Perfumery's iconic perfumes

Prestige perfumery, though criticized today for being “too mainstream and too ordinary,” once had a golden age when singular perfumes reigned supreme.

It was the era of NO MARKETING: no endless ad campaigns, no cookie-cutter celebrity faces, no social media. The whole budget went into the juice, the perfume itself.

Here are the perfumes that literally made perfume history:

• Jicky – Guerlain in 1889. The first perfume to use vanillin, a synthetic molecule naturally present in vanilla. Aimé Guerlain was one of the first perfumers to use synthetics.
• Mitsouko – Guerlain in 1919. The first perfume to use aldehyde C14, a synthetic note that reproduces the smell of peach.
• N°5 – Chanel in 1921. The first perfume to use an overdose of aldehydes. The perfumer, Ernest Beaux, paired a floral bouquet (jasmine, rose, ylang…) with these metallic, soapy-smelling aldehydes. The result? 100 years later, it has become THE iconic perfume, recognized all over the world.
• Shalimar – Guerlain in 1925. OK, the backstory was quite the storytelling for its time: the bottle is inspired by the fountain basins of the Shalimar Gardens, laid out by Emperor Shah Jahan, the very man who built the Taj Mahal out of love for his wife. The perfume is an Oriental, the very first true Oriental.
• L'Air du Temps – Nina Ricci in 1948. In the post-war years, people were craving novelty, freshness and freedom. Composed by Francis Fabron, this perfume is an ode to life, embodied by a bottle topped with a dove. Simply a carnation (a synthetic one, since carnation isn't a flower whose scent can be extracted).
• Opium – YSL in 1977. This perfume was a crazy, daring gamble launched by Jean-Louis Sieuzac & Raymond Chaillan. Beyond its very oriental, balsamic juice, it's above all the name that sticks. A forbidden name that plays on addiction and incites debauchery: the smell of scandal. It was banned in several countries before finally being sold all over the world. THE legendary YSL perfume.
• Poison – Dior in 1985. The first perfume to use an overdose of tuberose. With its apple-shaped bottle (the forbidden fruit) and that terrifying name, Poison went on to bewitch and hypnotize the crowds.
• Angel – Mugler in 1992. Even though we're now well into modern perfumery, we have to admit this perfume was revolutionary (it took perfumer Olivier Cresp more than 694 trials, after all). A perfume that recalls the smells of childhood: cotton candy, candied peanuts, caramel, chocolate… A sugar bomb that gave birth to Gourmand Orientals / Sweet Orientals.
• J'adore – Dior in 1999. We end this saga of iconic perfumes with this creation by Calice Becker. The first perfume to recreate a Pear accord, paired with Jasmine and dressed in a gold bottle shaped like a woman's body: a perfect match.