Mathilde Bijaoui: Seeing Color in Scent, Touching Memory

“Perfumery is a language. Composing a fragrance means translating an artistic view of life. It lies somewhere between pure creation, interpretation, and self-expression.”

Mathilde Bijaoui

Reading a fragrance formula and seeing colors.

The creative process Mathilde Bijaoui describes begins with that kind of sensation. Fragrance materials not only smell but also evoke colors and textures. A red-haired actress suggests an orange-colored fragrance; a bite of cake reveals a new combination. Rather than isolating smell, she links eating, listening to music, and watching a dancing body into a single sensory experience.

Like This, Myrrh & Tonka, and Gris Charnel: each has a different personality, yet all offer an intimacy that makes one want to surrender to them. Behind these creations is a perfumer who grew up in a family that valued the senses and learned from many experienced colleagues.

A Career in Perfumery

A Home Filled with Music and Cooking

Birth: An exact date of birth cannot be confirmed from publicly available material. ST. ROSE’s profile describes her as born in Paris and raised near Versailles.

Name: Mathilde Bijaoui.

Her father was a sound producer involved in music and audio production for advertising. Her mother inherited French domestic traditions, while her father’s side had a North African cultural background. Bijaoui’s senses developed in a home where these two worlds overlapped.

Her father was especially passionate about cooking. Visiting markets together meant encountering unfamiliar spices, new smells, and new tastes. Sensing things seems to have been a pleasure shared by the family. Bijaoui herself recalls that without her father’s passion for taste, she would not be who she is today.

Her parents later changed careers to make olive oil in southern France. Harvesting the fruit before it becomes too ripe and bringing out its particular flavor: Bijaoui sees parallels between their work and perfumery’s discernment of the individual character of raw materials.

Thirteen: Discovering That Fragrance Could Be a Profession

“I had not thought that perfumery could be a job. That day, it suddenly dawned on me: making perfume was a profession one could learn.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from her recollections published by ÇaFleureBon (2019)

According to her own account on ÇaFleureBon, the turning point came at 13, at a lecture at the fragrance conservatory Osmothèque, which she visited with her grandmother.

Once she learned there was a path between loving perfume and making it professionally, she began attending ISIPCA’s open day every year. Some later brand profiles give her age as 12, but her own 2019 account says 13. Either way, it was in her early teens that this career became a concrete goal.

After high school, she undertook a summer internship with Judith Gross. She then studied chemistry before entering the longed-for ISIPCA. At the time in France, scientific study was an important route into perfumery school.

Evaluating and Constructing

While studying, she worked as an evaluation trainee at the fragrance company IFF, supervised by Catherine Bru and Marie Martin. She describes these as two years in which she could learn not only about perfume but also body-care fragrances, markets, and connections with sales and marketing.

Her ambition, however, remained consistently to become a perfumer.

In the third year of training, Bru arranged for her to spend mornings in evaluation and afternoons training in perfumery with Antoine Lie. Isolating a fragrance’s central accords and finding the framework within a complex perfume: before glamorous creation came repeated practice in reading the structure of a scent.

After graduation, she remained in IFF’s laboratory, spending her days compounding formulas as an assistant. The enthusiasm of Laurent Bruyère, whom she met there, also left a strong impression. She says she still remembers Bruyère reciting the formula of Mugler’s Angel from memory.

She also names Isabelle Doyen as an unforgettable presence in her school classes. Her recollection of looking forward every week to lessons that introduced new materials conveys the pleasure of expanding knowledge for its own sake.

Materials and Colleagues Encountered at MANE

In her account of her career, Bijaoui says she joined MANE in 2004, aged 24. She spent approximately the first year and a half at its headquarters in Le Bar-sur-Loup, near Grasse.

There she encountered natural-material extraction technology and large-scale production equipment: the work of producing fragrance materials on the other side of her formulas. In Grasse, she also took part in a jasmine harvest for the first time. With her Mediterranean roots, she says she felt a particular affinity with the scent.

In Paris, collaboration with her senior colleague Karine Dubreuil, later Dubreuil-Sereni, became an important source of support.

“She encouraged me, taught me, and stimulated me. She was the first perfumer I worked with as a team.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from her recollections published by ÇaFleureBon (2019)

Together they created Cédrat for Roger & Gallet and fragrances for L’Occitane. For Mugler’s Womanity in 2010, Fabrice Pellegrin also joined the collaboration. While developing her own individuality, she accumulated experience in exploring new scents as part of a team.

In 2022, she joined MANE’s New York creative team. Current brand profiles also describe her as a New York-based perfumer.

Perfumery Philosophy: Reading Scent through Color and Texture

Like This: A Fragrance Born from Orange

“When I read a formula, I see colors. Materials evoke textures for me too. I have a very intimate relationship with raw materials.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from ST. ROSE’s profile (2024)

These words in ST. ROSE’s profile offer a way into understanding her fragrances. What she and the profiles describe is a synesthetic sensitivity linking smells, colors, and textures. Here, it is best understood not as a medical diagnosis but as her own description of her creative senses.

