Sophie Labbé: Fragrances That Begin with Words, Creativity That Returns to Nature

“Before I begin making a perfume, I always tell myself its story. I need to put it into words.”

Sophie Labbé, from an interview in ParfumPlus magazine.

Her birth year is given as 1964. She grew up in Charente-Maritime in western France.

A Life in Perfumery

Vineyards and the Paris Métro

Sophie Labbé’s father produced wine in western France. The autumn grape harvest, damp soil, cool wine cellars. At the Atlantic coast, there were sea breezes, pines, and the smell of immortelle flowering in the dunes.

In a 2025 interview with The Fragrance Foundation France, she recalled the dahlias in her maternal grandparents’ garden. Although the flowers themselves have no scent, their stems have a green smell reminiscent of angelica. Her paternal grandparents’ garden was associated with the scent of wisteria.

Labbé’s relationship with nature is evident in how she remembers not just the names of flowers, but the smell of a broken stem and the air as it changes with the seasons.

Life in Paris, meanwhile, had other smells: bakeries, the Métro, and the various perfumes worn by passengers. Moving between country and city, she discovered contrasts she would never have encountered by staying in one place.

Asked about her first scent memory, Labbé named something more intimate than those landscapes.

“My mother’s neck. The powdery perfume lingering on her scarf mingled with the smell of her skin.”

Sophie Labbé, The Perfume Society.

Before she learned about fragrance as a material, scent was connected with people. Perhaps those memories also contain the origins of her later understanding of perfume as a story.

An Afternoon That Decided Her Future

There were no perfumers in her family. Labbé, who was studying chemistry and biology, discovered the profession through a magazine article about a perfumery school.

She was intrigued, but wanted to hear from a working perfumer before applying. That wish led her, in 1985, to meet Jean Kerléo, the in-house perfumer at Jean Patou.

In an interview with Fragroom, she recalled that day.

“I spent the whole afternoon with Jean Kerléo and realized how complex this profession was. I began to understand how the work was done, and thought: this is what I want to do.”

Sophie Labbé, Fragroom, 2022.

It was an afternoon of being shown a treasury of perfumes and discovering the work behind the glamorous bottles. Labbé subsequently enrolled at ISIPCA, the specialist school in Versailles.

She graduated at the top of her class in 1987. She then trained for six months at Givaudan’s perfumery school in Geneva and gained experience with the company.

Her student class was named after François Coty. In 2005, about twenty years after enrolling, she received the prize bearing that name. She has said that this feels less like coincidence than a connection between milestones in her life.

Giving Her Own Stories Form at IFF

In 1992, Labbé moved to IFF, International Flavors & Fragrances. It was a new beginning as a junior perfumer.

The fragrance she names as her first is G Gigli for Romeo Gigli (1994). It combined berries and red fruit with green notes and musk. Its bottle was shaped like Aladdin’s magic lamp.

Then, in 1996, Givenchy’s Organza became a major success. It brought widespread recognition to her way of making perfume from words and memories of flowers.

Over the twenty-seven years that followed, she also collaborated with Carlos Benaïm, Sophia Grojsman, Dominique Ropion, and others. Time spent thinking things through alone and time exchanging views with others both expanded the scope of her work.

In 2005, she became the first woman to receive the Prix François Coty. In 2021, she also joined its jury, expanding her role from having her own creations assessed to watching over the next generation of creative work.

2019: A New Palette of Materials

In 2019, Labbé moved to Firmenich as a principal perfumer. Following the corporate merger in 2023, she has worked in dsm-firmenich’s fine-fragrance division in Paris.

One thing she looked forward to in this move was discovering materials she had previously been unable to use. She also explained that the company’s approach to environmental and social responsibility and creative innovation had moved her.

One example is Clearwood, a material made using fermentation technology. It recalls patchouli while also having a lightness. Labbé used it in Versace’s Dylan Turquoise (2020).

Even after years of experience, new materials begin new stories. That may explain why she described the palette after her move as being like a Christmas present.

Creative Philosophy: First, Put It into Words

Materials as Words, Accords as Sentences

Before making a scent, Labbé turns to a notebook. She first writes down the words, emotions, and technical expressions that come to mind.

For mimosa, that might mean nuances of yellow, the texture of pollen, and which flowers to pair it with. She makes these into a story, including contrasts of color and smell. The opening quotation refers to this specific habit.

In a 2025 interview with ALL-I-C, she explained the relationship between perfume and novels this way.

“Materials are like words, and accords are like sentences. A perfume is a story with a beginning and an end. What is wonderful is that perfumes and novels stay with you all the time, even when you are not reading them or wearing them.”

Sophie Labbé, ALL-I-C, 2025.

From the moment a perfume is applied to the last lingering scent, she thinks of its changing impressions over time as the unfolding of a story.

Intuition Alone Does Not Finish a Perfume

Poetic words, however, do not become a finished product on their own. Labbé describes the reality of creation as follows.

