Skip to main content
← 5 DropsFragrance · file
Guerlain

Mitsouko

1919ChypreEDPFrance

Where to find it

Search links · no tracking

Outbound links open a search on each site for Guerlain Mitsouko. Product pages aren't deep-linked because retailer URLs change and stock varies.

Editorial notes

  1. 01

    A peach is in the room. Then the moss arrives, and the peach refuses to leave.

  2. 02

    Jacques Guerlain dropped gamma-undecalactone, a brand-new synthetic peach lactone, into the chypre architecture François Coty had formalised two years earlier. The fruity-chypre family is what happened next.

  3. 03

    Named after the Japanese heroine of Claude Farrère's 1909 novel La Bataille, a wartime love story between a Japanese woman and a British naval officer. The war had ended thirteen months earlier.

  4. 04

    Composed by Jacques Guerlain in 1919; rebuilt in 2013 by Thierry Wasser, who synthesised an oakmoss substitute after IFRA restricted the natural absolute. The original is preserved at the Osmothèque.

Dossier

Edition · 000

Status · Active. Reformulated 2013.

A peach chypre.◐ Reformulated since launch

Composed by
Jacques Guerlain
Founder
Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain
Country
France

The pyramid

Top
bergamotlemonmandarinneroli
Heart
peachrosejasmineylang-ylanglilac
Base
oakmossvetiverpatchoulilabdanumcinnamonamber

The brief

Built on the Coty Chypre (1917) base, Jacques Guerlain layered a brand-new synthetic peach lactone (gamma-undecalactone) over the chypre accord, inventing the entire fruity-chypre genre.

NameNamed after Mitsouko, the Japanese heroine of Claude Farrère's 1909 novel 'La Bataille', who loves a British naval officer caught up in the Russo-Japanese War.

Why it mattered

  • First commercially significant fragrance to use the synthetic peach lactone (aldehyde C-14 / gamma-undecalactone), creating the fruity-chypre genre that influenced everything from Femme to Aventus.

Reformulated · 2013

Thierry Wasser reworked the formula in 2013 with a synthetic 'oakmoss accord' substituting for the restricted natural; widely praised by critics as the best post-IFRA restoration of a classical chypre.

Cause · IFRA restrictions on oakmoss devastated the original chypre base

Footnotes

  • Mitsouko is one of the few perfumes preserved in the Osmothèque in its original 1919 formulation.

The Curator's Note

Every 'fruity floral' at the airport is a Mitsouko it doesn't know about.

Explore the catalogue

Play today's puzzle