01

Overview

Alienor Massenet

The nose who reinvents leather as something luminous, from Memo Paris's Russian Leather.

Nationality
French (of Hungarian origin)
Training
Cinquième Sens perfumery school, Paris (under Monique Schlienger)
House
Symrise
  • 7
    In database
  • 5
    Houses
  • 7.5
    Top rated
02

Biography

Aliénor Massenet is a French perfumer of Hungarian origin who came up through a family of painters and scientists before formally studying the craft. As a young woman she trained at the Cinquième Sens perfumery school in Paris under Monique Schlienger while also pursuing art history, a dual grounding that shows in the way she talks about scent as both structure and image.

She built the bulk of her career at IFF, where she worked from the mid-1990s and studied alongside senior figures such as Sophia Grojsman, before moving to Symrise around 2016 as a senior perfumer. She is best known to fragrance enthusiasts for a long, ongoing partnership with Memo Paris that stretches back to the house's early years.

Her signature is often described in terms of contrast: bright, almost solar openings set against darker, resinous materials like labdanum and myrrh, and a habit of treating leather as a warm, wearable accord rather than a heavy one. Beyond Memo's leather-focused line she has also composed widely admired scents for houses including Maison Margiela and Viktor & Rolf.

03

Signature works

6 of 7
04

Notes & accords

  • leather
  • labdanum
  • myrrh

Every fragrance by Alienor7

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