Fanny Bal: Bold Character in Short Formulas

“The moment I discovered that fragrance could become a career, I became absorbed in making that dream come true.”

Fanny Bal, from an interview with Penhaligon’s

Born in Lyon, France, in October 1988.

Fanny Bal studied under Dominique Ropion and came to prominence with Frédéric Malle’s Sale Gosse. The splendor of white flowers, the dry roots of vetiver, and memories of childhood sweets are all materials that she can develop into perfumes with distinct contours. Underpinning those bold combinations was training in understanding ingredients one by one and continually asking why each belonged in the formula.

A Life in Perfumery

A Curiosity about Smells, Nurtured in Lyon

Bal grew up in a family with no connection to the fragrance industry. As a child, Bal recalls sniffing not only flowers, fruit, and spices but also household products, books, and clothes. Mixing water, sugar, vinegar, lemon juice, leaves, and petals, Bal made “medicines” to give to family and friends, attaching stories to them.

In a 2018 interview with ÇaFleureBon, Bal described spending the first 20 years in Lyon and still enjoying returning to the city where the family lives. A particularly memorable fragrance was Bal’s mother’s Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent.

“To me, it was always the finishing touch that gave my mother such elegance. I could not help secretly borrowing the bottle.”

Fanny Bal, from an interview with ÇaFleureBon

Fragrance was also part of what made Bal’s mother seem so distinctly herself. An interest in smells themselves grew into an interest in perfume’s power to shape impressions of people and their emotions.

Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which Bal read at around 15, is also described as a catalyst for thinking of perfumery as a profession. Once it became clear that a fascination with scent could lead to a career, that goal suddenly took concrete shape.

From Studying Chemistry to Ropion’s Laboratory

After studying chemistry for two years in a university technical program in Lyon, Bal attended the Université de Versailles and then the perfumery school ISIPCA. Alongside chemistry, the course introduced botany, the regulatory frameworks surrounding fragrances and cosmetics, and art, while providing training in distinguishing numerous natural and synthetic ingredients by smell.

In 2011, while still a student, Bal asked Dominique Ropion for advice on a perfume assignment. Ropion responded with an invitation to visit the laboratory after classes and smell ingredients. That encounter marked the beginning of Bal’s apprenticeship at IFF.

“I was starting from zero. I quickly realized that this profession is a school in humility.”

Fanny Bal, from remarks published by Fragrantica

Bal describes Ropion as a demanding perfectionist who was also kind and quick to laugh. Hoping to surprise this mentor, Bal was sustained by Ropion’s willingness to point out frankly when a direction was wrong.

Giving Every Ingredient in a Short Formula a Reason to Be There

More than a particular flower or fragrance style, what Bal inherited from this mentor was precision in handling ingredients.

“I learned rigor and precision in the way each ingredient is blended: the art of writing short formulas in which there is a clear reason for every ingredient. That is what gives a perfume its character.”

Fanny Bal, from remarks published by Fragrantica

Rather than listing ingredients alphabetically, Bal organizes them according to their properties, from the most volatile to the longest-lasting. This makes it possible to read a scent’s opening and its progression over time from the formula on paper.

In describing a personal style, Bal emphasizes a fragrance’s “readability.” The individual materials should neither assert themselves separately nor merge so completely that nothing can be distinguished; the central idea should come across. Sometimes that guiding idea emerges from an unexpected pairing of two materials.

Sale Gosse and an Early Vote of Confidence

Bal gained experience as Ropion’s assistant at IFF and gradually began releasing creations under Bal’s own name. An early turning point was working with Frédéric Malle, to whom Ropion had made an introduction.

Sale Gosse (2017) is a perfume themed around children, mischief, and a tribute to Jean Cocteau’s Les Enfants terribles. In an early interview, Bal recalled being entrusted by Malle with a perfume for children. The brand’s current description presents it as an eau de toilette for women and men, as friendly as a cuddly toy and as cheeky as bubble gum.

Receiving from Malle the same trust that Bal’s mentor had shown was an important experience for her while working on some of her earliest accepted creations. In January 2018, Bal won Fashion Group International’s Rising Star Award in the Beauty/Fragrance Corporate category.

