful: a powdery, incense-like accord laced with rich, bitter, intoxicating vetiver.

The vetiver becomes more and more pronounced (it is tencious stuff!) during the dry down until all that is left (8+ hours later) is...you guessed it...vetiver. Needless to say, if vetiver is a note you are not fond of, then this might not be the leather for you.

Overall, I find Habanita very sultry. Oddly though, it also has an unexpected freshness that is difficult to pinpoint (perhaps the vetiver again?). Unlike Tabac Blond, which is more smoky, Habanita is more powdery and comforting. A truly stunning and unique take on leather!

I'm really glad I decided to try this lovely flash from the past. It's everything I could wish for.
A lovely smokey rose vanilla,I actually find it to be the middle ground between the best parts of Arpege and the seductiveness of Rochas Femme.

The top is a twin to Arpege but where Arpege goes horribly wrong and starts to sour, Habanita kicks her lovely feet and breaks through the surface with a rose colored clove that just gets better and better.
And the leather here lends a lovely soft dustiness instead of the stale tobacco I usually get.

No ladies, there is nothing dated about Habanita at all. Does she remind you of smoky speakeasy nights and sultry diva's? Most definately. But this charmer is an oriental gem with no expiration date.

Warning for first time sniffers: You don't like her? Please don't give her away so soon!

Try Habanita more than once to really get to know her, spray on different parts of your body, or in different weathers and environments. This arrogant woman has all beauty one could imagine so sometimes you have to treat her right and you probably will be rewarded immensely.

I blind bought Habanita from ebay (after the reviews here of course! LOL) The first time I tried her I didn't like her at all. I love the opening but after few minutes all I got was only burnt rubber smell, so heavy and it dominated the other notes completely. I was so disappointed, but I didn't sell her away at that time... something told me that I have to give her another chance.

So one day when the weather started to cool down, I decided to try her again...this time spraying on my belly instead of my wrist. I remember putting my hope up pretty high that I started to worry after 2 minutes of spraying as she started to dry down. Ok, the leather was still there but strangely it smell MUCH better this time. Not "heavy", less "burnt rubber", and more "newly waxed leather" I was really thrilled!

Yet that's not the best part, Habanita has rewarded me more when she added in the best leathery powdery whiff of crisp heliotrope (my FAV!), light musky florals and minus my detested oakmoss that it's just barely there! I was charmed, hopelessly in love, even deeper than those fragrances I love at first sniff.

If Habanita is a woman she must be a scorpio; sexy, confident, arrogant, very smart and has a pure heart. She's the one your're gonna hate to the bone, or fall sickly head over heels for, there's nothing in between.

I didn't see any men's review for it... I think Habanita suits a man very well if moderate sprays. Of course is the opening very strong and odd. But wait the drydown: it will be magic with vanilla and amber...and sexy. If you assume it, this one is for you.

I bought it unsniffed after reading so many good reviews.i wad expecting to find something deep and mysterious like an old library. Unfortunely on me it smells like old dusty powder;just like Agent Provocateur smells on my skin.these two perfumes are not for me.i waited long time to see a change but nothing happened!!! I really wanted to like Habanita but apparently She doesn't like me.

In a phrase: What a gorgeous disappointment of expectation!

Tracking my package from The Perfumed Court and samples finally arrived today. The first one I wanted to try was Habanita edt because of all the intense reviews. As it hit my skin, I had the same reaction (in my limited experience) that I had with Rochas Femme: I must have this.

I'm training my nose to pick up notes. Before I opened my laptop to read the notes I wrote: Vanilla, Patch, Orange...[a little later as it began to change]...Incense (smoke), Wine, Jasmine...[Then] Cinnamon, Oakmoss?, Resin. I was fairly proud when I saw that my nose was fairly accurate. As usual, I picked up no fruit notes. I guess I'm not sweet enough to develop fruit!

The patchouli I sensed was probably a mix of the bergamot / orris root: a bright, clean opening very predominant at first spray. But almost as immediately I picked up the vanilla and jasmine, and what I termed "Wine" must be my nose's interpretation of the rose and lilac interplay--heady and dewy, like a sweet warm zinfandel.

Now at drydown, there is just a lovely, creamy, musky aroma, yet with a charming herbal aspect that keeps it almost light, yet still quite rich--I can smell it rising from the inner part of my arms where I sprayed it, which is unusual for me, because even the toughest scents give up after an hour on my arid skin.

The leathery vibe other people pick up I just don't get--which makes me wonder if I'm crazy, since it's the starring role in most reviews here. (Come to think of it, I sell leather shoes and handbags, and I can't smell them anymore, either. I bet my leather-smeller's broken.)

I'm kind of glad, because some of the review were off-putting with the darkly sexual imagery. I'm not a sexpot (though I have enjoyed sex as much as the next woman) or a femme fatale (gales of laughter). I'm a fairly standard-issue gal who loves beautiful, and often beautifully unusual, things.

And in the final analysis, that's all that Habanita is for me, or on me: A very, very beautiful thing. If you love rich and well-blended perfume--alto rather than soprano accords--please test Habanita. And for Heaven's sake, you certainly don't need to own (or imagine) a leather bustier and riding crop, or even black-lace lingerie, to do so. You're just as gorgeous wearing Habanita in your cotton briefs and muumuu, my dear.

I accidentally erased my previous comment while using mobile internet; so I'll post it again, with some edition.

********

Habanita is such a BIG TEASE,

The most complicated smell I've ever come across. She introduced herself in sweet, fresh, delightful feminine manners...BUT it's not too long before she stripped off of her light floral dress into the hidden dark & nasty clinging leather suit. She would captivate you, tortured you like a real dominatrix, and you just couldn't help but yield to her eventually... After an hour, as the leather faded she might show some mercy and comforted you with the most beautiful ghost of heliotrope in rich smokey creamy powder.

Habanita never gets old...despite being one of the most classics, because, like MyNoirBeehive has commented, she is a smell of femme fatale, and we always have strong and charismatic women in any decade.

Habanita will surely drive people mad...both in a good way or the other way around.

