Patricia de Nicolaï

Her Career in Perfumery

When I began working, the senior boss at the company was my grandmother’s brother. He was not a perfumer, but he held an important position. He was not an artistic person, either. The first thing he said was, “You are a woman.” Then he continued, “To become a master perfumer, you need a long period of training and years of study under a mentor. You will probably get married and have children, and there may be times when you take a break from work.”

It is a typical story in many professions, even fashion, yet the mythology and the creative muses are women! At Guerlain, it was a very male-dominated society. The “family” members who worked for the house were all men; there was not one woman. And they liked to embellish things with their own love stories.

Patricia de Nicolaï

Early Life

Born into the Guerlain family in Paris on December 5, 1957, Patricia de Nicolaï is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Guerlain founder Pierre Guerlain and a niece of Jean-Paul Guerlain, more precisely his second cousin once removed, as the child of his second cousin. She grew up in a private mansion, an hôtel particulier, in the 17th arrondissement, sharing a roof with four generations of the Guerlain family.
As a child, she was profoundly struck by Shalimar (Jacques Guerlain, 1925), and she remembers her mother wearing Chamade (Jean-Paul Guerlain, 1969). Her mother also wore Shalimar, and Patricia says she woke to its scent every morning. Her mother was always the first to try Jean-Paul Guerlain’s new creations. Her father loved Eau Sauvage (Edmond Roudnitska, 1966), while her grandmother loved Après l’Ondée (Jacques Guerlain, 1906).

After passing her baccalauréat in 1976, Patricia wanted to pursue chemistry and went to a student guidance center in Paris. Among the schools she was shown, a page describing “chemistry connected with perfume” caught her eye. It was ISIPCA, founded in 1970 by Jacques Guerlain. She enrolled immediately, trained for three years to become a perfumer, and undertook many internships during the holidays. Graduating from ISIPCA in 1981, she decided to become a perfumer. She had not intended to work at Guerlain and went on to work for several fragrance companies as a junior perfumer.

After graduating from ISIPCA, I was looking for a job as a female junior perfumer, and it was not easy. I still remember that, as an intern, I was always offered placements in evaluation or sales, but never in creation.
Things have changed now. There are many women in creation, and they are recognized as perfumers. In fact, 80% of people who want to enter ISIPCA are women. So creative teams in today’s perfume business are largely female.

Patricia de Nicolaï

She first worked at Florasynth from 1982 to 1984, then at Quest from 1984 to 1989. At Quest, she worked as an assistant surrounded by renowned perfumers such as Maurice Roucel and Christopher Sheldrake. She is said to have helped Sophia Grojsman compose Lancôme’s Trésor around 1989, but since Grojsman was at IFF, the truth of this is uncertain.

In 1988, her perfume Number One won the International Young Perfumer Award from the Société Française des Parfumeurs (SFP), making her its first female winner. It was also a first for a woman. Convinced that she had chosen the right path, Patricia finally introduced her own house that same year.

Her husband is Jean-Louis Michau, whom she married during her years as a junior perfumer. They have one daughter, Edwige, and three sons: Jean-Baptiste, the eldest; Axel, the second; and Felix, the youngest.

Jean-Paul Guerlain was my coach. Thanks to him, I was able to train at some of the finest companies and places where you could truly learn the work of becoming a perfumer.

Patricia de Nicolaï

My uncle, Jean-Paul Guerlain, once told me, “Go and train. One day you will come to Guerlain.” But that day never came. In the 1980s, Guerlain was still entirely family-run, especially by men of the Guerlain bloodline. My grandmother’s brother, in particular, had never considered women or female members of the family entering the business. It had never happened before.
In the early 1980s, there were very few women perfumers. Things changed suddenly afterward, but I think I can say I was one of a handful of pioneers.

Patricia de Nicolaï

President of the Osmothèque Perfume Archive

In 2008, she was chosen as the second president of the Osmothèque, the perfume museum opposite ISIPCA. Founded as a nonprofit organization in 1990 through the efforts of its first president, Jean Kerléo, several perfumers including Jean-Claude Ellena, and organizations including the Société Française des Parfumeurs, the Osmothèque’s purpose is “collecting and cataloguing perfumes and recreating lost formulas.” Its president alone has the right to bring the historical archives back to life as perfumes. The collection numbers well over 4,000.

In July 2020, she handed over to perfumer Thomas Fontaine, the Osmothèque’s third president. She had said she wanted to continue contributing even after stepping down, so it is likely that she still remains on the team.