Malle also attended the ceremony. Bal has said how proud it felt to be sitting beside Malle at the moment of the award. The anecdote about saying in the acceptance speech that nerves and emotion were making Bal’s French accent even stronger offers a glimpse of the young perfumer behind the work.

Collaborations for Givenchy, Then a Move to Givaudan

In 2018, Bal co-created Givenchy’s L’Interdit with Ropion and Anne Flipo. Their collaboration continued with Irresistible in 2020 and subsequent variations.

Alongside perfumes for major houses, Bal has worked with brands with differing visions, including Masque Milano, Les Bains Guerbois, and Zoologist. When a commission arrives, Bal first explores the brand’s shops and website to learn its history and forms of expression, then seeks a starting point for the fragrance through discussion with the evaluator.

In 2025, Bal moved to Givaudan and was welcomed as a senior perfumer at its Paris creative center, “46 Kléber.” A period of learning to handle ingredients gave way to one of expanding a personal creative world. Even with a change of company, the desire to pass on what Bal has learned remains.

In an interview with Penhaligon’s, Bal said the following about the profession of perfumery.

“When you learn from someone great, you begin to want to pass this wonderful art on to others one day.”

Fanny Bal, from an interview with Penhaligon’s

Natural Materials, Flowers That Resist Extraction, and Artificial Intelligence

Bal sees natural ingredients as little perfumes containing many components. Even within rose, the expression differs from one material to another, with green, fruity, or animalic nuances. Distinguishing those differences by smell can itself lead to the next idea.

Bal is also drawn to plants such as lily of the valley, freesia, gardenia, and honeysuckle, whose floral scents are difficult to extract directly as essential oils. Taking a natural smell as a model, Bal constructs a personal interpretation of a flower using other ingredients, likening the work to an Impressionist painter’s interpretation.

Among favorite materials, Bal names musks, Cashmeran, and orange blossom. The emphasis is on what an ingredient can do within a fragrance rather than whether it is natural or synthetic. In a 2020 interview with Ultra International, Bal also compared artificial intelligence to the navigation app Waze.

“I think it could become something like Waze for perfumers. Are drivers afraid of Waze?”

Fanny Bal, from an interview with Ultra International

Bal regards it as a tool for understanding new ingredients and combinations, connecting it with the work of ultimately choosing a scent.

Major Creations and Their Background

Sale Gosse: Bubble Gum Slips into a Cologne

The bright opening of neroli, bergamot, and petitgrain has a familiarity reminiscent of a classical eau de cologne. Into it, Bal slipped narcissus, rose, violet, and a sweet smell recalling France’s Malabar chewing gum.

The published note description lists musk as the base. A note list, however, is a public description of a scent, not its complete formula. The structure layers mischievous sweetness over a clean cologne, connecting Cocteau’s world with the freedom of childhood.

Hemingway: Vetiver from Three Angles

Masque Milano’s (homage to) Hemingway (2018) was entrusted to Bal by Alessandro Brun and Riccardo Tedeschi. Ropion’s expertise with vetiver is also described as one reason for their interest in Bal.

The dry woodiness of Haitian vetiver, the smoky, leathery facets of Javanese vetiver, and Vetiver Heart LMR, processed to reduce its earthy qualities: using these three materials differently created a depth that no single facet of vetiver could convey.

Descriptions of the fragrance state that vetiver materials make up at least half the formula. The sharpness of ginger and rhubarb in the top notes gives a fresh point of entry to the weight of the roots.

L’Interdit: White Flowers over a Dark Foundation

L’Interdit updates the fragrance of the same name from 1957 for a contemporary audience; it is not a direct reproduction of the earlier formula. In the 2018 creation, the white flowers of orange blossom, jasmine, and tuberose are supported by vetiver and patchouli.

The contrast between luminous flowers and dark woodiness also resonates with Bal’s approach of finding a fragrance’s central idea through combinations of materials. Equally essential to understanding the fragrance is its co-creation with Ropion and Flipo. Actor Rooney Mara appeared in its advertising.

Zero: Defining the Contours through Subtraction

Comme des Garçons’ Zero (2022) takes simplicity as its theme. The six principal materials presented are bergamot, Haitian vetiver, rose oxide, Cashmeran, cedarwood, and musk.

