Who: Aurélien Guichard, master perfumer with Takasago. Aurélien is steeped in fragrance heritage, his family has been involved in the fragrance industry for many generations, providing both jasmine and rose flowers from the family base in Grasse for perfumers. He trained to be a perfumer – following his father’s footsteps – at Givaudan, and has created a host (176 and counting) of beautiful scented successes, including Guilty by Gucci, Aurelien by Carine Roitfeld, Elie Saab’s Elixir, Narciso by Narciso Rodriguez and 15 of the Edeniste fragrances. He now runs the family rose farm, and also launched his own range of eleven fragrances under the Matiere Premiere label.

We chatted to him at the launch of his latest creation for Elie Saab, Le Parfum Bridal, the house’s first bride-focussed perfume and a really elegant grown-up bride fragrance, one you’d be happy to adopt as a beautiful signature scent. We asked him about his inspiration.

Today I’m wearing on my left arm some ambroxan and oak moss that I sprayed on my skin to test yesterday, I’ve had a shower but it still smells. On the other hand I’m wearing Le Parfum Bridal by Elie Saab.

Whenever I work on a fragrance I pay very specific attention to the trail it leaves and the diffusion of the fragrance. To me, a modern perfume is a balance of the long lastingness of the trail but without being overwhelming. How do you balance a fragrance so it lasts and diffuses without overwhelming? That is my quest! It’s a sign of quality, a fragrance that lasts but doesn’t necessarily smell too sweet.

And also I can identify very clearly what people are wearing, it’s what I’m looking for with a fragrance, a link with that person.

With Le Parfum Bridal what I’ve been trying to reach is this impression of how remarkable women often are on their wedding day. It’s a fragrance where I’ve tried to capture the extraordinary, about how you leave behind an impression or a memory when you leave the room.

Also the texture and light of the fragrance are very ‘Elie Saab-like’. Speaking generally, the quest was to create some thing that was luminous, memorable and also extraordinary. I wanted to recreate the impression in the fragrance of when the extraordinary mixes with the rigorousness in craftsmanship, much like is done with Elie Saab couture wedding dresses, where those elements are key.

It’s why I chose to play with orange flower absolute and ylang ylang, to have a floral impression that explains the bride, with a petals impression, and ambroxan cx, with some Madagascan vanilla to add a creamy impression and bring volume to the petals.

I was creating the fragrance when I was getting married myself. I love when there is a connection with my work to my personal life, it all works better, it’s more concrete and stronger. So this fragrance is very much linked to the impression of my extraordinary wedding moment and the extraordinary woman that I married.

To me fragrance is not so much linked to an industry, but more to poetry and a way of life that’s about art but also about many other things. It’s about working hand-in-hand with people who are amazing, like at Elie Saab, and with people who are not experts in perfumes. The joy is creating for other people, from anywhere in the world, that don’t care about trends. It has to be a very spontaneous act of creation.

I strongly believe people should spray and use perfume exactly as they want, it’s very personal and I don’t think people should feel they have to listen to advice on how to do it.
If you are asking me my personal preferences, I love to spray the people around me because I’m a perfumer and I love to be surprised by what I’m creating. I love to wear other people’s work too, to learn and appreciate.

I always advise people to moisturise the skin to make the perfume last longer and secondly, to spray the pulse and where your skin is seen, as it helps with the diffusion. Also fragrance your clothes and dresses and hair! I love the fact that you can use fragrance just the way you want. The way you wear it is as important as the choice of fragrance.

I don’t scent my home because there are thousands of blotters in different spots around my house, because I keep them all.  I have one trick that I do, I leave one blotter with a scent on it somewhere in my house, then another one somewhere else, if I pass by and I notice the smell, then I know the diffusion is working successfully.

What I hate the most is scent that doesn’t smell much.

I like when theres a sense of obviousness and precision on a raw materiel, I must say that my taste for ingredients has changed over the years, so right now I love woods for women and quite often I like flowers for men, and all the resins – benzoin, etc that bring a different dimension to woods.