CAUTION: This dominatrix woman is very sensitive to hot and humid environment so you'd better STRICTLY AND DEFINITELY WEAR HER IN COLD WEATHER ONLY

Well... what can I say? I bought 100ml bottle (based on reviews) , but it didn't work on my skin. I don't know if was because the heat (I live in Brazil). It becomes wonderfull only after six hours. Before this I smelled dirty and sweaty crotch, very embarrassing. Like using dated deodorant, or having "axillary problema" (colony of bacteria in the armpits), or something like that... So sad, cause after five, six hours, the vanilla comes pleasant. I gave to my sister and she loved.

I have the EDT and today is the second day I'm wearing it. I don't usually follow the rules of "night, day, fall, winter, etc.", I wear whatever I want on a particular day w/out knocking off everyone around me.

In my opinion this has a "right in your face" presence. It's bold and yells for attention. An hour later it has tempered down and all you want to do is sniff yourself and smile because you know you are... different(?). I love it! Mostly because I'm partial to unisex notes and because the leather smell drives me crazy. I do love the powdery note as well, I find it comforting.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who likes "safe" fragrances. :)

PS: I noticed that it smells divine on the skin, it doesn't work very well if sprayed on the clothes.

Only one word: a "GEM" !!!

Oh, Habanita EDT ! How totally beautiful, dangerously sexy, yet comforting, and extremely long lasting ! VERY POWDERY, but it's a clean rich almost creamy powder, not baby powder.

Habanita is a master blend of deep vanilla, crispy fresh vetiver, spicy leather tanner oils, jasmine, rose, ylang -ylang, lilacs, and orange blossoms expertly smoothed together with a light blend of peach, bergamot and raspberry. A gentle touch of cedar tones down notes that would otherwise be too sweet. All of these notes swirl into a beautiful powdery cloud. Oakmoss and soft thick musk give Habinita excellent staying power.

Actually, leather itself has no smell until tanning oils are used on it to give it a fragrance. The tanner oils used in Habanita are smooth, ultra rich and sexy. Sometimes these tanner oils can give some people the impression of a 'tobbacco' or 'smokey' smell.....but in Habanita, this is an underlying fresh smell....not a burning tobbacco or an ashtray odor.

Habanita is easily a unisex fragrance. Sweet but not too sweet. Silage is strong for hours, then settles deep and close to skin. It lasts on skin, in hair, and in fabrics until you wash it off. Use Habanita sparingly. No need to drown in it, even though you might want to because it's so beautiful. A little goes a long long way.

Thanks to everyone for their reviews ! Everyone's thoughts are useful and appreciated, whether you like a fragrance or not. If not for ALL of you, I might never have experienced Habanita. Now Habanita is one of my all time favorites !

I had tested Habanita many times before but I couldn't appreciate her, until one day I put her on with many other perfumes in a perfume store. I left the store and I was driving home when I smelled something wonderful coming from my wrist. It was Habanita. I drove back and bought not only one, but two bottles, because the lady in the store told me that it is going to be discountinued.
What can I say about Habanita? I wear it all the time, from morning until the moment I go to bed. I wear it everywhere: the office, the club,the cinema, the restaurant. I am mad about her.
Habanita is complex, she doesn't reveal her full face at once, you have to be patient and you will be rewarded. Habanita is so feminite, so sexy, so mysterious, so warm, just like a leather jacket or a precious fur coat. She is unique, you can recognise her from a long distance. She works better in cold weather but she is marvelous all year round. She has a good sillage (not a monster one) and very good lasting. She is perfect, just perfect.

Powdery , leather, dark, bitter/sweetie, old-fashioned ,bizarre,woody, fruit, ambery,honey, sexy, strong , fascinante , I am in love with it and the bottle, uaaauuu, perfect and classic like the perfume.

A lot of lovely reviews for edt Habanita already! I'll just add by saying that I always feel like a femme fatale when wearing this one. Lovely for nights out in cold weather. Rock concerts. Beautiful glass bottle, a classic and much loved staple in my collection.

Habanita and myself are just getting to know eachother, but already she has taken me down memory lane. Used sparingly (a little goes a long looooong way), Habanita takes me back to my childhood, of my mother. Her leather handbag stuffed with cigarettes, Max Factor face powder, a small bottle of Youth Dew and bits of paper, maybe an old book - all these aromas mixed together - this is Habanita. It has a haunting quality to my nose, in a similar way to L'Heure Bleue, but I don't find it melancholy. This girl wears goth boots, a leather jacket and with Sisters of Mercy playing, she is winding her way through a smoke-filled room (pre-smoking ban of course, this is not a squeaky clean fragrance), a wry smile on her face. I absolutely love Habanita, and the journey she takes me on; she brings me out of myself, and I would recommend everyone try her on at least once ;)

Well well well, what do we have here? A Cougar in a bottle that's what!
Habanita is a woman on the prowl and she takes no prisoners. This lady holds her own and she knows what she wants.

Her darkness shines through quite suddenly drawing you in slowly and steadily. Just when you think you have a handle on her, she quickly changes into a cool, calm, and collected power player. You try to resist but it's too late. She has her claws in you and there's no backing out now.

She moves with stealth leaving the meek behind. She wants to dominate her audience and control their actions. All we can do is follow.

While I am not very good at detecting individual notes, I am a lover of woodsy notes that cast a powdery glow. Impressive to say the least. She is the leader of the Pack!

A gorgeous, classic perfume, classic as in Hedy Lamarr, Lauren Bacall, Dolores del Rio - a grown-up woman's fume. Spicy, strong, powdery, drying down to a wonderful sweet vanilla that clings to your clothes for days. It smells so expensive and costs so next to nothing that I'm tempted to buy a second bottle to make sure I never run out. Perfect for right now, as I sit by my woodburner, the last sunlight of a winter day gilding the trees outside.

Very complex and unpredictable: it opens strong with all the aromas you might expect. I do not detect a single note, just a multitude of hues. Then smoke, then leather, then vanilla, then powder. It's one of the most exquisite scents I have ever experienced. I do love complex scents and this one is certainly one of the most complex and ever evolving. It's so many scents in one: Lonestar Memories at times (for the smoke), Bandit at others (for the leather), Shalimar in other moments (for the vanilla), even Chanel N°5 (for the powder).
Quantity is crucial here more than for others: do not exaggerate, just a few well dosed spritzes and people around you instead of being annoyed will be charmed forever.

