Launched in 2017, Mon Guerlain is a beautiful ode to women signed by noses Thierry Wasser and Delphine Jelk.

For Mon Guerlain, Wasser said he was inspired by four notes that formed the pillars of the scent: carla lavender, Sambac jasmine and Album Sandalwood and vanilla Tahitensis.

Carla lavender grows in Drôme in Provence. A true lavender, Wasser says that standing in a field of it and smelling it, he was struck by its pure, fresh simplicity. Its pure beauty stands for women.  Then there’s Sambac jasmine. Wasser recalled seeing women in New Guinea grouped together, enjoying each other’s company, as they wove jasmine flowers into tiaras for each other’s hair. The jasmine signifies community. Album sandalwood signifies the strength of women, and vanilla Tahitensis, the smell associated with mother.

Strung in sentences like this makes Mon Guerlain sound amazing, but when you wear it, you realize what a beautiful ode to women it is.

It opens with nose-tingling bergamot backed by a note of fresh, aromatic lavender that pairs perfectly with creamy, sensuous vanilla. The lavender weaves through the vanilla, keeping its sweetness in balance. Lavender, considered a masculine note in fragrance, so prominently placed in a women’s fragrance? It’s about being better together than it is about being in opposition - after all, it's 2017, people! As it blooms on me, the vanilla reveals tender aspects of aniseed and spice. The Sambac jasmine shows up at the heart. It’s delicate and voluptuous, not indolic or animalic. For a moment, there is a whiff of powder from iris and a note of rose – the smell of scented powder. The vanilla sweetness threads through the heart, bolstered by Tonka bean, to rest on a base of sandalwood and musk.

It’s the vanilla and sandalwood that stay with me for hours so that the dry down is a sweet-ish, feminine scent that, while having depth, has a luminous beauty.

Mon Guerlain is a modern fragrance for a modern woman – it assumes she’s confident, sexy and strong and the fragrance honours that without having to trumpet it. It will be in heavy rotation around here for a long time, I can tell you that.

Notes: bergamot, Carla lavender, vanilla Tahitensis, Sambac jasmine, iris, rose, Tonka bean, Album sandalwood, musk.