Reducing the number of materials is not the only purpose. The questions are what role the remaining materials play and how each reveals the others’ contours. The work reflects the attitude learned under Ropion: every ingredient needs a reason to be there.

Retrospect: A Fragrance Both Familiar and New

Merit’s first perfume, Retrospect (2024), was completed after two years and at least 200 trials. Conversations with the team began with childhood and the smells that evoked each person’s memories.

Aldehydes and orris, recalling the perfumes of a grandmother’s generation, were layered with pear and four types of vegan musk. Rather than reproducing a specific perfume of the past, the aim was a feeling of familiarity with something one should not know.

The fragrance concentration is about 30 percent. The work values the time over which a single fragrance changes on the skin, from a clean impression in the morning to a warm, sensual lingering scent at night. Bal described the completed formula as follows.

“The final formula achieves a delicate balance between vintage notes and a modern structure.”

Fanny Bal, from an interview with VITA Daily

Genièvre: Turning the Smell of a Moment into Perfume

For Headspace’s Genièvre (2022), Bal combined juniper, pink pepper, cedarwood, olibanum, and other materials. The composition brings coolness together with the warmth of resins.

The brand’s idea of translating the atmosphere or sensations of a scene into fragrance also connects with Bal’s work, which gives ingredients a tangible presence while linking them to memories and landscapes.

Incidentally…

Bal loves pastries, not only eating them but also making them. Precise measurements, understanding the properties of ingredients, and trial and error in search of balance all offer parallels with perfumery. It is an interesting aspect to bear in mind when considering creations such as Masque Milano’s Madeleine (2020), where pastries meet flowers.

While visiting the rose harvest in Isparta, Turkey, Bal recalls being overwhelmed by the smell in a room where flowers were gathered before distillation. The realization that behind a bottle of raw material lies the work of people carefully picking each flower also left a strong impression.

In addition to Ropion, Bal names Jean-Louis Sieuzac as an admired perfumer. Although nervous at their first meeting, Bal reportedly grew comfortable talking as Sieuzac spoke passionately about perfume and offered advice.

Bal tests fragrances in development on Bal’s own skin, because understanding how they change over a day is essential to judging their balance. For a night out, Bal has named Portrait of a Lady, a creation by Bal’s mentor, as a favorite.

Asked about a place to turn into a perfume, Bal imagined Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni.

“I would like to create a salty, musky perfume expressing the different effects of light in the desert. I want to capture a scent that depicts the blurred boundary between earth and sky.”

Fanny Bal, from an interview with Penhaligon’s

Defining the contours of ingredients clearly while also expressing a landscape with indistinct boundaries: the desire for both reveals the breadth of Bal’s perfumery.

Perfume Creations

Major creations are listed chronologically. A “—” in the co-perfumer column means that the reference sources do not name a co-creator.

References

• ÇaFleureBon — Young Perfumer Series: Fanny Bal of IFF (2018)
• Ultra International — Interview with Fanny Bal (2020)
• Penhaligon’s — Exploring the Desert: An Interview with Fanny Bal
• VITA Daily — Discover MERIT’s First-Ever Fragrance: A Q&A With Perfumer Fanny Bal (2024)
• Les Bains Guerbois — A snack break with Le Nez Fanny Bal
• Les Bains Guerbois — Fanny Bal, Parfumeur-Créateur
• Frédéric Malle — Fanny Bal
• Frédéric Malle — Sale Gosse
• Perfumer & Flavorist — FGI Hosts 21st Annual Rising Star Awards (2018)
• ÇaFleureBon — Masque Milano (homage to) Hemingway (2018)
• LuckyScent — Hemingway by Masque Milano
• La Vanguardia — A qué huele 007: el perfume más inesperado de Penhaligon’s
• Scentissime — Portrait of parfumer Fanny Bal
• Now Smell This — Comme des Garçons Zero (2022)
• Headspace — The Team
• Reine de Saba — Jardins de Saba
• Givaudan — Fanny Bal joins Givaudan (official announcement)
• Premium Beauty News — Givaudan drives fine fragrance growth through creativity (2025)
• Fragrantica — Fanny Bal
• Fragrantica — Olympéa Aqua
• Fragrantica — Irresistible Givenchy Very Floral