Jicky(1889)

Created by Aime Guerlain, Jicky is one of the oldest fragrances still in continuous commercial production and is widely regarded as the first perfume built primarily around a lavender-coumarin structure intended to be worn by women, at a time when lavender waters were considered strictly masculine. The composition opens on bergamot, lemon, and rosemary, moves into a heart of lavender, rose, and jasmine, and settles into a base of coumarin, vanilla, and civet, the animalic civet note giving it a warmth and sensuality that scandalized some contemporary critics, who considered it too bold for a respectable woman to wear. Its name is popularly said to honor either a woman Aime Guerlain loved unsuccessfully or his nephew Jacques's childhood nickname, though the house itself has offered varying accounts over the decades and no version is definitively confirmed. Jicky is frequently cited by perfume historians as one of the first fragrances to use synthetic materials, coumarin among them, not merely to support natural materials but to define the character of the composition itself, placing it alongside Fougere Royale at the true beginning of modern perfumery. More than 130 years after its creation, it remains in Guerlain's catalog largely unchanged, worn today as a bridge to the very origins of contemporary fragrance.