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Guerlain

Shalimar

1925OrientalEDPFrance

Guerlain Shalimar bottle
Wikimedia Commons

Bottle palette

glass

cap

accent

Where to find it

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Editorial notes

  1. 01

    An amber-vanilla composition that has been a Parisian dressing-table fixture for a century, with a flacon as recognisable as the formula itself.

  2. 02

    The formula is said to have been born when Jacques Guerlain poured a then-novel synthetic vanillin into a flacon of his house's older 1889 Jicky. The accident became the genre.

  3. 03

    The Baccarat bottle, designed by Raymond Guerlain after an Eastern garden basin, took first prize at the 1925 Paris Decorative Arts Exhibition.

  4. 04

    Composed by Jacques Guerlain in 1925 around bergamot and iris over an opopanax-tonka-vanilla base. Reformulated by Thierry Wasser in 2011; the original 1925 formula survives only at the Osmothèque.

Dossier

Edition · 000

Status · Active. Reformulated 2011.

An oriental vanilla.◐ Reformulated since launch

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

The pyramid

Top
bergamotlemonmandarin orange
Heart
irisjasminerose
Base
vanillatonka beanopoponaxincense

The brief

Jacques Guerlain created the scent after pouring a large quantity of synthetic ethylvanillin into a bottle of the house's existing fragrance Jicky.

NameNamed after the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan whose love for his wife Mumtaz Mahal inspired the fragrance.

Why it mattered

  • One of the earliest fragrances to use a heavy overdose of synthetic ethylvanillin, defining the modern oriental category.

The flacon

Baccarat crystal flacon shaped like an Eastern garden basin, with a sapphire-blue fan-shaped stopper; awarded a prize at the 1925 Decorative Arts Exhibition in Paris.

Reformulated

The 2011 Eau de Parfum reformulation by Thierry Wasser sharpened the bergamot and toned down the vanillin density of the older juice. The original 1925 formula survives only at the Osmothèque.

Cause · IFRA restrictions on natural musks and bergamot, plus a 2011 redesign

Footnotes

  • Originally formulated in 1921 and presented at the 1925 Decorative Arts Exhibition in Paris.
  • The original 1925 formulation is preserved at the Osmothèque fragrance archive in Versailles.

The Curator's Note

Invented the modern oriental by accident, then claimed it on purpose.

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