Matiere Premiere

Essential Information

Founded: 2019
Founder: Aurélien Guichard
Official website: English

The Founding of the House

Matiere Premiere, which made its Japanese debut alongside Salon de Parfum in late October 2021, was founded by Aurélien Guichard, an eighth-generation perfumer in a long line of perfumers.
After graduating from perfumery school in 2003, Aurélien had always dreamed of becoming something the world had yet to see: a perfumer who owned a farm of fragrance plants and used them in his own perfumes. To realize that dream, he collaborated with many great perfumers at leading international companies, including Givaudan and Firmenich. Finally, in 2016, he established a farm of Centifolia roses and tuberose in his hometown of Grasse, the capital of perfume. He reportedly devotes a quarter of his time to the farm. The flowers harvested from these fields are also Ecocert certified.

I grew up on my grandparents’ farm in Grasse, where they cultivated roses, jasmine, verbena, and other plants. Around 2014, however, my grandparents were getting older, and my grandfather could no longer work on the farm. I felt that if I did not create a farm myself, the local know-how passed down through generations of my family would disappear. At that time, my dream was to become the only perfumer in the world to grow his own fragrance materials and use them in his perfumes. So I decided to establish an organic farm, beginning by planting 12,000 rose bushes and making it the largest farm in the south of France. Then I planted tuberose.

Aurélien Guichard

This experience gave Aurélien a great deal of inspiration when composing fragrances, while strengthening his desire to create a perfume brand of his own. With the understanding and support of Takasago, where he had worked since 2018, he launched his own brand, Matiere Premiere, in October 2019. It appears that Aurélien’s parents, his father being the great Jean Guichard, along with Cedric Meiffret, who had worked as a manager at IFF, Mane, and Givaudan, and Caius Von Knorring, who had worked in perfume-brand marketing at LVMH and Puig, shared his vision and became business partners in the launch.

Many perfumes created in the 1960s and 1970s were very complex. But I wanted to create perfumes in which experts and non-experts alike could appreciate the beauty of the raw materials. It is all very well to say that perfumes are made from beautiful ingredients, but can you actually feel that? Can the person wearing the perfume sense the beauty of the raw materials?

The challenge was to create something with a wealth of texture. So I used an individual natural fragrance material in overdose and combined it with modernity. How do you create a long-lasting perfume whose first impression is not too intense? How do you combine high quality with modernity? This is the core of our creations.

Aurélien Guichard

We believe that beauty lies in simplicity. Just as it does in other arts, such as architecture.

Caius Von Knorring

The House’s Approach

Translating a Raw Material into a Fragrance

Matière Première means “raw material” in French. Aurélien Guichard places a single natural ingredient at the heart of each fragrance, selecting its origin, cultivation and extraction method. He uses it in a high proportion, or overdose, then works with surrounding materials to reveal different facets: the brightness of a flower, the softness of wood or the darkness of a resin.

“My work is to translate an ingredient into a fragrance.”

Aurélien Guichard (2021)

A rose, for example, has facets that suggest spices and woods as well as the richness of its petals. Guichard amplifies some characteristics and softens others, building a perfume from the complexity of one raw material. Alongside natural ingredients, he uses synthetic materials such as musks and Ambroxan to adjust its definition and diffusion.

The range includes Eaux de Parfum that develop an idea around each raw material, and Extraits de Parfum that explore selected fragrances further through an additional ingredient. Even when two versions share a name, they differ in the facets they emphasize as well as their concentration.

Eau de Parfum

Flowers from the House’s Own Fields

Radical Rose centers on Centifolia rose absolute from the house’s own fields in Grasse. Guichard cites the dense smell of sap and flower fragments left on his fingers after picking roses as its inspiration. Saffron and Jamaican pepper berry bring out its bright, spicy facets, while patchouli and labdanum draw out darker, woody qualities in a rose conceived without a fixed gender.

French Flower begins with the scent rising from the same farm’s tuberose fields on a late-summer night. An absolute captures the flower’s power, while an enfleurage extract, obtained by transferring the petals’ scent into fat, adds another dimension. Ginger, tea leaves and a green pear accord bring the richness of white flowers together with an impression of the living plant, stems and leaves included.

After roses and tuberose, the farm began cultivating lavandin in 2023. Metal Lavender combines this lavandin with lavender absolute from Haute-Provence. Its inspiration came from a distillery Guichard visited in Provence: the light, volumes and sounds of a space built from concrete and metal. He contrasts lavandin’s sharp, metallic facets with lavender’s soft floral character, using musks and Cashmeran to give the fragrance an enveloping diffusion.

Citrus, Flowers and a Musk from Plants

For Cologne Cédrat, Guichard pursued the spicy freshness of citron’s thick peel. Italian citron is sharpened with black and pink pepper, while bergamot and maté add a tea-like facet. Despite “Cologne” in its name, it is an Eau de Parfum, exploring how the first impression of citrus can carry through the fragrance.

Neroli Oranger evokes orange blossoms still on the tree. Tunisian orange blossom absolute sits at its center, with neroli, distilled from the same flower, and bergamot adding brightness. Ylang-ylang and floral musks support the flower’s softer side.

Parisian Musc starts with the vegetal musk scent of Peruvian ambrette seed. Cedar develops its woody side, Ambrettolide Supreme extends its musky character, and Ambroxan connects the two. A fig-leaf note further brings out ambrette’s green, vegetal qualities.