Yes!...I've discovered that Habanita is quite the dark little treasure! It just arrived in the mail yesterday and,I must say,I was pleasantly surprised. The initial application (yesterday) was..at first....a blast of dusty-waxy roses then somewhat quickly it morphed into a thick, warm smokey vanilla...laced with cigarrette smoke....then finally a long lingering baby powder swirled with incense.I really didn't get much in the way of leather. I tried it again this morning and the rosy greeting from yesterday was barely there(boo)....I kind of liked that..it gave it a "vintage cosmetic" smell. Today, it is still lovely but even smokier/spicier and even more vanilla ( like right from the pod...heavy...NOT fluffy.)Still not smellin' the leather...which is really ok with me. Is there such thing as an Oriental-Gourmand? Because I really want to devour my arm....it's like sipping the perfect cup of sweetened black tea....or chai...or something while puffing on an expensive cigarette(and I don't even smoke) I can't quite put my finger on it. I could wear this everyday..I really don't find it too heavy and on me, the projection is minimal.I've already worn it out and about and didn't experience that "oh-s%&t-this-stuff-is-too-strong-in-public" thing that can happen when you leave the house..if you know what I mean. That's probably just my skin as I often have to reapply my fragrances throughout the day. This stuff makes me want to get a fire crackin' in the fireplace, get cozy with a hot cup of something, light some candles and incense and fiddle with my Tarot deck. It's a fabulous Fallish/Wintery way to smell!
Just for the heck of it, I tried to "re-create" the smell of Habanita on my other arm using 1 spritz of Cabochard, 2 spritzes of Tabu, 3 of Toujours Moi and 2 of Chloe(to add that soapy/creaminess.) In my personal opinion, it comes pretty close. Habanita is most definitely a vintage smelling perfume and rightfully so. It isn't, however, "old" smelling...or out of date. Not to me anyway.
It's classic....dark,powdery,smokey,vanilla....just how I like it!
In the Perfume Guide, Luca Turin gives it four stars and names it's overall description as "Vetiver Vanilla" Personally, I'm not getting the vetiver much( I DO love vetiver though.)He does go on to say,however, that the the vetiver and vanilla juxtapose "in such a way that they both disappear and are replaced by something that is not the sum, more like the vector product of the two" I also love the way he describes it as being the "gorgeous hypothetical child" of Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe!
EDIT/UPDATE: I have to add to my last reveiw that after wearing Habanita for several hours the second time ( it was a very humid/wet/rainy/cold day) I detected something in the late stages of the drydown that somehow reminded me of bong water.....yes...you heard that right. Now...it's been a while since I've smelled bong water and I really did put alot of thought into what that "curious" note was that I was smelling....it perplexed me for a while until I it finally came to me. It was a dank, earthy, sour-ish sort of smell that had a hay/dead grass thread woven through it. Definitely something that had once been alive and green then transitioned on into something dry,resinous and smoked ( for lack of better description)....hence the "bong water" smell. After even more sniffing and thought, I've decided that I was smelling the elusive Vetiver.....makes sense. Oh...and....this actually added to my positive experience with Habanita. It took away nothing.

I don't get leather...which is really what I was hoping for. All I get is powder.... pure powder... nothing more. Oh well...the search for the perfect leather still continues.

I am an oriental lover and a spice lover so I thought I would like this one and went for it with a blind buy. Unfortunately I did not like it at all. I waited for spices, fruits, a peep of floral, anything to redeem what my nose was smelling. I am open to animalic scents generally but this one was so animalic and, to my nose, such a mess of conflicting scents on my skin it made me feel ill. I let it dry down hoping it would get better, but no. Did not happen. Maybe the vintage was great but the newer one, not for me!

Jacques Guerlain said that one of his perfumes smelled like the underside of his mistress. This one smells like the underside of a woman who hasn't bathed for a week and has had sexual relations with a couple of guys who also have not bathed recently. Rank and skank! I was really hoping to love this one, too, since it is cheap, but sigh, not to be.

Feel free to deem me a philistine but this one is too much for my poor nose.

P.S., my bottle went to someone who does love the scent, so it was appropriately adopted and "re-homed."

It is relatively inexpensive on Overstock.com and their shipping is 2.50. BUY IT! It is delicious! :)

HABANITA=PURE HAVANE Thierry Mugler for men

Habanita is one of my favorite vanilla perfumes, but I was a little put off by it the first few times I tried it. Smoke, booze, and leather mixed with... powdery vanilla? WTF!? Even though it was a bit weird for me, I kept coming back to it. The powdery vanilla half of the perfume is gorgeous, and it balances out the smoky, boozy leather and blends with it to create an interesting hybrid of badass sexyness and innocent sweetness.

This is the real deal. If you want to smell the true uncompromised spirit of the Oriental fragrance, look no further. A tart fruity opening blasts with leather and iris. Violets and benzoin emerge to bring you back to the Victorian era. The drydown is firmly planted in the present. Sweet leather, amber, patchouli, and sandalwood create the air of a dark and dramatic niche masculine fragrance. Not unisex in the traditional way, this manages to be both masculine and feminine, and comes off as sexy on both sexes.

Recently reformulated but still widely available online for next to nothing. Get it before it's gone - this is niche quality at Dana prices.

OMG! it's gorgious. Smoky, spiced, powdery oriental with a long sexy dry down. I love it from the top notes, but especially after two hours on my skin. It is a stage where all ingredients have calmed and a hidden animalic sweetness now comes forth, to embrace you with serenity and love feelings. Habanita is wild but smooth as well. It can be worn by men but in a woman's skin it passes to another dimension. More sexy, more carresing and more memorable. If you like orientals such as Shalimar, you cannot pass this. It's a shame....

update after 10 hours.
The smell became tender, sweet, carnal. After so many hours and it emerges from my skin. This is the most lovable dry down. Long lasting is enormous. Sensuality is tremendous also. What a great discovery I've done!!

(EDP)
just two words: THE PERFUME!

