Habanita(1921)

Created by Molinard, Habanita began as a scent for cigarette papers, sold to be sprayed onto Cuban-style cigarettes sold in France, before becoming so popular in its own right that Molinard reformulated and relaunched it as a standalone perfume, one of the more unusual origin stories in 20th-century perfumery. The composition opens on orange blossom, bergamot, and peach, moves through a heart of jasmine, heliotrope, and orris, and closes on a rich base of vetiver, leather, amber, and musk, producing a warm, powdery-animalic oriental with real weight and sensuality. Its name derives from habanera, referencing the Cuban dance and, by extension, the Havana-style tobacco culture the original scented papers were designed for. Habanita is frequently cited as one of the boldest orientals of the early 1920s, released the same year as Chanel No. 5 and helping establish Molinard's reputation as a serious creative house beyond its earlier soliflore-focused output. It remains in production a century later, one of the relatively few fragrances from this founding era of modern perfumery still widely available.