"My Own Private Classic" by My blue hour

Habanita (by Molinard) by Sophie Normand, from My blue hour

I could have talked about L'Heure Bleue, the single most beautiful perfume to my nose, but I’ve already talked about it so much on my blog... So I chose Habanita, which I like almost as much. It is above all, the one that introduced me to the world of perfume, the fetishistic fragrance from my teenage years, my first love, you could say. I fell back in love with it about a year ago, and the feeling is as strong as ever. The only difference is that I wouldn’t wear it as often now as I used to.

I still sometimes have flashbacks to the day I smelled Habanita for the first time, in a museum in Grasse when I was just 13. It was a true olfactory shock, a revelation. I had always been sensitive to the world of fragrance, but nothing had ever grabbed me like that before. It became MY smell, my olfactory signature, it was like an addiction.
In fact, it is what made me love oriental and powdery perfumes later on, and everything vanilla-inflected… in any case, I never realized I liked vanilla until the day I smelled Habanita for the first time. Since then, I’m always testing body lotions and shower gels, looking for that same dark, woodsy, sensual and sophisticated vanilla that you notice in Habanita.

Among other things, it’s probably the vanilla / vetiver accord, which shows up differently on different types of skin, that grants the perfume that dimension. I’ve noticed that vetiver stands out on men’s skin, while the vanilla is more dominant on women. But it’s not a sickly-sweet or “girly" vanilla. No, it’s a stunning, bewitching vanilla, a bit woody, with a touch of tobacco even… and quite complex, since it’s hardly a single-flower scent, quite the contrary. That’s what’s so fascinating about this fragrance, despite its long-lasting ambry, vanilla and woody base: you can still tell that it has a rich and complex olfactory pyramid.
Yet Habanita’s opening is slightly sour, not always terribly enjoyable. Probably because of the lemony top note, alongside galbanum and bergamot, which is associated with orange blossom. But once the first few minutes – up to a quarter of an hour even – have gone by, a unique, dense scent, one with an immediately noticeable sensuality, an oriental touch, comes through the floral heart. While you can clearly smell jasmine and ylang-ylang, Habanita’s composition also includes rose. But cedar grants a woody note, that heralds the fragrance’s ambry-tobacco notes. Then vetiver appears in the mix, alongside the amber, benzoin and vanilla, as well as the musks. But Habanita wouldn’t be the same without the famous heliotrope that gives it the powdery fact that gives it its charm. You can also catch leathery accents, although their presence is more obvious in the extract version.

I’ve often read that women who love Habanita feel sexier when they wear it, and it’s true. Wearing Habanita means wrapping yourself in a sultry, licentious cloud; the fragrance plunges us straight into a hot, lascivious world. It reminds you of Havana, a Cuban atmosphere. Someone once told me I had an "aphrodisiac" scent, and saying that it doesn’t leave people indifferent is an understatement! It really is bewitching. What’s more, for an eau de toilette (which is the version you find most easily in stores) it’s extremely long-lasting. In fact, at one time, it was known as, “the longest-lasting scent in the world”. Designed in 1921, Habanita was originally intended for women who wanted to hide the smell of cigarettes, before being turned into a proper fragrance in 1924, which is probably why it’s so intense and long-lasting. You definitely don’t want to put too much on, though, otherwise it loses its charm and becomes overwhelming.
Unfortunately, I never got to try the original version, because it seems that it was reformulated in the 80s. But even since I first smelled it (more than 15 years ago now), I get the feeling it has changed a little bit. Not shockingly so, but it does seem like it may have been toned down a bit. Nevertheless, it’s still sublimely sultry – as long as you like orientals.

My future classic?

I hope that some day, a new scent will grab me the way Habanita did. Because isn’t that the point of fragrance? To transport you to another world, and to stimulate powerful emotions? So I fantasize about a ‘perfume of the future’ that would be able to take me on a voyage, surprise me, leave me an unforgettable imprint, an indelible memory.

About the author

Sophie Normand has confessed to being fascinated by fragrance since she was a teen. On My blue hour, the blog she created in 2008, Sophie shares her olfactory picks with other fragranistas. ‘I wanted to try expressing myself in a different style than for my job, as an on-line copywriter’ she explains. The blog’s name is meaningful of course, ‘I called it My blue hour, in reference to my favorite fragrance, L'Heure Bleue’.
See her blog : http://mybluehour.blogspot.com