Just got a sample of this one, because I read so many good things about Habanita. It is probably the worse scent I smelled in years. Very strong, dirty and chemical perfume. Not at all sexy. I love leather fragrances like Bvlgari Black, but the leather here is just so horrible. I can't believe so many people raving about this one. I let my BF smell it and he said it smells like a car cleaner.

I also purchased a small bottle of this as a blind buy and really thought it was my type of fragrance having an affinity with black orchid and other "dark demons" but on me it must be my chemistry, all I get is moth ball smell, even after trying to wash off which you can't -- it gets a 10 of 10 for long lasting. Anyone interested in a swap of this for any of my faves.... i have been on the look out for midnight or hypnotic poison (partially or barely used fine) thanks.

Habanita is not for me unfortunately, I blind bought it as It seemed right up my street but on me it just smells like mr. sheen (the polish not charlie) I think it is one of those that would smell nice to my nose on others but just not on me :( I am very upset as I can really see the appeal, Habanita is strong yet ultra feminine, sweet but not cloying. It lasts all day with just a little squirt and the bottle is beautiful! This perfume will get you noticed, It was made for the sexy siren in us all.

j'aime ce parfum ,il est sensuel, capiteux c'est un parfum de femme, ados accros aux jus roses passez votre chemin,la femme qui porte ce parfum l'assume.juste une petite remarque pour l’édition actuelle elle est plus pointue moins chaude dommage j'aimais mon habanita d'avant.

A dreamy scent meant for a reflectful day interpreting what the clouds on a cool winter day might have to say to you. Some scents ie. L'heure bleue evoke memories; this is one of those scents. A classic I will cherish forever.

I know I just did a review, but I think instead of updating that one, I'll do a new one mainly because its a much cooler day today so Habanita is wearable.

Per my earlier review, yes its gorgeous and for me will always be so. I think when its warmer though certain things do get pulled out than on a cooler day, Today I get all elegance. Think black ball gown, and south sea pearls and icy white diamonds.

Now it also jogged a memory for me, and I kept thinking it smelled like something I've smelled before. Then I remember, of course, Original Lagerfeld cologne (note, I'm not talking about classic, but the one that preceded it!) They have that same powderiness; the tobacco, the vanilla, the rose, and of course the muskiness.

So I went and got the bottle of Lagerfeld Original and did a smell test. Yep, thats what it is. So if a guy can wear Lagerfeld, he likely would feel at home wearing Habanita!

Now granted there are certainly differences, vetiver in Habanita versus sandalwood in Lagerfeld which gives a slight difference to the base. The main difference I notice was the fruits. Aside from that, I would say they're very closely related.

Anyway, 2 half sprays, and it lasted all day. This time however instead of roaring, it purrs. No raging biker bar this time, which can be fun on occasion, but I do like it this way as well. I may end up getting another bottle come winter's end.

(EDT splash)
By way of introduction, Habanita landed a solid leather-gloved punch then handed me a rum-soaked cigar. The fragrant tobacco and a gentler leather stayed for the middle, underpinning powdery florals and a whisper of spice. The drydown was sweet, smokey, dusty. Purrrrfect.

Definitely deserves Classic status. I think it would smell terrificly sexy on a man, too.

But the best bit? My 'fumophobe husband actually *likes* it! Gotta get me a bigger bottle.

ETA 14Aug12: My 100ml edt spray arrived today. :-D

Compared to the splash, the spray went on really sharp and a bit screechy. On the skin I got a rubber note I hadn't noticed previously. But now that it's dried it smells just like before. I'm happy.

Whoooo BABY!! great stuff but NOT good during the summer...I will have to re-review this one in much cooler weather because the summer made it bloom to heights of near unbearable.

But still, even with that, its damn gorgeous stuff, just a little much for this time of year. How the hell is this stuff so cheap? no really I'm curious because its quite well made.

Its certainly a big and heavy one, so if big and heavy is scary its not going to be your scent, and its sweet.... and I'm talking VERY. Time of year may have more to do with it, but still, I like that as it balances off the other not so sweet notes. It works here without giving me cavities.

I get the lipstick, face powder and motor oil *yum* and this is going to sound crazy, but I also get a very distinct raspberry frambroise along with a package of sweet tarts and a small amount of tobacco. Its like an all girls biker bar is hanging out on my wrist!

For me this is a definite cold weather queen. And longevity of course is just crazy. You had better like this because it really does stick around a long long time. Like next day long time. Having never smelled any of the vintage ones (this is the EDT I recently purchased) I can't speak to how it smells against vintage, but, I will say I do like this one quite a lot and likely it will be in heavy rotation during the winter.

Spice, powder, woody, leathery, floral, I'm dizzy over the wonders of Habanita...in the best way possible. How can such a gem be obtained at such a low price? This has to be the fragrance bargain of the century. Can you say femme fatale? The most perfect fragrance I've ever experienced. Swoon worthy.

CAUTION, DANGER: LONG, DETAILED REVIEW AHEAD!!!

'The absolute ‘Classics’. Can you name them?'

Ask a seasoned fragrance lover and he/she'll rattle them off for you:’ Chanel nr 5’, ‘Opium’, ‘Obsession’, ‘Shalimar’, ‘Light Blue’, ‘Alien’, ‘Angel’, ‘Polo for Men’ (the Original Mighty Green Beast)... All right!!!

And yet, my dear perfume lovers, there are a few true classics that for one reason or another (not enough pr budget, didn't give the critic at an influential woman's magazine enough free bottles so a negative review was written, launched at the wrong time...) aren't known as ‘Classics’, but really are. ‘Classics Under The Radar’, I call them.

And they have time on their side to prove their worth. They are being produced for decades now, still going strong and now in 2012 make a well deserved come back. A second or third youth. Because everybody and their 14 year old niece, are getting tired of the overpriced artificial sugar-fruit-vanillin bombs. Even true original celebs like Lady Gaga –not the second rate B-artists who don’t have music or gigs anymore to generate income and sold their name and image for a fistful of dollars to perfume conglomerates to simply have some money coming in-, realize that the time of cheap-cheaper-cheapest produced but expensively sold artificial vanilla-sugar-fruit concoctions, is past. You need to bring something more substantial to the perfume counter even as a ‘celeb fragrance’, than sugared alcohol with some vanillin and fruit and floral extracts mixed in. When you buy one of the classics, you simply buy quality, not donating money to the ‘celeb du jour’ or more often 'celeb de yesterday', and you don’t get a fragrance with enough sugar to send a mildly diabetic patient into a life threatening coma.

