Although each Guerlain perfume is unique, it is never written on a blank page but built upon a signature concept mentioned by Guerlain as "the Guerlinade", or "the Guerlain DNA". This is why perfume aficionados can become absolute Guerlain loyalists: if you fall for one Guerlain perfume, you have practically fallen for them all. They bear a family resemblance — there is something strangely familiar about a Guerlain perfume, despite it being new or different, something that connects it to all Guerlain perfumes across their variations. The Guerlinade is often understood as a specific accord of notes because nearly all Guerlain perfumes share certain valued aromas: bergamot, rose, jasmine, tonka bean, orris, gum resins, animal notes and vanilla. But, the Guerlinade is more than a fetishized set of odorous substances — it's also the way they are arranged. The Guerlinade includes a customary and cardinal principle that prescribes counterpoising, overdosing and simplicity when writing the perfume formula. With this principle, Guerlain aims to give the perfume a pronouncedly sensuous, emotive impact. Together, the fetishized blend, counterpoising, overdosing and simplicity make up the Guerlinade, that distinct je ne sais quoi which is very recognizable as "Guerlain".
Immortal pleasure. To fetishize means to be intensely devoted to a thing, and that's just how attached Guerlain is to the Guerlinade ingredients: bergamot to give the perfume a calming, uplifting zest, rose and jasmine to provide richness and spiciness, tonka bean for a sweet scent of marzipan, hay and tobacco, orris to add powder and elusive woody nostalgia, gum resins for balsamic smokiness, animal notes for carnal warmth, and finally vanilla, Guerlain's special turbid vanilla extract, the most fetishized of all Guerlain fetishes, for sensual depth. This blend simply smells good, at once earthy, piquant and toothsomely confectionary, textured like plush velvet, which is why Guerlain has stuck to it so faithfully. Guerlain's goal was always new ways of pleasure more than new ways of provocation, its genius to make hard edges round, thorny ideas easy and enjoyable, as though putting a beautifying filter over everything. Each Guerlain perfumer has doted on his own darlings: Jacques Guerlain particularly admired orris and balms, while Jean-Paul Guerlain often has declared his love of roses and jasmine. Bergamot, tonka bean and vanilla has been cherished by all ever since Aimé Guerlain's Jicky whose immortal and touching odour, preemptive of the oriental accord, started the fetishization of a few chosen ingredients. (Was Aimé Guerlain already aware that the smell of powder, vanilla and warm skin has a proved effect of well-being in humans?) The Guerlinade blend was further cultivated during the years of Jacques and Jean-Paul Guerlain, but it's not wrong to say that there's a little bit of Jicky in every Guerlain perfume. L'Heure Bleue, Shalimar, Vol de Nuit, Habit Rouge, Chamade and Héritage are all prominent, yet very different, examples of the use of the Guerlinade base blend which got so famous in itself that Guerlain named a perfume after it, Guerlinade, back in 1924.
Sweet dreams. Counterpoising is to juxtapose contrasting materials affecting each other with equal force. In perfumery, this gives rise to an abstract, three-dimensional sensation of free-flowing harmony that, like in music, acts like a nonverbal shortcut to complex associations, fantasies, moods and memories. Olfactory counterpoising prevents sensory boredom, paving the way for a long and uncertain drydown development that keeps the smeller engaged. The term "drydown", suggesting something that simply fades away, doesn't exactly do justice to how Guerlain constructs its perfumes. Once dabbed on the skin, a Guerlain seems to begin an invisible life of its own, like an intricate machinery working in the wings. A meticulously devised scheme sees to it that what you smell in the evening is not the same, but just as marvellous, as what you got in the morning. When Aimé Guerlain made Jicky, the first full-blown Guerlain harmony, he completely abandoned the practice of realistic flower imitations and instead counterpointed earthy-sweet and animal notes with fresh, spicy and herbal ones, in a composition as vast as a landscape. Jicky doesn't smell fresh nor sweet, animalic, herbal or spicy. It smells like Jicky, ambiguous, androgynous, indescribable, and it moves you. Since then, a central attribute of the Guerlinade has been to polarize the sinister with the sweet, the high-spirited with the heavy, the black with the bright, the merry with the melancholic, the innocent with the improper. Most often, one of the poles copies Jicky's smoky-resiny gourmand base. Shalimar is Guerlain's iconic demonstration of this discipline, a deep and uplifting balance of creamy vanillic balsams and astringent citrus. It would have been an unbearably hefty dessert without its big dose of bergamot as counterpoise but as it is, it smells like a divine exotic aphrodisiac, gratifying like no other. But, maybe the most sophisticated example is Mitsouko, illuminating the sombre moss-grown chypre base with peach, a revolutionary, mysterious synthesis never since matched in perfumery. Think also of L'Heure Bleue, the shy impression of its powdery veil that barely covers an irresistible and ensnaring magnet of musk, spices and sweet almond pastry. "A successful perfume is one whose scent corresponds to an initial dream," said Jacques Guerlain, and he shaped a harmony of notes that imparted a fragrance to the passing twilight hour.
