How we ranked the Guerlains
Ranking Guerlain means choosing between history and everyday use. We settled on four criteria. Influence carries real weight here, since the house has made several perfumes the whole industry still cites. Composition comes next. Versatility counts too: a scent you can wear from the office to dinner moves up. That is why L'Instant de Guerlain edges ahead of Vol de Nuit, which may be more beautiful but is much harder to wear. Performance depends on intensity. Shalimar, at 4 out of 5, lasts a long time on skin. Aqua Allegoria Mandarine Basilic, at 2, is gone by mid-afternoon. We included Jicky even though it is officially unisex. Plenty of women wear it, and you cannot understand Guerlain without it. Mon Guerlain and La Petite Robe Noire, the newer scents, sit behind the big classics without embarrassing themselves.
One family, from Jicky to Mon Guerlain
Fans have a name for what ties these eight together: the Guerlinade. You spot it through a handful of materials that keep coming back. Bergamot sits at the top of seven of the eight. Iris appears in the heart of Shalimar, Vol de Nuit, Jicky and Mon Guerlain. Vanilla rules the base, often with tonka alongside. Three of the scents here are by Jacques Guerlain: Mitsouko in 1919, Shalimar in 1925 and Vol de Nuit in 1933. Jicky, by Aimé Guerlain in 1889, already paired lavender with vanilla. More than a century later, Mon Guerlain by Thierry Wasser and Delphine Jelk pairs lavender and vanilla again, in a softer key. This continuity is the house's strength. It is also a limit. If powdery vanilla bores you, few Guerlains will win you over apart from Mitsouko and the Aqua Allegoria.