‘Classics’ are being loved by millions from different generations, not because the face on the bottle is a B-grade singer, and mostly a pretty bad one at that. The Under The Radar Classics are classics that still haven’t earned the Walhalla-status of 'True Classics' yet, but will shortly. The ‘Under the Radar Classics’ were created at least 20 years ago, survived on the strength of their seductive power, of their quality, of the power of the fragrance, what is in the bottle, not on the strength of the PR campaign and the mug on the bottle.. And are still in production and mostly still going strong. For a reason: they are timeless masterpieces and appeal to various generations and ages and genders.

'Youth Dew' (1953) by Estée Lauder is such one, 'Bal à Versailles' (1962) by Jean Desprez, Lanvin's 'Arpège' (1927),'Sublime' (more recent 1992) by Jean Patou, Caron's Bellodgia (1927), 'Safari' by Ralph Lauren (more recent 1990, but sadly discontinued and still mourned) and you can add this ‘Habanita’ by Molinard too.

What a Mighty Beast of Olfactory Beauty this is! And Created in 1921. And not too expensive. But there are rumors that the bean counters at the conglomerate where it belongs to, will kill this Beastly Beauty and Original Fragrance Masterpiece shortly. So I am busy collecting bottles. Because this is IT. Being one of the greats that stayed under the radar.

What is an 'IT' fragrance again? A fragrance of timeless beauty where originality and olfactory craftsmanship have married each other, and created and offspring ('Habanita'in this case) that is at once creative, totally original and wearable by a lot of people of all ages/genders etc. This ‘Habanita’ here is still living this happy marriage some 85 years after the promise of making other people's noses, hearts and soul happy, sad... But it will be euthanized by the bookkeepers at a fragrance conglomerate shortly. To probably launch a 'Desperate Housewifes', 'Susan Boyle' or ‘Jersey Shore’-fragrance. Money is the name of the fragrance game these days, not quality and originality.

An IT fragrance touches someone’s soul. Maybe it makes you happy-sad or sad-happy, it makes you joyous with melancholia... In any case, it makes you feel alive. With pleasure pain, introspection, desire to dance, to sing, to weep, to have sex, to mourn, to FEEL! You know: bringing up emotions from inside you and bringing back memories long buried. That is the power of a true IT fragrance. And no, ‘Purr’ by Katy Perry is not amongst them IMHO, sorry. IT fragrances make the connection through the olfactory center in your brain right next to your emotional center, with your emotions, memories, hopes and desillusions. Pleasure and sadness, yes. An IT fragrance makes a connection to your a real life where sadness and madness and happiness are always intertwined. An IT fragrance is not merely an escape, an illusion, making you dream that vanilla turns boys on to sex, or that sugar is an aphrodisiac, and a fruit scent makes you sexy. Believe me, when most men smell fruit, they whip up an appetite, not a desire for your charms.

You want fragrances to make you feel otherworldly ‘dream-illusion-escape-Barbie-level-happy’? There are tons of those frags. You have the Britney’s, the Fancy's and the celeb scents. It makes you dream away. Away to where? To what you will never be, to emotions that you can only dream of and are not in you? To vanilla an sugar land. To enjoy loads of sugar without becoming obese. Escape the reality of your own emotions. But it doesn't make you feel alive, it doesn't touch you deeply, it doesn’t make you 'feel'. Those glucose concoctions are escapism and there is nothing wrong with that. But it is not for me.

'True classics' and 'Classics under the radar' like this one, go deeper. Sorry celeb fans, they don't smell better, they just have much more hooks, nooks, crannies, facets. You want happy easy, carefree girly fun nothing wrong with that. Sniff your 'Fantasy' be blissfully, unreal happy. Classics on the contrary have tthe power to conncet with the inner you and unearth hidden feelings that are present in you, not feelings that you hope are present in you when you buy a celeb frag. Classics make you feel alive with emotions that are actually in you, are part of you, are not a dream to hopelessly chase, are not an illusion which you hope to reach buy buying a Jessica's Simpson's photoshopped face on‘Fancy’. These frags are just harmless fun. Nothing wrong with that, but they are just that.

‘Classics’ on the contrary touch your inner core, your hidden memories, your deepest own emotions. You want a fragrance that one day makes you sing, the other day makes you weep, the next day makes you sure, the following day makes you unsure, the day after makes you happy and yet another day after makes you miserable... the classics are the way to go. They touch you deeply, they stir feelings in you, they bring own hidden memories and feelings and emotions alive. For you to feel and experience. They are like a shrink in a bottle combined with sheer olfactory joy and pleasure. Emotions, pleasure, feeling alive tears and smiles and joy and melancholy and all.

Think about paintings. Caravaggio, da Vinci, Rubens, Van Gogh, Rothko, Anselm Kiefer... they have they feel of classics. You want to escape, well then I'd advise you to buy 'Fantasy' and 'Purr' and Fancy'. In paintings that feels like in the 20th century Warhol, Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons. You want to feel deep, you want an emotional 'mover and shaker'? Try one of those IT’s or Classics under the radar. Those fragrances reach deep into your heart and soul and bring up the emotions of the day and reinforce them. Well, that's just my opinion.

What makes this 'Habanita' so special? Look at those treasure trove of notes. And remember, boys and girls, we are talking 1921 here. Almost a century ago. The nose who made this would a certain Monsieur Boucanier, an employee of Molinard, but I guess the whole Molinard team collaborated. Monsieur Boucanier vanished after creating this special masterpiece. The Devil’s Revenge for creating such a sensual, sinful, exciting, dirty, lascivious fragrance, no doubt. ‘Habanita’ survived, Lucifer's personal fragrance is still alive and kicking. But not for much longer. Never mind. With his creation Monsieur Boucanier (‘Bucanneer’) serves his eternal time in Heaven and Hell. Being seduced or hunted by angels and witches wearing ‘Habanita’.

