Michel Almairac was born in 1953 in Grasse, the historic capital of French perfumery, and grew up surrounded by both the flower fields and the fragrance factories of the region. A visit to a perfume plant as a teenager set his direction, and in 1972 he entered the Roure Bertrand Dupont perfumery school (later absorbed into Givaudan), qualifying as a perfumer roughly two years later.

Over a long career he worked for several fragrance houses, including Takasago, Créations Aromatiques and Drom, before joining Robertet in the late 1990s, where he has been based at the company's Paris creation studio. He is known for favouring short, legible formulas, an approach he traces back to a preference for working with a compact palette of materials rather than hundreds.

Almairac's compositions have given olfactory identities to a string of fashion and niche houses. He is most closely associated with Gucci Rush and Gucci pour Homme, the 2008 Chloé Eau de Parfum and its flankers, and work for Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Montblanc, Chopard, Bond No. 9 and others, a body of work numbering well over a hundred fragrances.

In 2016 he co-founded the family niche label Parle Moi de Parfum with his sons Benjamin and Romain. In 2019 the Association François Coty recognised his career with its Prix d'Honneur, and he has also taught at the Grasse perfumery school, counting perfumers such as Christine Nagel and Annick Menardo among those he trained.