Aimé Guerlain: From Scents That Reproduce Flowers to Scents That Move Us

“If women wish to be different from others, each must have a scent of her own.”

Attributed to Aimé Guerlain by The Perfume Society, 2018

Born in 1834; died February 26, 1910.

In the history of Guerlain, one perfumer preserved the work inherited from his father while changing its meaning: Aimé Guerlain, the second generation.

His signature creation Jicky (1889) brought together the freshness of lavender, the sweetness of vanilla, and an animalic lingering impression. Its scent cannot be explained simply by imagining one flower. The skill of reproducing natural smells expanded into a means of expressing human emotions and individuality. Aimé’s name arises whenever that transformation is considered.

He was not a contemporary perfumer whose words survive in abundance. Even the opening quotation was attributed to Aimé by a later specialist publication. Yet following the surviving works and records reveals someone who did not see inheriting tradition and using new materials as opposites.

A History in Perfumery

From His Father’s Workshop to the Second Generation

Aimé’s father was Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain, the founder who opened a shop on rue de Rivoli in Paris in 1828. In 1853, he dedicated Eau de Cologne Impériale to Empress Eugénie and received the title of supplier to the imperial court.

Aimé was born into this family in 1834. A biography in the specialist perfume publication Auparfum records that he lost his mother at seven, was sent to study in Britain by his father, and learned perfumery from his father after returning. His studies in London would later become linked to a love story surrounding Jicky’s name.

As his father’s health declined, the business was handed over in 1862 to Aimé and his younger brother Gabriel. Aimé created fragrances, while Gabriel managed the business. Their father died in 1864, the year from which Guerlain’s official history also dates Aimé’s era.

What they inherited was more than a small workshop. It was a business with a shop on rue de la Paix, a factory and laboratory in Colombes, and customers across Europe. Maintaining the quality and trust built by his father, the second-generation perfumer sought his own scents.

For the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867, he introduced Bouquet de l’Exposition. From 1878 onward, he also participated in the system for judging exhibition entries. For Aimé, a perfumer’s work did not end at the laboratory door.

Creating Beyond the Scent of Flowers

In the second half of the nineteenth century, advances in synthetic fragrance materials expanded the perfumer’s palette. New possibilities entered the floral and citrus world Aimé had inherited.

Jicky, from 1889, gave shape to that potential. It was the year the Eiffel Tower was completed and the Universal Exhibition was held in Paris. Aimé himself also took part in judging at the exhibition.

Jicky cannot categorically be called “the world’s first perfume to use synthetic materials.” Earlier works had already used new ingredients, including Houbigant’s Fougère Royale (1882). What mattered was not choosing between natural and synthetic materials, but combining them to make a scent that could not be reduced to a single flower in nature.

“Jicky marks a fundamental break with traditional perfumery. It is the beginning of a shift from perfumery that imitated nature to perfumery that sought to evoke emotions rather than reproduce the scent of flowers.”

Jean-Claude Ellena, remarks in Michael Edwards’s Perfume Legends II quoted by Auparfum, 2022

Ellena’s assessment concerns more than the technical event of using new materials. The question of what a perfume expresses had itself changed.

Jicky: Where Lavender Meets Vanilla

The key to understanding Jicky’s outline is the contrast between aromatic lavender and sweet, warm vanilla. Bright citrus and herbs are layered with tonka-like sweetness and an animalic suggestion of civet. It is neither merely clean and cool nor simply sweet and sensual. Both coexist.

The synthetic materials repeatedly named in historical accounts are coumarin and vanillin. Some sources also mention linalool. However, accounts use both vanillin and ethyl vanillin, and do not always clearly distinguish later formulas. It is better not to treat the 1889 formula as definitively based on the three particular molecules discussed today.

Smithsonian Magazine explains that natural vanilla extract was expensive and limited in olfactory power. Aimé probably sought more than mere substitutes in synthetic materials. Their different strength and persistence offered new means of building a fragrance.

Two stories survive about the name. One makes it the nickname of a lover he met while studying in Britain; the other, that of his nephew Jacques Guerlain. Within the sources consulted here, no evidence was found that establishes either as historical fact. The story of a perfume for a lost love is appealing, but legend should be distinguished from biography.

Specialist publications also describe a history of reception in which Jicky first attracted men and later spread among women. The reasons it is difficult to understand solely as a men’s or women’s fragrance lie in both its scent and its history.

“The story of Jicky is the story of modern perfume. It brings together science, art, and perhaps a little romance.”