The notes:
Top: Orange Blossom, Raspberry, Peach, Bergamot
Middle: Lilac, Orris Root, Jasmine, Heliotrope, Ylang Ylang, Rose
Base: Leather, Amber, Musk, Benzoin, Vanilla, Oakmoss, Cedar

Yes, you counted right. That makes 17 different fragrance notes. Look at the top: these are the fragrance notes for your typical cheap celeb scent. But celeb scents take max three notes to save money. But the mastery of the Molinard crew back in 1921, a mere 3 years after the end of the devastating WWI when Paris was not yet 'the city of pleasure'- is that they counter this happy carefree top with a melancholy middle and base that you could say is an echo for the death in the Great War from 1914-1918 that killed millions for Brits, Frenchmen... a mere 100 miles from Paris.

The quality of a fragrance is determined by its base. Longevity, sillage, creativity, multi facetted... Celeb scents have a base of 2 or 3 notes, here we have 7 different notes! And they make a base to die for. With this base, everything that comes on top of it will produce a standout. If Britney would take this base and add her poo (sorry about that) and a bowl of sugar to it, it would still smell absolutely fabulous and divine. Look at that awesome base! Unbelievable but true. They made some awesome fragrances in the time. Amber, musk, vanilla: the 3 Mighty Musketeers that are a mean machine that anchor every base inevitably into quality. The secret: quality ingredients. Then we get added bonuses: the green oakmoss, Yay!, and then the woody cedar, Yay!!. But it's not all. We also get benzoin that is like a turbo for all the other already strong notes. But the 'kill shot' and the stroke of genius that every classic has in its base, is: Leather! Yay!!! Mix the leather with the green, the wood and the musk-amber-vanilla trio, let this be amplified by the benzoin and you hit a home run. This is IT! A winner.

But we are just getting started. This very powerful dry base is set against the fresh fruity-floral top of peach, bergamot, raspberry and orange blossom. The 'contradiction' between those two gives olfactory fireworks. Wow! Like that song with Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue. 'Thought about' calculated contrasts in a fragrance, can produce true magic. I’m not talking about shock value like some ‘Etat Orange’ of ‘Demeters', but nose pleasing, emotions-stirring experiences. The plum-apricot in the top versus the Rosewood middle and almond base in ‘Hypnotic Poison’, the coriander in the top versus mimosa in the middle versus opoponax and civet in ‘Coco’, the lily-tuberose-rose in the top-middle versus the strong leather in the base of Hermès’ ‘Kelly Calèche’ and of course Tom Fords ‘Tobacco Vanille’. Contrasts that show you perfume heaven. But here the contrast between the dry powerful base and light fruity floral in ‘Habanita’ is not enough for Molinard.

After the copulation of the masculine yang base with the girly top, the female yin middle turns the fragrance up a notch or five higher, turns to 12 on a scale of 10. Makes it even richer and deeper and more opulent and hypnotic and addictive than it already is. By the way ‘Hypnotic Poison’, ‘Addict’, ‘Coco’, they all are daughters of this mother fragrance of dense dark masterpieces. In ‘Habanita’ we get a very strong flowery middle. Lilac, Jasmine, Ylang Ylang all very strong 'personality' flowers with a hook. Add to this strong brew a dose of rose, some sweet vanillic orris root and heliotrope that acts, like the benzoin in the base, as a turbo to reinforce the other notes on the middle, and it is: 'Wham, bam, thank you Molinard!'. What a richness, what a wealth of fragrance notes. A true power fragrance. From 1921!

And then the true magic starts. We have the inner workings on each level. But then we get the wondrous interaction between that great, strong, masculine, yang base. Then that light fruity, happy girly top. And last but not least the strong floral, seduction from natures' finest flowers, yin middle. We get a Shalimar-like leather-vanilla base without the civet (the strong flowers in the middle make up for this) and the incense (the cedar in the base takes its place), a top of a quality fruity floral like 'Viva la Juicy' but with other strong fruity notes and more radical: raspberry AND bergamot AND peach AND orange blossom. Then throw in some of the strongest flowers-with-personality in the mix: jasmine, ylang ylang, lilac, rose... The result is a true magical witches brew that -like a classic fragrance- can unearth memories and a wide range of feelings: from melancholia to joy to euphoria. That is the power of a classic fragrance. And that explains the various reactions to this masterpiece of a fragrance.

One thing is sure: it can make you sad, it can make you mad, it can make you bad, it can make you happy, it can make you content, it can make you thankful, it can make you irascible, it can make you crazy, it can make you happy... But you'll never forget 'Habanita' by Molinard. And putting it on will always get to your inner human core. Chances are, you will be hooked like a Habanita-junkie. Like me. But hurry up. Because I will buy all the bottles that I find! And keep them is my closest for when I want to feel extra alive and happy and sad and rich and poor and powerful and humble… When I want to feel magic by a fragrance, when I want to smell fragrance-bliss. When I want to remember why I became hooked on the magic of perfume, when I want to refresh the reason why I became a contributing member of this site, when I want to remember why I became a fragrance lover tout court…

As per the GOOD reviews, I purchased Habinita blind....ooooooh baby this is IT! The opening is POW but it settles into a very voluptuous yummy powdery leather with background florals. Ahhhhh THIS is the BEST!

I have to agree with garamascara with the "baby powder covering cigarettes," and add a bit of leather to that. (I am using the EdT so this isn't the original parfume.) I love Tabac Blonde, Cuir de Russie, etc. but Habanita, on me, goes on sharp with a promise but dries to a faded rememberance. I do wear Mollinard de Mollinard successfully but I think my skin oils change the Habinita, I'm sorry to say. This shouldn't stop anyone from trying this perfume because Mollinard has a number of dynamite scents.

Habanita arrived yesterday. She took off her black cloak, shrugged travel dust and looked at me with her brown eyes. It seemed, she knows about life so much. About all my aspirations, moments of happiness and pain. In her quality leather case, it seems that she has all different sorts of potion. This perfume is wonderfully old-fashioned, in a nice quality way. Makes me think of the time when people knew HOW to wear fine quality things, be it a nice men suit, a leather portemonnaie, or a portcigar, or a beautifully fitted dress. Men knew how to court their woman…. Ah!