Out of the ordinary. Probably the most salient property of the Guerlinade is that of overdosing, earning Guerlain a reputation as being a "risqué" perfume house. Although Guerlain's portfolio carries a few quiet perfumes, overdosing has become the Guerlinade's rule of thumb which is closely linked to the art of counterpoising, in that the latter opens up the possibility of the former: you can get away with something excessive and slightly indecent when you simultaneously do something that contradicts it. In Shalimar, Jacques Guerlain pushed Jicky's fresh-carnal balance to the extreme with gross doses of both vanilla and citrus. Bordering on capsizing good manners, yes, but only just equilibrated as to never suffocate. "My grandfather, Jacques, taught me to like vanilla because it adds something wonderfully erotic to a perfume. It turns Shalimar into an outrageously low-cut dress," Jean-Paul Guerlain commented. When he himself dared to saturate a masculine fragrance with vanilla, it was because he also used a good deal of orange and patchouli. The result was Habit Rouge, at once suave and rugged, and very characteristic. He introduced a new vibrant style and fuelled flowers and wood with abundant showers of acidulous fruits and zesty, bittersweet citrus oils from tangerine, lime, grapefruit and lemon leaves. His way often reached ambrosial levels, with Chamade (a dose of ravishing sensuality you wouldn't think possible in a green floral) and Nahéma (muscular red-pink-orange rose petals scattered juicily over an oriental abyss) as the highlights. The streamlined, anorexic minimalism in fashion during the 1990s was like a desert to Guerlain, whereas the later taste for gourmand scents has made the house sparkle more than ever. Thus came L'Instant de Guerlain, officially inspired by light both for her and for him, giving off a tremendously warm and copious radiance. Jean-Paul Guerlain created Spiritueuse Double Vanille, a double delicious calorie bomb of dark rum, macaroons and vanilla, as a modern celebration of all the best the Guerlinade has to offer.
