A makeup artist turned perfumer, Guerlain director of fragrance evaluation and development Sylvaine Delacourte is the first female fragrance director at one of France's most prestigious beauty brands. As far as careers go, this one is up there with the best of them. BEAUTYDIRECTORY chats to Delacourte to find out what goes into making the perfect scent.
Have you always been fascinated with fragrance?
I came to fragrance quite late in life, about the same time I had my first child. I started life as a makeup artist and trainer with Guerlain – I love the brand – and I was offered the opportunity to take a two-year training course about perfume. After just one week on the course I had the revelation that changed my life! I loved learning about ingredients and scents and I even started collecting perfume bottles. When I finished the course, Jean Paul Guerlain invited me to lunch and asked for my advice about a new fragrance he was developing. After that, he asked me to work with him and that is how I began working in fragrance development.
Do you develop all aspects of a new fragrance?
I am not a ‘nose’. For a ‘nose’ you have to do many years of training and because I started later in life, I could not put in that time. However I do naturally have a very developed sense of ingredients and I work with a precision, together with the perfumer, to get exactly the right balance of exactly the right scents to produce the fragrance.
Are there any ingredients you are not fond of working with?
In fragrance it is all about how you orchestrate ingredients to get the right scent. I do not particularly like rose, but if I work with it in a different way I can achieve a result I like. For example, my fragrance (that I wear) is L’Heure Bleue but there is one ingredient (in the fragrance) that I really do not like on its own. What I have learned is that I never direct the perfumer not to use an ingredient because I don’t like it. Together we orchestrate using ingredients like an alchemist.
Where do you gather inspiration for your fragrances?
I love to travel and I have a great curiosity. Everything about different countries, the culture, the food, the scents. I like to experience these and then capture them. And they change. For example, in Japan, fragrances used to be fresh-smelling but now you can find stores in Japan selling macarons and chocolate and so now fragrances that sell well there include chocolate and vanilla notes.
Do different global markets affect the development of fragrances?
Guerlain is very popular in Russia – they love our fragrances – and also the UK and other European cities where they know the history of Guerlain. In Asia they are just starting to learn more about Guerlain which is exciting. However first of all, a new fragrance must be popular in France.
What did you notice first about Australia when you arrived here?
The smell of purity! The clean and pure fresh air. It is easy to understand why it is popular to be vegan here. Everything feels positive and has a natural freshness, the people, plants, trees and not forgetting the food.