There are so many beautiful reviews here. May I add my voice to the beautiful bottle, this is probably by far the most beautiful perfume bottle I have ever possessed, or even seen. Once perfume is finished, is worth to keep it as talisman.

PS. Sprayed it today. Morning, a bit misty, a but humid, not overly cold. My man was still in bed as I bent to kiss him goodbye.
Oh, nice perfume.
Merci, what scent can you pick?
Hmm, don’t know, just nice…
Maybe, leather?
What? Lizard?

LOL. Now I will feel like a graceful lizard all day.

Wow...this is soooo good. Habanita is unique, intoxicating, and delicious. One thing I love about the vintages, they rarely ever disapoint. Most of the reviews here are very accurate, especially jennifer60656, a very good review. This smells like everything vintage, powders, lipstick, and a long elegant cigarette holder with remnants of tobacco left on it from the night before at the speakeasy... like opening up an old 1920's treasure chest.

A new FAVORITE

Купих HABANITA без тест,след дълго четене на отзиви.И тя се оказа не каквато очаквах,а още по-необичайна и страхотна.Не смятам,че е груба.Не смятам,че мирише на кожа-скърцаща или не.Не смятам,че заглушава каквито и да са миризми.Този парфюм е от далечната 1924,а очарованието и уникалността му идват и в 21 век.Звученето и е тъмно,мистериозно,но не готик или вамп.Това е мистерията на една жена;нещата,които не се виждат веднага или не се виждат с просто око.Нещата,които са ''тера инкогнита'' за обикновения зяпач.Само този,който успее да се приближи достатъчно,ще може да види,че тази ''тъмнина'' са черното на очите и,дъхът на рома,който е пила,или топлото,звездно небе,което тя гледа и мечтае.Мечтае,да се намери този,който ще я открие и ще открие,че черното,е само началото.
Просто трябва да се приближиш още.

I don't get much of the cedar or oakmoss (I have the recent EdT, as pictured above). There is clearly a powdery leathery quality, with florals blended into it nicely, meaning there is no clear note of a particular flower, nor is it obviously floral, as when you enter a florist shop. If you smell it close to the skin it's at least a bit crude, so I suggest letting it mix with the air if you are trying it for the first time. I don't get the fruit notes at all, but they may be top notes, which I try to avoid. There's an animalic quality too, but it's mild relative to what I thought it might be like. It's not too sweet or too dry, and it's well made for an inexpensive fragrance, though don't expect niche-quality ingredients. I'm also impressed by the balance, and while it's not super dynamic, it's not a bore either. If you like Dior Homme but want a more vintage/retro feel, this is one to sample.

This is now on my favorites list! It is beautiful composition, so many previous reviews are great. I would like to add happily this is a Rose fragrance on me, it's powdery makeup - lipstick twists & leathery comfy dark turns make it so delicious. Can't stop sniffing myself!
Reminds me of *Lipstick rose, but this has got more going on! And What a Womanly fragrance this. It's very powdery yes! It's sweet, comfy with depth. Notes that stand up are the oak moss, musk, rose, heliotrope, leather & orris root. Silage & longevity is fabulous. Thankfully there is no smokey note on me, but there is "shisha" pipe wisps.

Oh Boy! When I first sprayed this the first thing I felt like doing was putting on a red and black dress, high heels, a fan, a rose behind my ear, and a table to dance the flamenco on. Muy, muy, caliente!

When I read Turin and Sanchez, they referred to this as "vetiver vanilla." That description doesn't do Habanita justice. There's so much more going on. I do get that lipsticky, bubble gum scent which by itself would have been a pretty cool fragrance but there's a wonderful spicy, woodsy, vanilla, powdery rose scent that is just fab. I worry around many rose scents because they often get too sweet, cloying, and wheeze-inducing to me, this one isn't like this at all.

The leather note is very smooth, like old gloves or purses - doesn't shout, more like a stage whisper.

I don't know what older versions smell like, and if I never smell an old bottle I will be okay with that because I have a hard time believing this could be improved. Habanita is sooo sexy, earthy, full-figured and proud of it!

The sillage and longevity are terrific - the scent doesn't just disappear and leave you with the "Where did it go?" feeling. Very satisfying.

A very short update:

I sniffed the new EdP and it is not a disaster. It has lost for sure a lot of strength, the distinct sharp opening and the deep dirtiness of the dry down, but it really is ok - you can still easily identify Habanita in it.

Maybe a little overpriced now, but why shouldn't Molinard cash in on their (imho only) masterpiece?

You really need the body chemistry to wear this one, otherwise you will end up smelling like your aunt Barb's Virginia Slims and diaper rash cream. I purchased a bottle of this unsniffed years ago based on the leather and tobacco descriptions. The opening was sharp and actually burned my nose but it quickly settled into those wonderful dark leather notes. The final drydown is smoky baby powder. Very nice.

This is definitely an evening and cool weather perfume. The cheaper alternative for warmer days is Toujours Moi. Both were originally launched in 1921 and while the modern versions pale compared to their ancestors, they are still close enough to be sisters. You can buy a large bottle of TM at a discount store for $5 and it smells just as lovely as the high end department store brands.

My Habanita and Toujours Moi sit on the same shelf as my Mitsouko, Shalimar, Paloma Picasso, and Tabac Blond.

Crisp woods at first; oakmoss and cedar, then vanilla, benzoin and leather take over. It becomes creamy, warm, leathery and powdery; tobacco/honey/smokey/powdery to be exact. Definite vintage, feminine, young to mature girl/lady type of a perfume. It has some strength to it as well. Overtime it blends so well on the skin and emanates warmth and coziness:)
The more I smell it the more I like it!
Reminiscent of ancient cities and fashion that once was; this perfume awakens that sense. Pretty good for edt, I get about 5 hours.

I just wanted to give you guys the heads up on the official discontinuation of Habanita EdT - Molinard confirmed it in an email to me. Molinard now only offers a new, reformulated EdP in a new bottle and packaging. I haven't smelled it, though, so I cannot say anything about if it's any good.

I've feared for this day to come and now it's here.

I guess, this is due to IFRA regulations. I don't now one other perfume that has such a high concentration on oakmoss and we are all aware on the oakmoss ban, so it was only a matter of time. Probably the EdT broke several other new IFRA regulations as well.

