Modern Perfume Classics - Samsara

Guerlain's Fragrance Established the House as a Global Player

Oct 27, 2009

A love affair inspired this French perfume - it was also a huge business success. Discover the story behind it.

In around 1985 top perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain presented the love of his life with a scent he had created especially for her. "This is the greatest gift a man ever gave a woman!" exclaimed his muse, Englishwoman Decia de Pauw. His reply? "I was but the stonemason - you the architect." In four years time Samsara was released to great success, becoming one of Guerlain's bestselling perfumes in sixty years.

Samsara represented a change of approach for the house. A family business, perfume had always been made in the traditional way: first the scent was created, then the bottle designed, followed by a sales campaign. This time, the approach was more analytical: contemporary culture was observed, the imagery and marketing applied and then the perfumers were asked to come up with a fragrance. Some people have criticised this method for being overly restrictive and money-focused.

Interest in the East was building in the eighties. China was becoming increasingly open following the reform policies of 1978 and people were starting to travel in Asia, a place they found fascinating. Therefore, an Asian influenced perfume was seen as a potentially lucrative business plan. Ironically enough, the end result released in 1989 was very close to the spontaneously produced gift for de Pauw - it was she who requested the accord of jasmine and sandalwood that is at the heart of the scent.

Samsara is unusual in the level of sandalwood it contains - around thirty percent. The normal amount was around one/two percent, so this was an audacious move that required considerable talent. It is also very expensive, as anyone who saw it being confused with cedarwood in the perfume challenge on BBC1's The Apprentice this year will remember! Jean-Paul Guerlain combined natural sandalwood oil with synthetic molecules to increase its richness and power.

The note of sandalwood combines with the note of jasmine. This makes the accord - when a few notes come together to create a new odour, losing their individuality. Sandalwood and jasmine resonate strongly in the East, where jasmine is the sacred flower of the Hindu God Vishnu, and Hindus consider sandalwood to be a holy oil. Indeed, it is one of the traditional ingredients of perfumery, so perhaps Mr Guerlain is honouring perfume itself in using so much of it.

The making of Samsara must have been a nerve-wracking time for Jean-Paul Guerlain. He had to compete with other perfumers for the first time; Guerlain had previously been purely a family business.

He had a lot to live up to. He was taught by his grandfather Jacques Guerlain, the family's greatest nose who had created such legendary scents as Shalimar (the first Oriental), Mitsouko (which reinvented the chypre genre) and Vol de Nuit. Jacques' Uncle Aime had revolutionised the perfume industry in the late nineteenth century with his use of synthetics in Jicky. did not only establish Guerlain as a global fragrance brand - it established Jean-Paul as a perfumer. He continues to make perfume for the house.

The copyright of the article Modern Perfume Classics - Samsara in Perfume is owned by Victoria Robinson. Permission to republish Modern Perfume Classics - Samsara in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.