“People tend to think that we imagine fragrances in our dreams, but in fact it is a combination of intuition and rational judgment. Making a perfume requires many modifications and countless rounds of trial and error, from which we select only the best results.”

Sophie Labbé, Fragroom, 2022.

She told The Perfume Society that one fragrance takes from nine months to two or three years, and that she works on up to around ten at once, each at a different stage of development.

She says her formulas have become shorter with experience. Understanding how materials work together makes it easier to see what to retain and what to reduce. A strong impression is not the same thing as a large number of ingredients.

Starting from Nature and Combining It with New Molecules

In her 2025 interview with The Fragrance Foundation France, she spoke about the relationship between her work and nature.

“I think all my creations speak of this love of nature. Very often, I begin with an idea from a natural material. That is my first source of inspiration, and I combine it with molecules developed through research.”

Sophie Labbé, The Fragrance Foundation France, 2025.

For Labbé, loving natural materials and using synthetic fragrance ingredients are not opposites. She uses both, not to transfer nature unchanged into a bottle, but to convey through perfume what she has felt in nature.

One of her favorite materials is immortelle, which recalls the dunes of her childhood. Its scent combines curry-like spiciness with the sweetness of maple syrup. In LMR’s Vetivert Heart, she values the way its strong rooty and smoky facets are softened, revealing a brightness reminiscent of grapefruit.

She also likes the depth of a synthetic fragrance ingredient called Corps Truffe, which recalls the forest floor and truffles. Not just bright flowers, but also the deeper aspects of soil and woodland, are materials that sustain her work.

Signature Creations and Their Stories

Organza: Colette’s Gardenia

Organza was Labbé’s first major success. Its starting point included a description of gardenia in Colette’s small book Pour un herbier.

In ALL-I-C, she described her astonishment at that passage.

“She describes the milky, very creamy petals and subtly captures a mushroom-like scent. Gardenia has a very green smell that is rarely discussed. Colette was able to put it into words. The description was so realistic that I was captivated.”

Sophie Labbé, ALL-I-C, 2025.

When actually building the scent of gardenia, too, milky-smelling lactones are combined with crisp green elements. The writer’s prose resonated with the perfumer’s thinking about materials.

The fragrance’s theme was a goddess. She wanted to contain both a young woman’s freshness and a mature woman’s rich sensuality in one scent. Gardenia was chosen as a flower capable of expressing both. Nutmeg and cedarwood gave depth to the flowers.

Labbé has also expressed affection for the bottle, which evokes the female body. She says its curves were particularly memorable amid the restrained, androgynous designs of the 1990s.

Jasmin Noir: A Dark Background for White Flowers

Bvlgari’s Jasmin Noir (2008) was created jointly with Carlos Benaïm.

From a green impression and gardenia, it moves toward jasmine sambac and almond. Licorice, tonka, and woody scents surround those white flowers with a dark background.

Rather than simply presenting jasmine’s beauty in a bright light, its contrasts of flowers and woods, freshness and depth create an unforgettable outline.

Asked what successful fragrances have in common, Labbé named memorability, a strong identity, and the emotions they bring to people. But she added that there is no recipe for success. Even after an established career, the reception of the next creation is not predetermined.

Parisienne: Giving an Inherited Rose Another Expression

Yves Saint Laurent’s Parisienne (2009) was a collaboration with Sophia Grojsman.

Against the backdrop of Paris (1983), created by Grojsman, it combined cranberry and blackberry with rose, violet, and peony, moving toward a more contemporary expression.

Patchouli, vetiver, and sandalwood also keep it from ending with sweet flowers alone. Reworking together a theme associated with a senior colleague’s masterpiece shows the interest of collaboration.

Signorina: Flowers and Italian Desserts

Salvatore Ferragamo’s Signorina had an initial release in late 2011, followed by its full rollout in 2012. Labbé created it jointly with Juliette Karagueuzoglou.

It layers the soft sweetness of panna cotta over jasmine, rose, and peony. Rather than reproducing the pleasures of food directly, it makes sweetness connect with flowers.

The combination of an emblematic flower and a food element evoking Italy recurs throughout this series. Signorina Misteriosa (2016), for example, pairs orange blossom and tuberose with blackberry and milky sweetness. Each creation depicts a different personality.

Noir Kogane: A Broken Plate and Kintsugi

Armani Privé’s Noir Kogane was introduced over the period from late 2023 into 2024. Its bottle was inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi.

Labbé had a personal experience that echoed this idea. When unwrapping a Fornasetti plate she had received for Christmas, she dropped it.

“I could not throw the pieces away, so I put them in a frame, preserving the shape of the plate. While creating this fragrance for Armani, I realized I had been practicing my own kind of kintsugi.”

Sophie Labbé, ALL-I-C, 2025.

In the perfume, saffron, also called red gold, connects vetiver and incense. Rather than translating the technique of kintsugi literally into scent, the fragrance resonates with its idea of joining different things to make a new form.