There are still cheap bottles of EdT en masse available, so for the lovers: Now is the time to stock up. If the EdP isn't any good, I suppose that prices will rise for the old EdT.

Too strong for me, it reminds me of an old lady wearing some ancient perfume... but for some reason, I love it... Go guess.
I cannot spray it directly on my skin as the smell becomes too much, but I spray a bit of it up in the air and let a shower of minuscule droplets fall slightly on me.
Then, it is wearable and it sort of feels like being transported to the 1920's... so it's well worth the trip...

Ooohhhh ! Such a wonderfull sweet, deep, woody, lipstick kinda treasude this is. I bought blindly and do not regret. I consider Habanita to be very seductive, I just can`t help my self sniffing my wrist, and deep. I think I test this for night time. For summer evenings. This is very personal scent. Comes definitely to one of my favourites. I love this deep natured beauty.

Vintage creamy vanilla-smelling lipstick, a shovel of powder, just opened pack of black cherry flavoured tobacco (still a little bit moist), motor oil (let´s say black Buick from mid 40´s).
Perfect illusion of femme fatale. Midnight city, quiet river quay, he´s leaning against still hot capote of his black car and whispers urgently to his dream woman - a cat dressed in black, with red finger nails and lipstick - that he would forgive her anything, just if she was his.
Amazing lasting power for EDT.

Well, normally bottles and boxes stay at home. My ex fiancé wears Habanita. My mother wears it, so my sister sometimes does it the same and even my grandmother did. I still like this perfume anyway. It's so familiar to me. Obviously.

I like this perfume having a penchant for the majority of the frags came to light at that time: the roaring twenties. This is a lovely complex fragrance that in order to be appreciated, as it deserves, it asks you to be patient and wait for 10/15 minutes minimum before you can form a proper opinion and enjoy it; not doing so the risk/impression of an ash-tray and cigarettes will be more than just an impression (almost a reality!), with the result to make you run to the basin and scrub it off! All who talk about a shocking opening are right, (for me it was the same) but after a while Habanita shows its best qualities: a spicy-wooden side, sweetened by a huge amount of vanilla. This 'potion' mixes the warm sensuality of musk, heliotrope and ylang-ylang with a refined tenderness -it's never bold nor heavy - but even 'hot' at the same time.
I have a fade memory of how the vintage H. smelled (it happened on a couple of occasions) so I can remember that the old product was 'quite' different, but I believe all the same that H. is still recognizable and it is still so good. Interesting persistence and good sillage also!
Perhaps, I'm probably the only one to appreciate neither the bottle nor the packaging......

is this supposed to smell like vinegar? because if not, then the tester i tried must have gone bad...

I love this precious one. This is the definition of perfume in my book. It is like pure decadence. It is all the things I love about scent wrapped into one fantastic composition. Here are the words that come to mind to describe it; sultry, smooth, pressed face powder, delicate incense, vanilla extract, aged lipstick...and with that said, I adore. This scent has stood the test of time and will continue to do so like a strand of heirloom pearls. I may have reviewed in the past on this one but when I sprayed this evening for the first time in a while I just had to put my thoughts in writing to convey my connection to the wondrous beauty of Habanita.

This is a masterpiece! I discovered this a couple of years ago through Katie Puckrik's website. Honestly, ALL perfumistas should follow her if you don't already. Her recommendations are always right on the mark...she has never led me astray.

I REALLY love this. To me, it smells like a butter rum candle that I light in winter during the holidays. It's rich, warm and oozes creamy, butteriness with only a slight hint of leather. Not the kind of sharp leather note that could frizz your hair, however. And I certainly have never thought it smelled in any way like crotches, or old lady, or mustiness at all. Not at all.

I agree it is a little dark, but it's not to the point of goth. I detect just a touch of smokiness, too, which takes this potion to the height of perfection.

This is pure opulence in a bottle, very comforting and inspiring. Perfect for cuddling with my sweet hubby next to the fireplace on a cold or windy night! Or ANY kind of night! I love, love, LOVE this.

Thanks Katie Puckrik! YOU ARE THE BEST!!

Nice powdery scent along the lines of being kind of like Interlude by Frances Denny but not the same either. But very powdery.

Ancient, dark, dusty and exotic...you can love it or hate it. It does not matter: this fragrance is like La Habana at night, you can even smell the salt of the Caribbean...It is scary but at the same time so fresh and unbelievably beautiful. I cannot wait to try the new release.

Like Samsara, only I don't like Samsara! This is more powdery and sweet. Samsara is a copy of this but more harsh and in your face with that oriental kick. Habanita is softer and more feminine.

The word I would use to describe Habanita is 'sensual'

Wait a good half hour before you can even judge this perfume.

When i looked through my small but growing collection of scents to see what i was missing , i realised id never tested any "Leather" scents.

I have sat down with a sample of Habanita , plus Cabochard and Bandit. So 3 legendary leathers were mine for testing ( Thanks to a kind member on here!) Out of the 3 , this is my favorite.

Habanita is wearable for me - This will be my FB leather ! The vanilla is what makes this the winner of the 3. Im not a super Vanilla freak , and I like the smell of leather a LOT , especially my fine Italian leather gloves. What i don't like is the smell of a manky old leather jacket that belongs to a chain smoker ( Hello Cabochard and Bandit!).

Habinita has a much more refined leather note IMO. When mixed with the sweet touch of vanilla and fruit it makes it so much more accessible to someone like me who is sometimes overwhelmed by very bitter or dry frags. Bearing in mind i came of perfume wearing age in the bland unisex "Clean" aquatic CK1 loving 90s! As we all know , perfumes have got sweeter ever since and i crave trying anything and everything that's "Different" from the candy floss standard. Some vintages i like , but quite a few smell old /musty/dusty/bad. THIS ISNT ONE OF THEM IN MY OPINION.


Just the right balance of dry bitter notes , and a little sweetness to stop it going into "Bitter" territory. Good stuff !!


PS - On the subject of Cabochard and Bandit - Although i'm very glad i got to try these scents , there not for me. They both have a strong whiff of Chain smoker. No offence meant to there fans, it could be my skin chemistry