The Textures of Woods, Resins and Spices

Organic Australian sandalwood takes the leading role in Santal Austral. Guichard wanted a creamy, luminous sandalwood with presence from the moment it is sprayed. An iris note recalling almond milk, benzoin and tonka bean support its soft texture.

Another exploration of wood, Bois d’Ébène, layers dark woody notes. Its current central ingredient is Brazilian cabreuva. Patchouli increases the density of the wood, cypriol emphasizes its ambery facets, and juniper berry adds spicy freshness.

Encens Suave combines incense with coffee and vanilla. Labdanum and benzoin deepen the resinous texture, overlaid with roasted coffee and the sweetness of vanilla. Guichard’s aim was an incense that offered warmth and pleasure as well as the solemn impression of smoke.

Crystal Saffron turns to the bright, clear facets of Greek saffron. Guichard recalls being surprised by its transparency when he first encountered it. Rather than emphasizing the weight of the spice, he built a fragrance around sharpness and light.

Falcon Leather was inspired by a falconer’s leather glove warmed by the sun. Around Finnish birch tar, labdanum evokes the smooth surface of leather and benzoin its soft suede underside. Saffron supports the force of the opening, with plant-derived materials expressing these two leather textures.

Vanilla Powder grew from the contrast between dark-colored Madagascan vanilla absolute and a scent suggesting white powder. In Guichard’s words, “as if the vanilla bean had been painted white.” Palo santo provides a woody structure, while a powdery coconut note and white musks surround the vanilla. “White” here is an image used to conceive the scent.

In Oud Seven, Bangladeshi Oud Assam is shown from several angles through seven materials: violet leaf, tobacco leaf, vetiver, patchouli, cypriol, cistus and amber. The construction brings out oud’s complexity like facets cut into a diamond. Introduced in 2021 as a Harrods exclusive, it is now also available through the house’s online store and boutiques.

Extrait de Parfum

In 2024, Extraits de Parfum were introduced for five fragrances: Crystal Saffron, Encens Suave, Falcon Leather, Radical Rose and Santal Austral. Vanilla Powder joined them later.

The approach combines a higher overall perfume concentration with a new “guest ingredient.” In many fragrances, the quantity of the central raw material is also increased, but Radical Rose is an exception. Guichard explains that the rose absolute in the original Eau de Parfum had already reached the maximum permitted by the applicable usage standards. Its character is therefore changed through the overall concentration and an additional ingredient, rather than by increasing the rose itself.

The guest ingredient in Crystal Saffron Extrait is Somali myrrh. Its rounded, resinous body is layered over the original saffron’s sharpness and radiance. Guichard chose myrrh for the ambery texture it brings.

For Encens Suave Extrait, the addition is an amber note composed of resins. Guichard was drawn to the golden and brown shades of incense resin, seeking to bring further warmth and richness to the original combination of incense, coffee and vanilla.

Falcon Leather Extrait introduces Oud Assafi from Bangladesh. The amount of birch tar is increased, while oud adds darkness and body, giving both smooth leather and suede a warmer, deeper character. Unlike Oud Seven, where oud is the protagonist, here it serves to intensify the texture of leather.

The guest ingredient in Radical Rose Extrait is Croatian immortelle absolute. With a character somewhere between salt and flowers, it draws out the rose’s dark, mineral facets. Instead of adding more rose, the fragrance changes how the flower is perceived through the material placed around it.

Santal Austral Extrait uses a Nepalese black cardamom absolute developed for the house. It adds smoky, woody spice to creamy sandalwood. Guichard describes its effect: “It takes Santal Austral to more spicy and vibrant territories.”

In Vanilla Powder Extrait, Venezuelan tonka bean absolute is the guest ingredient. Tonka beans are crushed before being processed into an absolute. Guichard uses this naturally powdery material to add a fuller texture to a composition with an increased amount of vanilla.

Fragrances for Particular Places and Stores

Black Currant Extrait was created exclusively for Harrods. There is no Eau de Parfum of the same name: it was not conceived as a richer version of an existing fragrance. Guichard turned to blackcurrant, a fruit familiar in both France and Britain. French blackcurrant absolute is combined with patchouli, rose oxide, a leather accord and Bangladeshi Oud Assam, connecting vivid fruit with dark leather and woods.

Cherry Amber is an Eau de Parfum announced in September 2026 as a Middle East exclusive. Natural cherry extract colors a transparent amber accord, while Centifolia rose from the house’s own fields and the musk Exaltolide expand the impression of red fruit. Whereas Black Currant is an Extrait for Harrods, Cherry Amber is an Eau de Parfum for retailers in the Middle East.

The collection and distribution described here were checked on November 4, 2026. For Bois d’Ébène, the central material differs between this article’s former description, “Paraguayan guaiac wood,” and the current “Brazilian cabreuva.” The current Encens Suave Eau de Parfum product information lists “Incense Oil Oman,” while the Extrait page contains references to both “Incense Oil Oman” and “Resin Incense Somalia.” Neither the timing of any change in raw materials nor whether the formulas changed has been established.

Packaging

Matiere Premiere’s beauty lies in its clean, minimal character. Functionality that connects everyday life with the accoutrements of a perfumer also expresses the brand’s aesthetic. For example, the 6 ml bottle is an actual bottle used by perfumers every day to evaluate perfume compositions. It was this bottle that inspired the 100 ml design.

The perfumes take their color solely from the natural fragrance materials; no synthetic colorants are used to color the perfume itself. Natural fragrance materials account for 85% to 92% of the perfumes, which are also suitable for vegans and phthalate-free.