Aliénor Massenet

Aliénor Massenet is the perfumer most closely identified with Memo Paris. She composed Lalibela, the house’s very first fragrance — rose and myrrh for the rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia — and Memo describes that as the beginning of a collaboration that still endures today, across some fifty releases.

Her range inside the house is wide enough to make the point on its own. African Leather (2015) is a warm-spicy leather built on cardamom, geranium and pink pepper over oud and amber — dense, animalic at the edges, and the fragrance most people mean when they say they like Memo. Odéon (2020) goes the other way: rose absolute and a candied rose accord resolving into tonka bean, dry amber and musk. Marfa (2016) is a white-floral built on tuberose and orange blossom with a vanilla-and-sandalwood base, and Darling Point (2026) is lighter still, a pear-and-apple opening over jasmine, saffron and praline.

What links them is not a signature material but a method: a bold, legible top accord, then a long structural base that carries the idea for hours rather than minutes. It is why her Memo work tends to be described as rich without being heavy.

Browse the fragrances composed by Aliénor Massenet and available at Redolia Perfumery below.