Shalimar L’Essence

The scent that met me where memory and modernity collide.

It’s everything I needed it to be.

My Karkey, The Duchess

A few weeks ago I walked into the department store the other day fully prepared to buy Guerlain’s iconic Shalimar. My grandmother’s signature scent. A fragrance woven into some of my earliest sensory memories. I could practically see her vanity — her powders, her cold creams, the soft clatter of her gold charm bracelet — and that emblematic bottle of Shalimar that felt almost magical to me.

But when I sprayed it… something was off.

It didn’t smell like her. It didn’t smell like mine.

Instead, it felt unfamiliar. Antiquated.

A little disruptive in the most unexpected way.

Had my nose changed? Had time changed me?

Or had I romanticized the memory so deeply that reality could never match it?

Shalimar is a bona fide Guerlain icon — the first amber perfume in history, created by Jacques Guerlain in 1925. A literal century of legacy. Knowing this only made me want to understand it more: the brand, the formula, the evolution, the chemistry, the mythology. I wanted to fall back in love with it. I wanted it to transport me back to her.

That journey led me to Shalimar L’Essence.

Here, Guerlain reimagines the original DNA — even the emblematic bottle — through an Art Deco lens that honors Shalimar’s birth era while welcoming her into 2025. It’s reverent and modern all at once, a bridge between worlds.

And the scent? She’s everything the modern woman is: bold, beautiful, complex, intelligent, evolving, sensual — and unapologetically draped in vanilla. But this isn’t a gourmand, sugar-sweet vanilla. This is a textured vanilla. Soft without being coy, sweet without being cute. Purposeful. Self-assured. A modern celebration of vanilla “in all its forms.”

Notes:

Top: Bergamot, Almond, Incense

Heart: Opoponax Accord, Rose, Iris

Base: Benzoin, Vanilla, Tonka Bean, Musk

Together, they form a fragrance that feels both intoxicating and grounded — a sophisticated interpretation that honors the timeless richness of the original while giving her space to breathe in the now.

When I smelled Shalimar L’Essence, it did something the original no longer could:

It bridged the gap between my childhood and my present. It held my grandmother and the woman I’ve become in the same breath. It softened the edges of nostalgia and made room for something new.

Somehow, impossibly, it transcended time. And in doing so, it became everything I wanted… and everything I didn’t know I still needed.