This sensitivity found vivid expression in État Libre d’Orange’s Tilda Swinton Like This.

When Bijaoui met actress Tilda Swinton, Swinton’s red hair and skin tone brought the color orange to mind. To turn that color into scent, Bijaoui assembled carrot, ginger, pumpkin, mandarin, orange blossom, and immortelle.

Immortelle is a flower suggesting hay, spices, and honeyed sweetness. The warmth of a kitchen baking pumpkin pie, or of coming home somewhere, overlapped the colors inspired by the actress’s appearance.

Brand founder Étienne de Swardt gave Bijaoui creative freedom before she had turned 30. Swinton, too, wanted more than a perfume merely adorned with her name: she wanted a scent conveying a place and state of mind meaningful to her. The name comes from a poem by Rumi, a poet she loves.

“She trusted me. She never interfered with the formula. … This was genuine perfumery.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from an interview with Grain de Musc (2011)

These are Bijaoui’s recollections on the perfume criticism blog Grain de Musc. Carefully receiving another person’s sensations while leaving decisions about the formula to the perfumer: Like This (2010) emerged from that relationship of trust. The following year, in 2011, it received the Specialist’s Prize from the Fragrance Foundation France.

Subtlety Is Not Determined by the Number of Materials

“Ideally, I like an accord to consist of a small number of principal materials and a strong idea.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from her recollections published by ÇaFleureBon (2019)

Bijaoui does not aim to make things appear complex. She seeks something seemingly simple yet sensual. The image she associates with this is Push, the stage work by Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant.

Her work is sometimes compared to that of a lacemaker. She herself does not seem to think the label fits entirely. Even so, she acknowledges a preference for precision and clearly defined work.

Even softness should not mean vague structure. A pleasant fragrance does not merely need to be made sweet. This organized way of thinking also runs through fragrances suggesting the warmth of grain or the security of childhood.

Eating as a Path to Creating Fragrance

“Food is one of my great sources of inspiration. Spices, vegetables, fruit, cakes, bread… Probably because I love eating so much.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from her recollections published by ÇaFleureBon (2019)

The curiosity about food inherited from her father remains central to her creativity.

She says she was drawn to the combination of passion fruit, orange, and creamy cheesecake in pastry chef Pierre Hermé’s Satine. After tasting chef Alain Passard’s pumpkin macaron, she considered a fragrance inspired by that impression.

Jo Malone London’s English Fields is another project in which this sensitivity came into play. For the 2018 collection themed around grains and fields of wheat, the brand’s Céline Roux entrusted Bijaoui with creating the scents. Combining the warmth of bread and grain with the brightness of flowers and greenery: the idea goes beyond simply reproducing the smell of sweets.

Major Creations and Their Backgrounds

Myrrh & Tonka: Softly Enveloping the Depth of Resin

Jo Malone London’s Myrrh & Tonka Cologne Intense combines the depth of resin with tonka’s enveloping warmth.

It was introduced as a new fragrance in late 2016, with a launch announced for January 2017. This accounts for sources giving either 2016 or 2017 as its year.

Although she draws inspiration from food, Bijaoui’s creations do not necessarily resemble food itself. Here, sweetness and warmth support the depth of resin, leading to an intimate texture that remains on the skin.

Gris Charnel: Even Gray Has Light and Shade

BDK Parfums’ Gris Charnel dates from 2019, while the more intense Gris Charnel Extrait dates from 2022.

The eau de parfum’s official notes list fig, black tea, cardamom, iris, vetiver, sandalwood, and tonka bean. Themed around Parisian urban sensuality, it offers nuances of gray rather than only floral brightness.

In her comments on the brand’s official page, Bijaoui explains the contrast between the powder-like brightness of iris and the resinous depth of cistus. The materials in a note pyramid do not necessarily form the same list as those a perfumer names when explaining structure. Her words reveal an approach of combining light and shade and shaping the trail with sandalwood, vetiver, and tonka.

Panettone and Frustration: Taking Appetite Further

Milano Fragranze’s Panettone (2021) takes Milan’s traditional Christmas cake as its subject.

Scents suggesting citrus peel, ginger, rum, immortelle, vanilla, and buckwheat. It is described as a composition constructing a scene around the cake, incorporating not just sweet dough but also fruit, alcohol, and the atmosphere before and after baking. This richness of scene may explain why ÇaFleureBon’s reviewer likened it to Christmas memories captured in a bottle.

État Libre d’Orange’s Frustration, by contrast, dates from 2022. It layers cinnamon, rum, and vanilla with notes suggesting vetiver and chestnut wood. Satisfying sweetness and the feeling of still wanting more: even that slightly unsettled relationship becomes material for a gourmand fragrance.

La Cérémonie de l’Encens: A Quiet Moment Inspired by Kōdō

For La Cérémonie de l’Encens, released by L’Artisan Parfumeur in 2025, the inspiration was Japan’s art of incense appreciation, kōdō.