Less is more. A Guerlain perfume is the olfactory equivalent of an oil painting with only a handful of colours, each one applied with contoured silhouette and a broad brush. The hundreds of underlying studies, that laboriously and little by little have been outlining the final essence of the image, are never visible. "Always stick to simple ideas and apply them scrupulously," Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain commanded from the beginning, and his successors adhered to the doctrine with short, straightforward and terse formulas. "My ancestors always thought that a perfume should come straight to the point and that adding lots of materials in small amounts doesn't do anything for the personality of the 'juice'," Jean-Paul Guerlain explains. Terseness could mean dullness, but combined with the art of overdosing, it is like opera: expressing a clear vision, a single important sentiment worked through in full Technicolor. Again, Shalimar is symptomatic, with its big chunks of ivory lemon and navy blue resin. But, also remember Jicky, the Guerlinade's point of departure: simply a thick layer of Provençal herbs mixed with sweet body smells, unmistakable and bold like an open book, with no beating around the bush other than a manifest humour. Or, picture the concision of Vol de Nuit, although it without doubt was a complicated challenge to create, it seems as if a handful of select materials were brought into a self-evident, appeasing form, freed of anything unnecessary. And think of the simple architecture of Samsara: its three cores of intensely pure jasmine, ylang-ylang and sandalwood, symmetrically arranged around an intoxicating focal axis. Most of Jean-Paul Guerlain's perfumes were years in the making, and he launched significantly fewer perfumes than his grandfather, but they were so much the more a bow to simplicity, with Vetiver (solid green) and Habit Rouge (solid red) as obvious examples.The Guerlinade was not conjured up or given beforehand as a fine philosophy but rather some sort of wisdom after the event, distilled and developed through years of trials and errors. Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain demanded simplicity, Aimé Guerlain fetishized the culinary sweetness and introduced counterpoising, Jacques Guerlain its overdosing, and Jean-Paul Guerlain added vibrancy. For better and for worse, a Guerlain composition can never be called contrived or ceremonious, and it's not surprising that perfumes by Guerlain are said to be invitingly smiling like a Babette's Feast, evoking the scents of sumptuous desserts, sweet pastry and elaborately spiced cuisine, midway between aristocratic etiquette and Mediterranean gourmandise.
With the creation of the musky L'Instant Magic in 2007, Guerlain introduced an updated signature: The Muscinade. This name, playfully made up by artistic director Sylvaine Delacourte as a reference to the old Guerlinade, covers a blend of white musks and notes that are "very Guerlain", like precious wood, tonka bean, bergamot and rose. The musks give a soft, warm moistness to the perfume. Idylle is the newest incarnation of this style.
Out of the Guerlinade closet (American magazine advertisement from 1968). The Guerlinade is the scaffold in the ambiguous and profound art of Guerlain, steadily walking the thin line that separates the feminine from the masculine. Men will wear Jicky, Mitsouko and Shalimar, women adore Habit Rouge, Vetiver and Héritage.
The word perfume used today derives from the Latin "per fumum", meaning "through smoke", denoting a combustion of aromatic woods and resins during sacrifices as a means to counteract the offensive odours of burning flesh. Perfumery, or perfume making, began in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt but was developed and further refined by the Romans and Persians. The number of perfumes in the world and the variety of their characteristic fragrance notes has increased tremendously over the years, and therefore it has been decided to divide perfumes into big thematic olfactory families. In reality, of course, these "families" are only metaphorical constructions made to capture the chaotic world of fragrances. A perfume creator composes a story around a central theme just as a writer would, and that theme will determine the olfactory family of the perfume.
Citrus
This group includes the first cologne, Kölnisch Wasser, a combination of essential oils from citrus fruits such as bergamot, lemons and tangerines, enhanced with other products from the orange tree. All fresh colognes for men and women can be found in this category.
Floral (soliflora, floral bouquet, green floral, aldehyde floral, and woody fruity floral)
This is the largest perfume family and contains the "soliflores" — perfumes defined by the scent of one main flower — as well as all other flowery bouquets and perfumes with dominant flowery accords. Some men's perfumes are also included.
Fougère (fern)
The perfumes in this primarily masculine category certainly do not smell like the fern plant for which the classification has been named. The fern has practically no smell. It was Houbigant's Fougère Royale from 1882, with its tender accord of the newly discovered sweet scent of coumarin combined with lavender, citrus and mossy notes, that gave its name to this group. Aimé Guerlain elaborated on it and kick-started modern perfumery with Jicky in 1889.
Chypre (floral aldehyde, fruity, green, and leathery)
It was the fame of François Coty's 1917 perfume Chypre that gave name to this whole family of fragrances, sharing a combination of oakmoss, labdanum, patchouli and bergamot. The perfumes in this group are striking, potent and persistent, inspired by the autumnal flora of the island of Cyprus (Chypre, in French). Actually, Guerlain's Chypre de Paris from 1909 was the first perfume to use this name, although it didn't have that dry spicy scent that we now recognize as a chypre. Many critics agree that Mitsouko from 1919 is still the perfumery's finest chypre.