As head of the Osmothèque, I can smell the old perfumes that made history. Sometimes these old perfumes inspire me to create new, contemporary fragrances, because the present is always inspired by the past.

Patricia de Nicolaï

Because of IFRA restrictions, some great perfumes can never be sold again today. At the Osmothèque, we therefore try to make sure these treasures are not lost. However, the Osmothèque was not originally created as a place to smell “forbidden” perfumes. The initial aim was to bring together great perfumes from houses such as Coty and Millot that had been completely discontinued because of personal histories. We also decided to preserve high-quality perfumes that could no longer be sold because of restrictions, scarcity, or expensive fragrance materials. Examples include perfumes using natural musk, or Bourbon vetiver produced in a region where it can no longer be cultivated.

Patricia de Nicolaï

The Nicolaï Fragrance House

Official website: English; Japanese distributor (NOSE SHOP)

L’Artisan Parfumeur had been established 20 years before Nicolaï, and Annick Goutal 10 years before, so she was not the first to set up a small perfume company. But she was the first to open a perfumery laboratory in Paris, start her business there, and publicly assert her expertise as an artisan by putting a sign on the door stating her profession.

Rare Perfumes: Photography of Twenty-First-Century Perfume

The Founding of the House

If Guerlain had any sense at all, it would buy Parfums de Nicolaï’s perfumes, add Parfums de Nicolaï’s expertise, discard about 15 of its own outdated fragrances and a few of Parfums de Nicolaï’s, and hire its owner and creator, Patricia de Nicolaï, as its in-house perfumer.

Luca Turin, from Perfumes: The Guide

The impetus to establish the house came when Patricia, working as a young perfumer at a fragrance company, had two children and was pregnant with her third. Even she felt she wanted to take a break, but her husband Jean-Louis strongly opposed the idea, believing that once she did, her career as a perfumer would be over. It was then that he came up with the idea of starting their own business. It would allow her to balance her private life and her work as a professional perfumer.

In 1988, Patricia left Quest and, with her husband Jean-Louis Michau, founded her own house, “NICOLAÏ PARFUMEUR-CREATEUR.” In November 1989, they opened a shop at 69 Avenue Raymond Poincaré in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. The shop puts the workings of the perfume industry on open display, including the fragrance materials actually used, scales, and the perfumer’s organ, allowing visitors to see what happens behind the scenes.

The house then expanded its standalone boutiques internationally. In 2007, France honored Patricia as a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in recognition of the house she had created and her achievements as a perfumer.

In 2014, Patricia’s second son, Axel de Nicolaï, joined Nicolaï as general manager. His experience included L’Oréal’s cosmetics brand Lascad and the fragrance divisions of LVMH’s Givenchy, Kenzo, and Fendi, followed by the Middle Eastern division of Interparfums, which handles fragrances for Coach and Van Cleef & Arpels. Taking over the business from his father, Axel appears to be deeply involved not only in managing the brand but also in the perfumes created by his mother.

In truth, our house’s success is possible because genuine perfume lovers appreciate the quality and originality of our creations. Bloggers and perfume websites have a major influence on the development of scent culture among the public. They genuinely expand people’s knowledge by introducing all kinds of perfumes, not only the old classics. All of this motivates me to create high-level perfumes. It is what people want. Because of this passion, I resist making “easy-to-wear” perfumes or perfumes similar to others on the market.

Patricia de Nicolaï

What Matters to the House

I am influenced by my family. It was always great perfumes alone that drove Guerlain’s growth. That sillage, recognizable from far away: that is Guerlain. I wanted to take the same approach.

Patricia de Nicolaï

• Made in Patricia de Nicolaï’s own Parisian laboratory.
• 99.9% of the alcohol is naturally derived, from French beetroot.
• No preservatives.
• The proportion of natural fragrance materials in all its perfumes ranges from 81.3% to 99.1%.
• The perfume’s contents, or juice, undergo two weeks of maceration before alcohol is added, followed by another one to four weeks of maceration. Finally, chilling and filtration remove impurities.
• The perfume bottles are 50% recyclable.
• 100% made in France, with all components made by craftspeople at the Nicolaï factory in La Ferté-Saint-Aubin. The 100 ml bottles are finished by hand with a ribbon and a wax seal bearing the perfumer’s initials. The caps are made of Zamak, a zinc alloy, as a sustainable material.
• The boxes holding the bottles are made of reusable or recyclable PET and paperboard. They open like a book, reflecting the wish that customers should write their own story with their perfume.
• No consumer testing or marketing. “Passing trends have no place in our shops.”
• The candles, too, are all made by hand.