“Kōdō expresses a delicate balance between spiritual awakening, inner purification, and deep calm.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from L’Artisan Parfumeur’s interview

These words describe the impression she received through kōdō. Rather than guaranteeing particular effects on mind or body, they can be read as the intention behind the work.

Bijaoui used three kinds of frankincense with different characteristics. She says she sought a short, simple, refined formula. A generous dose of cedar creates woody texture; a freshness suggesting cypress leaves provides balance, and vetiver adds earthy depth. Black pepper and elemi further bring out frankincense’s spicy and resinous facets.

L’Artisan Parfumeur is also a brand she had admired since her teens. From 16 to 20, she wore Mûre et Musc. She says it remains like Proust’s madeleine, bringing back times long past.

MANE’s Technology Expands the Imagination

One support for Bijaoui’s free-ranging ideas has been MANE’s proprietary extraction technology, Jungle Essence.

In a 2011 radio program, she explained that researchers’ development of new molecules and extraction technologies helps renew perfumery’s expressive possibilities. Womanity explored a combination of fig’s sweetness and a saltiness recalling caviar. She and MANE presented this as a new direction combining sweet and salty in fragrance.

The term new family here, however, was language used by the brand and perfumer to express a creative challenge. There is no need to conclude that this was the first salty fragrance in perfume history.

The work received the Perfumer’s Prize from the Fragrance Foundation France in 2011. Alongside Like This, it was one of MANE’s award-winning creations that year.

Jungle Essence has subsequently also been involved in Panettone’s rum and La Cérémonie de l’Encens’s black pepper and elemi. Technology is not opposed to sensitivity: it brings the colors and tastes in the mind closer to materials that can actually be used.

Incidentally…

One perfume Bijaoui says she wishes she had created is Cartier’s Déclaration. She explains that it brings together scents she loves, including cardamom, tea, and cedarwood.

A memory from a distant place is her first smell of frangipani flowers on Nosy Be in Madagascar. She says familiar cardamom and tea can transport her just as far. Unfamiliar places are not the only sources of inspiration.

As a teenager, she recorded songs in her father’s studio. She has also said that, had she not become a perfumer, she would have liked to sing and dance on the musical stage. She wants to pass on to her daughters the sensory curiosity she received from her parents. A photograph of taking her daughter to the 2018 olive harvest expressed that wish too.

Sharing Fragrance

“Using our sense of smell helps us reconnect with well-being. I believe strongly in that power of scent.”

Mathilde Bijaoui, from her recollections published by ÇaFleureBon (2019)

In a 2019 interview, she described conducting monthly olfactory workshops in a hospital for women with cancer as part of the activities of the cosmetics-industry women’s organization CEW. This is not a claim that fragrance can replace treatment. It means that she finds value in sensing, recalling memories, and sharing with others.

Becoming so intimate with materials that one sees colors, then transforming that intimacy into fragrances that reach someone’s memories and feelings: Mathilde Bijaoui’s work may be this kind of passing on of sensation.

Perfume Creations

The list focuses on major creations. Launch years may differ according to announcement date or market. A blank co-perfumer field does not necessarily guarantee sole authorship.

References

• ÇaFleureBon: Mathilde Bijaoui’s own recollections of her career, mentors, creations, creative work, and family (2019)
• ST. ROSE: A profile of Mathilde Bijaoui and her own words (2024)
• Grain de Musc: Creating Like This with Tilda Swinton (2011)
• L’Artisan Parfumeur: Interview with Mathilde Bijaoui
• MANE: Bijaoui’s radio interview (2011)
• MANE: Awards in two categories at the 2011 Fragrance Foundation France awards
• BDK Parfums: Official Gris Charnel information and the perfumer’s comments
• Free Yourself: Perfumers and their creations
• Parfumo: Mathilde Bijaoui’s creations
• Fragrantica: Mathilde Bijaoui’s creations
• Fragsi: Mathilde Bijaoui’s creations and career
• Noteboxd: Womanity co-perfumers
• Fragrantica: Panettone
• ÇaFleureBon: Panettone review (2021)
• Osmagora: The composition of Panettone
• ÇaFleureBon: Like This’s 2011 award
• Sandra’s Closet: Myrrh & Tonka’s late-2016 introduction and announcement of a January launch the following year
• ÇaFleureBon: Jasmine Sambac & Marigold launch announcement (2018)
• ELLE Belgium: This Is Us! and two boosters (2021)
• Now Smell This: La Cérémonie de l’Encens launch announcement (2025)
• Luckyscent: Perfumer profile
• Perfume Lounge: Perfumer profile
• Parfinity: List of creations
• Agoratopia: Perfumer profile
• Fumerie: Perfumer profile
• Video: Bijaoui and Ralf Schwieger introduce the creation of Numinous / Aether
• Video: L’Artisan Parfumeur’s La Cérémonie de l’Encens