Crusellas Company

Crusellas & Company traces its origin to a Havana soap and candle factory opened in 1863 by the Catalan brothers Juan and José Crusellas. Across the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries it grew into one of Cuba's most recognisable consumer-goods houses, with Jabón Candado soap and Kolonia 1800 cologne sold across the island and pioneering radio and television advertising. The Castro government nationalised the firm in 1960 and the family went into exile. The Crusellas name was re-established in Miami in 1967, where the company still produces its signature splash colognes — Kolonia 1800, Hiel de Vaca, Agua de Violetas — for the diaspora and for the broader Latin American and Caribbean market. The fragrances are inexpensive, high-volume, and cherished mostly for their place in Cuban memory rather than for trend chasing.