Oriental (floral woody, floral spicy, sweet and semi-oriental floral)
This group comprises deep, sensual perfumes containing balsamic, powdery or animal notes such as vanilla, musk, precious wood, resins and spices. Guerlain's Shalimar from 1925 is often referred to as "the mother of orientals".
Woody
Comprised mostly of masculine fragrances. The woody scents are created largely from sandalwood and cedarwood essences. The top notes of these perfumes are fresh and citrusy. Drier types of woody scents also contain patchouli and vetiver, and the smell of the latter is so popular that most perfume houses have created a fragrance with vetiver as the dominant note. Guerlain's Vetiver from 1959 is still viewed as "the reference vetiver".
Leather
This, the smallest family of fragrances, contains only a dozen perfumes. It deals with a very special, very dry type of fragrance created from birch tar oil with its smoky, mineral scent combined with tobacco notes. The invention of the leather family is often ascribed to Caron's Tabac Blond from 1919. Djedi (1926) was Guerlain's answer, highly sought-after by collectors.
The search for the perfect mix (Jacques Guerlain in the laboratory). The central theme is only the perfume's "headline". Behind this lies a complex composition of fragrant ingredients that the perfumer creates in an often slow, difficult and painful proces of trying, sniffing, testing and retesting. A perfume is described in a musical metaphor as having three "levels of fragrant notes", making the harmonious accord of the scent. The notes unfold over time, with the immediate impression of the top note leading to the deeper middle notes, and the base notes gradually appearing as the final stage. These notes are created carefully with knowledge of the evaporation process of the different ingredients.
Top notes
These are the scents that are perceived immediately on application of a perfume. Top notes consist of small, light molecules that evaporate quickly. They form a person's initial impression of a perfume and thus are very important in the selling of a perfume. The scents of this note class are usually described as "fresh", "assertive" or "sharp". The compounds that contribute to top notes are strong in scent, very volatile, and evaporate quickly. Citrus scents are common top notes. Also called the head notes.
Middle notes
The middle notes make the scent that emerges after the top notes dissipate. The middle note compounds form the "heart" or main body of a perfume and act to mask the often unpleasant initial impression of base notes, which become more pleasant with time. Not surprisingly, the scent of middle note compounds is usually more mellow and "rounded". Scents from this note class appear anywhere from two minutes to one hour after the application of a perfume. Lavender and rose are typical middle notes. Also called the heart notes.
Base notes
The base notes appear after the departure of the middle notes. The base and middle notes together are the central theme of a perfume. Base notes bring depth and solidity to a perfume. Compounds of this class are often the fixatives used to hold and boost the strength of the lighter top and middle notes. Consisting of large, heavy molecules that evaporate slowly, compounds of this class of scents are typically rich and "deep" and are usually not perceived until 30 minutes after the application of the perfume or during the period of perfume drydown. Some base notes can still be detectable over twenty-four hours after application, particularly the animal and resinous notes.
The main ingredient in any fragrance is an alcoholic water solution, in which the notes are suspended evenly, to keep the scent potent. After this, the percentage of perfume relative to the water will determine its strength and status.
Parfum has 15-40 percent scent concentration and lasts between 5 and 7 hours.
Eau de Parfum (EdP/PdT) has 10-20 percent scent concentration and lasts approximately 4 hours.
Eau de Toilette (EdT) has 8-10 percent scent concentration and lasts approximately 3 hours. It's worth mentioning that "toilette" doesn't refer to a toilet but is diminutive of the French word "toile", meaning a small cloth that was common to carry around lightly scented.
Eau de Cologne (EdC) has 3-5 percent scent concentration and lasts between 1 and 2 hours.
Some fragrances with the same product name but having a different concentration name may not only differ in their dilutions, but actually use different perfume oil mixtures altogether. For instance, in order to make the Eau de Parfum version of a fragrance stronger and richer than its Eau de Toilette, the oil may be "tweaked" to contain proportionally more base notes or fewer top notes, or even different notes. An example of the latter would be Guerlain's Habit Rouge, its Eau de Parfum adding agarwood to anchor the base of the scent even deeper.
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