Serpenti Metamorphosis: A Fragrance Story for an Exhibition Space

In 2021, Labbé contributed scent to Serpenti Metamorphosis, an exhibition by Bvlgari and media artist Refik Anadol.

“With the help of artificial intelligence, I transformed an enormous range of sensations and information from the rainforest into a fragrance. I scented the whole gallery, connecting the olfactory notes with Refik’s work.”

Sophie Labbé, Fragroom, 2022.

This does not mean that artificial intelligence alone was entrusted with composing the fragrance. Labbé explains that she also drew inspiration from looking at the images Anadol selected for the exhibition. It was a collaboration for an exhibition space, connecting images, information, and a perfumer’s interpretation.

L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme: Ocean Depths and Woody Scents

Issey Miyake’s L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme Eau de Parfum (2025) emerged from a creative encounter with photographer Alexis Rosenfeld, who leads the ocean-exploration project 1Ocean.

It layers the ocean’s shimmer and the deep texture of water with the bite of Sichuan pepper, fir balsam, and cedarwood. For Labbé, who has repeatedly put her native coastline into words, water was perhaps not a distant theme.

An interview with Labbé also describes a change in expression from Calone, which supported earlier aquatic scents, to Cascalone, which gives a stronger, more contemporary impression of water. It is a way of retelling remembered nature through new materials.

Reading Books and Growing a Garden

As a child, she read Marcel Pagnol’s family stories and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince. The landscapes of Provence, a rose, a fox, sand. For Labbé, the world of books, too, comes with smells.

During her time at ISIPCA, she was drawn to Guerlain’s Mitsouko on a friend’s mother, and enjoyed scenting her own shawls with it. She also names Hermès’s Bel Ami and Lancôme’s Poème as perfumes in which she senses a connection with literature.

In recent years, a favorite writer has been Aki Shimazaki, a Japanese Canadian who writes in French. Labbé is drawn to the way Shimazaki’s five-book cycles present one theme from different characters’ perspectives. Ito Ogawa’s Le Restaurant de l’amour retrouvé and La Papeterie Tsubaki also stimulate her creativity through descriptions of food and smells.

Gardening is another important part of her time. In her garden in Charente-Maritime, she grows flowers that attract bees.

She contributed a text on iris to botanist and landscape designer Giulio Giorgi’s Botanique Olfactive, a book exploring fifty-two plants through scent across the seasons. In spring, she repeatedly visits the Bagatelle gardens, observing how the smell changes with the color of the petals.

The iris root used in perfumery does not smell the same as the iris flowers blooming in a garden. Engaging with actual plants leads to discoveries that bottles of fragrance materials alone cannot provide.

By the Way…

• The first perfume she received as a gift was Cacharel’s Anaïs Anaïs. The first she bought herself was Guy Laroche’s J’ai Osé.
• Among perfumes she wishes she had created, she names Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir.
• Besides immortelle, she loves the smells of chocolate melting for a cake, spring lilac and lily of the valley, tea leaves drying in a Sri Lankan tea factory, and frangipani in Bali. By contrast, the smell of a tannery she visited while traveling was an unforgettable unpleasant experience.
• As a comforting everyday scent, she names Borotalco, the Italian talcum powder. She says she also likes its almond-like softness and green container.
• Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring is another favorite. She imagines the story’s atmosphere and colors, and the pearl’s luster, as a fragrance.
• The three people she would like to invite to dinner are chef Thierry Marx, designer Issey Miyake, and writer Elena Ferrante: people with whom she would like to discuss creativity.
• If she were to compare herself to a perfume, it would combine the vitality of a fresh fragrance with the depth of a chypre. A principle she cherishes is believing in her dreams.

Fragrance Creations

Where an announcement or initial release differed from the full launch, both years are noted. Where collaboration is recorded, the other perfumers are also named.

References

• Парфюмер Софи Лаббе – биография и … – SpellSmell
• Once Upon A Time … With Sophie Labbé | ParfumPlus Magazine
• Entre deux univers, celui du vivant et celui du parfum, nez …
• Sophie Labbé Interview: “Fragrances Involve Intuition & Rationalisation”
• Noses Posts Archive – Page 3 of 3 – The Perfume Society
• Perfumer Sophie Labbé – Fine Fragrance – DSM-Firmenich
• Sophie Labbé, between words and perfumes
• Sophie LABBÉ – International Society of Perfumer-Creators
• Sophie Labbé – The Perfume Society
• Sophie Labbé Joins Firmenich Fine Fragrance
• Sophie Labbé Receives Prix François Coty – Bois de Jasmin
• The François Coty Prize rewards its 14th winner | Luxus Magazine
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• The Answers With… Sophie Labbé of Firmenich
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• Fragrantica — Sophie Labbé
• Parfumo — Sophie Labbé
• Reine de Saba — Ambre Saba by Sophie Labbé
• TRBusiness — Ferragamo’s Signorina scent enjoys “exceptional results”
• Persolaise — Armani Blanc Kogane and Noir Kogane reviews, 2024
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