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Sources of inspiration

I am often asked where a perfume comes from, its essence?

Before starting a perfume creation project, you must have a strong idea. Imagine the finished perfume in your head before you start working on it. It can come from your memory or from a shock, from an encounter with a person, from a trip, from an experience. The fragrance must first take shape in your head. The image then becomes fixed and starts to haunt me, to obsess me.

Following the inspiration, months or even years of work are necessary. It also takes a lot of patience to evaluate (between 30 and 600 tests) until you get what you had imagined at first. A perfume must correspond to the initial dream.

 

Let's take a look at some of my inspirations

  •  Nature

My first inspiration came from the South of France, exactly from my holiday garden, not far from Saint Tropez. I wanted to recreate the smell of mimosa flowers in a non-figurative way. It is important to know that mimosa in essential oil is very disappointing and does not resemble the smell of the flower at all, it is green, almost sulphurous, hard, aggressive and is far from the delicate smell of the small, fluffy and tender balls of the mimosa. The perfume born from this love of the South was Champs Elysées by Guerlain: balls of mimosa, coated in tender musks, with just a light wind stirring the branches.

 

  • My holiday memories

Helicriss, another portrait of my Musk Collection, was inspired by an everlasting flower. This flower, rarely used in perfumery, is a memory of the Corsican maquis and my holidays in Calvi. It was a starting point.

Another holiday memory is the smell of ylang-ylang that I wanted to transcribe in my perfume Lilylang, a third perfume of the Musk Collection. Memories of my holidays in the islands that made me travel: Bali, Reunion Island, Mauritius, Maldives. This is where I find the smell of exotic flowers mixed with the scent of the skin, the sun and the hot sand.

Thanks to Irène Farmachidi, for working with four hands (almost all my Musk Collection)! Another solar fragrance was created with Irene recently: Vanori from the Vanilla Collection.

At Guerlain I worked a lot with exotic solar notes: Mimosa Tiaré from Aquas Allegoria, Terracotta perfume etc.

 

 

  • Cocktails

In the perfume business, we enjoy the joys of life, like eating and drinking. The sense of smell and taste are very closely related. I am very curious by nature and I love to discover new sensory experiences, new places like restaurants and bars that inspire me.

L'Instant pour Homme by Guerlain was created after tasting the arak liqueur from Iran drowned in fresh water and ice cubes (fresh and aniseed-flavoured alcohol) that I wanted to graft onto a darker and more gourmand note of patchouli and dark chocolate. A cold and warm contrast (patchouli by nature already has a chocolate side). I have a thought for Béatrice Piquet who went to smell the perfume wisps in the sky. I got the idea for Guerlain Homme from one of my memories of Cuba, at the Bar Hemingway, where I discovered a cocktail that was still unknown in France, Mojito. I spoke about it to Thierry Wasser, who was at Firmenich at the time, and he knew about it. In a few tries, we managed to tame the lime, the mint and the rum to make a combination. It took longer to transform this accord into a perfume, and not just any perfume, a Guerlain perfume! With Delphine Jelk, thinking of the Brazilian cocktail, Caïpirinha, we developed Limon Verde in the Aqua Allegoria line.

 

  • Gourmandise

My Syrian friend Randa Hammami introduced me to a sublime Syrian cake made with orange blossom, honey and vanilla, a marshmallow that I have worked with a lot in my career (marshmallow = orange blossom + vanilla). In Angélique Noire in Exclusifs of Guerlain, I wanted to reconcile the irreconcilable, two opposing notes: the bitterness of angelica (which reminds me of the candied fruits of my childhood) and vanilla, the raw, the lively and the sweet: an olfactory big bang.

 

  • Material

Lace was the starting point for the work I did on Cruel Gardénia for Guerlain’s Exclusifs with Randa Hammami. Gardenia, rose and white musks, I wanted white flowers not worked in opulence as is often the case, but in airiness and lightness, a lace of flowers.

Orange blossom worked in naturalness and married to jasmine in Olyssia. I dreamt of a white suede, soft and tender like a pashmina, dressed with what I love most: powdery notes, iris, violet, heliotrope, and also vanilla, patchouli and immortelle, a light feminine leather that I created first for myself with Olivier Polge: my second perfume, Cuir Beluga.

 

  • My childhood

The soft baths of my childhood, the bubbles of soap, the smell of the bathroom where my mother collected her cosmetics, her lipstick, her rice powders, the smell of cleanliness mixed with the smell of beauty products gave birth to Dovana, a musky and tender perfume, like a cuddly toy you could sleep with. Anne Louise Gautier interpreted my memory very well.

Heure Bleue was the perfume of my life. In homage to this masterpiece, I wanted to take up its DNA (orange blossom, iris, heliotrope, violet). I wanted to overdose the violet already present in Heure Bleue, to make it electric, and to bring it a fruity touch: wild strawberry and the delicious scent of meteorite pearls. Insolence was born in collaboration with Maurice Roucel.
Florentina from the Musk Collection is in the same register. I overdosed two materials that I like a lot: vetiver and almond.

My mother used to burn Armenian paper in the house. I wanted to pay her a tribute by dressing this delicious scent of benzoin and spices with woods and resins: Bois d'Arménie in the Gurlain’s Exclusives created with Anick Menardo.

Osiris from the Orange Blossom Collection is a honeyed note of childhood, associated with sesame.

 

  • Reinterpretation of a classic

The Guerlinade, the signature of Guerlain perfumes, gave me the guideline for L'Instant de Guerlain. I established correspondences, I replaced the bergamot with the sunnier and smiling mandarin. Jasmine and rose were replaced by magnolia and the sunnier Sambac jasmine. The vanilla by the sunnier benzoin and finally the patchouli by the more luminous and supple sandalwood. As you can see, I wanted to breathe sunshine through the whole perfume pyramid and add a honey note, for its golden side. Thanks to Maurice Roucel!

 

  • Meetings

In the training courses I gave, every time I had the raw materials smelled, including musk. This white musk scent was always a huge success, all over the world. The enthusiasm of the consultants gave me the idea of creating a perfume with an overdose of musk, the overdose being one of the characteristics of Guerlain perfumes. I wanted a "musquinade" dressed in rose, almond and sandalwood: Instant Magic created with Randa Hammami.

The idea for Eau de Lit was inspired by a comment from a loyal Guerlain customer: “It's a shame you don't have a perfume to go to sleep with, to scent the sheets!” She was right, it was a beautiful idea!

I was a professional make-up artist before my career in perfumery, so colours are very important to me. I am very visual, it is my most open sensory channel. A perfume was born after watching the film Marie Antoinette by Sophia Coppola. The powdery pink colour came to me as a result of this film and also the idea of a cherry macaroon. I used this idea for a project in the Guerlain’s Exclusives: La Petite Robe Noire. The obvious thing was to add black notes (patchouli, liquorice, black tea, vanilla) to balance the pink colour. Thanks to Delphine Jelk.

 

  • Other inspirations
    • Monet's paintings inspired Jacques Guerlain to create L'Heure Bleue.
    • Ravel's Bolero symphony inspired the creation of Nahéma parfum by Jean Paul Guerlain.
    • The novel La Bataille inspired the creation of Mitsouko.
    • The novel Vol de Nuit inspired the perfume of the same name.
    • Jicky was the name of the young girl Aimé Guerlain fell in love with.

 

Sylvaine Delacourte perfumes

Discover Sylvaine Delacourte's brand with her Orange Blossom, Musk and Vanilla Collections. You can try them thanks to the Discovery Boxes (5 Eaux de Parfum x 2 ml) and rediscover these raw materials as you have never smelled them before.