Molinard is a French perfume house founded in Grasse in 1849 by Hyacinthe Molinard, and it is one of the very few historic perfumeries in the world that has never been sold to a conglomerate. Five generations of the founding family have run the business continuously from the same Route de Cannes address in Grasse, Provence. Its 1921 creation, Habanita, is widely cited as one of the earliest oriental perfumes marketed to women — and it was released four years before Guerlain's Shalimar.

If you collect vintage fragrance, Molinard matters for a simple reason: it is the Grasse house that stayed in family hands while Galimard, Fragonard and almost everyone else passed through new ownership. That continuity is why old Molinard flacons — Lalique, Baccarat and Julien Viard among them — still turn up in estate collections, and why the house's back catalogue reads like a timeline of French perfumery itself.

What Is Molinard Perfume?

Molinard (Maison Molinard) is an independent, family-owned perfumery based in Grasse, the Provençal town that has been Europe's centre of perfume production since the 17th century. The house was established in 1849 when Hyacinthe Molinard opened a shop selling eaux de toilette and apothecary elixirs on the Route de Cannes.

The early business distilled floral waters — rose, orange blossom and lavender — and sold them to the British and Russian aristocracy who wintered on the French Riviera. Queen Victoria was a regular client during her stays in the 1860s, an endorsement that carried the house into European high society. Molinard still operates from its original distillery site, whose building was designed by Gustave Eiffel — the same engineer behind the Paris tower.

Unlike its neighbours, Molinard has remained 100% in the founding family. The generations ran Hyacinthe, Justin, Eugène, Bernard and Jean-Pierre Molinard; today the house is led by Célia, Charlotte and Romain Molinard, with Célia Lerouge-Bénard — the fifth generation and the first woman to head the house — shaping its creative direction since 2010.

Why Habanita (1921) Changed Perfume History

Habanita is the reason collectors know the name Molinard. It began life as something far more unusual than a personal fragrance:

• It was a cigarette perfume. In the 1920s, smoking was a social ritual, and Molinard created Habanita so women could scent their cigarettes. The original presentation included a glass rod for applying the scent to tobacco.
• It was the first women's perfume to use vetiver — a root from India previously reserved for men's fragrances.
• It predates Shalimar by four years. Habanita (1921) arrived before Guerlain's Shalimar (1925), and is widely cited as the first oriental perfume for women in French perfumery.
• Its bottle is an Art Deco icon. René Lalique designed the flacon at his Wingen-sur-Moder crystal works; the low relief of nude bathers has become one of the most recognisable perfume bottles of the era.
• It never stopped production. Habanita has been made continuously since 1921 — over a century — which is a rarity in French perfumery.

Molinard followed Habanita with a string of firsts. 1925 brought Habanita Concreta, the first solid perfume. By 1929 the scent had been extended into an eau de cologne, an eau de toilette, a lotion and a powder. House archives also credit the 1920s–30s flacons to Baccarat and Julien Viard alongside Lalique.

Top Molinard Perfumes Every Collector Should Know

1. Habanita (1921) — the landmark oriental; raspberry, orange blossom and peach over heliotrope, orris, jasmine and rose, resting on amber, vanilla, vetiver, patchouli and musk. The reference bottle is René Lalique's.
2. Habanita Concreta (1925) — the first solid perfume in commercial history, sold in a compact format decades before solid scents became a modern trend.
3. Îles d'Or (1933) — a floral oriental from the house's golden age, when Grasse houses competed on rare raw materials.
4. Molinard de Molinard (1979) — the house's self-titled signature: a floral-green composition with galbanum, bergamot, blackcurrant bud, French cistus and tagetes at the top; narcissus, frankincense, Grasse jasmine, Rosa centifolia and ylang-ylang in the heart; amber, patchouli and vetiver in the base. It is the most classic Molinard to buy today, and it wears the house's Art Deco glass and gold-capped presentation.
5. Eau Fraîche (1995) — a hesperidic, cologne-style composition that shows the house's distillation roots.
6. Les Éléments (2007) — a four-part thematic series (Air, Eau, Feu, Terre) that introduced Olfactory directions to the modern Molinard catalogue.
7. Habanita L'Esprit (2018) — a lighter, powdery reinterpretation of the 1921 original, released alongside the house's century celebrations.

How to Authenticate a Vintage Molinard Bottle

Because Molinard has outlived almost every contemporary Grasse house without ever being sold, its bottles appear in every era of packaging. These are the checks collectors use:

• Read the origin line. Genuine Molinard glass and boxes carry PARIS – GRASSE (sometimes "Grasse – Paris"). Grasse is the historic manufacturing address; anything else is a red flag.
• Check the strength marking. French-market bottles state the alcohol strength on the box, for example 85% VOL. together with both metric and imperial volumes — "e 50 ml" and "1.68 FL.OZ." This dual marking is typical of the house's European export cartons.
• Look at the figural glass. Molinard's signature flacons are moulded, not decorated: embossed draped figures on Molinard de Molinard, and the low-relief nude bathers of the Lalique Habanita. Printed-on artwork instead of moulded relief means it is not the classic bottle.
• Check the atomiser wording. 1970s–80s European flacons are marked Vaporisateur spray; earlier ones are splash bottles marked simply Eau de Toilette or Parfum.
• Trust the cap, not the label. Real Molinard caps are heavy metal or moulded glass with scalloped or ribbed bands that match the box artwork. Plastic caps with printed logos belong to much later mass-market runs.

Molinard vs Galimard vs Fragonard: The Grasse Triangle

House	Founded	Ownership	Signature
Molinard	1849	Family-owned, 5 generations	Habanita (1921)
Galimard	1747	Changed hands several times	Grasse colognes
Fragonard	1926	Largest of the three	Billet Doux, Muguet
Caron	1904	Paris house, still independent	Narcisse Noir, Tabac Blond

All four sit in the same European tradition — Grasse raw materials, Paris distribution, Art Deco glass — which is why collectors of one house usually collect the others. See our guides to Fragonard, Caron and Lalique for the wider context.

Frequently Asked Questions About Molinard

Is Molinard still family-owned?

Yes. Molinard has been owned and run by the founding family since 1849 — five generations, with no conglomerate takeover and no fashion-house licensing deal. Today Célia, Charlotte and Romain Molinard represent the fifth generation. This independence places Molinard alongside Caron (1904) in a very small group of French houses that were never absorbed by a larger group.

Is Habanita discontinued?

No — Habanita has been in continuous production since 1921 and has passed its centenary. What makes older bottles collectible is not discontinuation but the packaging: Lalique and Baccarat flacons, the 1929 eau de cologne and powder formats, and the 1925 solid Habanita Concreta are long out of production, so they only circulate on the secondary market.

What does Molinard de Molinard smell like?

Molinard de Molinard (1979) is a floral-green fragrance. Expect galbanum, bergamot, blackcurrant bud, French cistus and tagetes opening onto a heart of narcissus, frankincense, Grasse jasmine, Rosa centifolia and ylang-ylang, drying down to amber, patchouli and vetiver. It reads as classic French perfumery rather than a modern sweet floral — closer in spirit to the 1970s chypre-and-green era than to today's gourmands.

Where can collectors buy vintage Molinard perfume?

Molinard has always been distributed selectively rather than through mass-market beauty counters, so vintage bottles are usually found through estate sales, specialist perfume auctions and independent vintage fragrance dealers. TrendyGround stocks rare and discontinued Molinard bottles sourced from estate collections — you can browse the current arrival in our Molinard collection.

Related reading: Fragonard · Caron · Lalique · Jean Patou · Guerlain