Jimmy Stamp, Smithsonian Magazine, “Jicky, the First Modern Perfume”, 2013

Jicky was also selected for The Art of Scent 1889–2012, held at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design in 2012–2013. The exhibition traced perfume as works of design and art. Although formulas have changed since the original, Aimé’s work remains a history that can still be considered through the experience of scent.

Eau de Cologne du Coq: A Classical Side Beyond Innovation

Alongside Jicky’s boldness, Aimé also made classical colognes, including Eau de Cologne du Coq in 1894.

Guerlain’s current official description presents a composition layering aromatic rosemary and lavender over citrus notes of lemon, bergamot, and orange. Its spring-morning lightness is expressed through the name of the rooster, a symbol of France.

“Reserved yet alluring, fresh and aromatic, stimulating and lively.”

Guerlain, official Eau de Cologne du Coq product description

A story also circulates that it was created for actor Benoît-Constant Coquelin, but Guerlain’s current official description does not mention this origin.

Seeking new expression does not mean abandoning classical forms. Eau de Cologne du Coq is another signature work that conveys this. As of the September 2026 check, it was still listed on Guerlain’s official French website.

Work Beyond Perfume and Passing the Craft to His Nephew

Aimé’s innovation extended beyond perfume. In 1870, he created a lipstick called Ne m’oubliez pas. Guerlain presents it as the first refillable lipstick. Housed in a sliding case, it also proposed a change in the very gesture of applying makeup.

On June 25, 1890, he helped establish the Chambre syndicale de la parfumerie française with Charles Gallet and became its first president. This is also confirmed in industrial-history materials published by the medical and pharmaceutical library of the University of Paris. They created a foundation for colleagues to consider issues shared by the perfume industry. In 1892, Aimé was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur.

In the laboratory, he also trained his nephew Jacques. Perfume Projects records that sixteen-year-old Jacques studied under his uncle. Aimé’s role was to pass the family’s skills on to the next generation’s creativity.

The family history also provides context for this succession. Auparfum’s biography, drawing on public records and perfume-history books, states that Aimé married in 1882 and had two children, Marguerite and Jean. It describes Jean’s sudden death in 1893 as a turning point in Aimé’s withdrawal from the forefront of the business. Some older perfume articles say that he was unmarried, but it is best not to explain his mentoring of his nephew on the premise that he had no children. The firm connection that remains is that Aimé was Jacques’s teacher.

The same care is needed with Guerlinade, the term for the olfactory thread characteristic of Guerlain. The signature woven from bergamot, rose, jasmine, iris, tonka bean, vanilla, and other notes can be traced back to Aimé’s Jicky. However, the official history credits Jacques with establishing Guerlinade. Rather than a fixed formula completed by Aimé alone, seeing it as something developed by successors into the house’s aesthetic makes both perfumers’ work clearer.

Aimé died on February 26, 1910. Jacques went on to create L’Heure Bleue, Mitsouko, and Shalimar. The possibilities opened by his uncle were passed on not as repetitions of the same scent, but as different works by the next generation.

Perfume Creations

Sources differ on the years and authors of some nineteenth-century works. The following includes fragrances attributed to Aimé and records of contemporary Guerlain creations. Because individual authorship cannot be established for the latter, this is noted in the co-perfumer column. “No record” does not prove sole authorship.

Eau de Guerlain is a later work by Jean-Paul Guerlain and is not included among Aimé’s surviving creations.

References

• Jessica Mignot, “Histoire de parfumeurs : Aimé Guerlain, tradition et rupture,” Auparfum, 2022
• Philip Goutell, “Aime Guerlain, Perfumer,” Perfume Projects
• “It’s still Happy Birthday, Guerlain!” The Perfume Society, 2018
• Jimmy Stamp, “Jicky, the First Modern Perfume,” Smithsonian Magazine, 2013
• “Guerlain Jicky ~ fragrance review,” Now Smell This, 2008
• “Professional organization,” BIU Santé / Université de Paris
• “La Maison Guerlain · Creators,” Guerlain
• “Eau de Cologne du Coq,” Guerlain
• “From chemistry to alchemy,” The Moodie Davitt Report, 2018
• “The Art of Scent,” Museum of Arts and Design
• “Liste des créations Guerlain classées par date de sortie,” supplementary chronology source
• “Eau de Rose Pompon,” Perfume Intelligence
• “List of Guerlain Perfumes,” Guerlain Perfumes Blog (supplementary catalogue source)