What is a Chypre?

If you've spent time researching or exploring fragrances at your local department stores, there is a chance you've encountered the term "Chypre", often paired with descriptions such as Fruity Chypre, Woody Chypre, Green Chypre, or Floral Chypre.  But what exactly is a Chypre?

Well, first let's get the pronunciation and translation out of the way.  Chypre (pronounced roughly 'sheep ruh') is a French word that translates to Cyprus, the Mediterranean island.  At its core, a Chypre is what perfumers call an accord, which is a combination of different aromatic materials that are used to create a new, unified scent.  From Chypres to Fougères, these foundational accords form the backbone around which many commercial fragrances are built.

Despite the name, Chypres have nothing to do with the scent of cypress trees.  A traditional Chypre accord is built around three main materials: the bright citrus of bergamot, the resinous and slightly sweet labdanum, which is extracted from the resin produced by the rock rose, and the earthy, green scent of oakmoss.  What makes a Chypre distinctive is the contrast between these three materials.  The bergamot brings a fresh, citrus sparkle that you smell immediately, but as the brightness begins to fade, it reveals the warmth of the labdanum and earthy moss underneath.  The result is an accord that somehow feels as if it moves from light into shadow.  You get a fresh, radiant opening that gradually gives way to a warm, green and earthy drydown.

So who first established this light to shadow structure that we now recognize as a Chypre?  For that answer, we need to go back to the year 1917, when French perfumer François Coty created a fragrance by the same name: Chypre.  While the skeleton of bergamot, labdanum, and oakmoss was present, Coty's fragrance was considerably more complex.  He surrounded the skeleton with lemon and orange in the top notes, giving the fragrance a remarkably bright opening.  In the heart, he created a rich floral bouquet of jasmine, rose, iris, and other flowers.  Underneath was the shadowy side of the fragrance.  In the base, Coty added patchouli, styrax, civet, and musk to the labdanum and oakmoss, creating a deep, earthy, animalic contrast to the brightness at the top.

Coty's Chypre was a hit and went on to be extremely influential.  What began as the name of a fragrance soon became the name of an entire fragrance family, as other perfumers began taking Coty's light to shadow structural relationship and building upon it.  It was only two years later, in 1919, Jacques Guerlain of Guerlain (pronounced roughly "Girl-ahn") released Mitsouko, one of the earliest examples of a Fruity Chypre.  What made Mitsouko interesting was its use of a new aroma chemical called gamma-undecalactone, also known as Aldehyde C-14 or Peach Aldehyde.  Despite the name, this new aroma chemical is actually a lactone with a rich, creamy, and unmistakable peach aroma.  Guerlain used this new material to introduce a prominent peach note to the Chypre skeleton, creating a new contrast that paired a juicy fruit with the darker, mossy base instead of relying solely on the bright citrus top.

From here, the Chypre continued to evolve throughout the 20th century as perfumers realized just how much could be built around the original Chypre structure.  In 1947, Christian Dior introduced the original Miss Dior, a fragrance that pushed the original Chypre into a greener and more floral territory.  Miss Dior surrounded the moss foundation with galbanum, woods, patchouli, and florals.  The result was a Chypre that retained its light to shadow relationship while not smelling exactly like Coty's Chypre.

More than sixty years later, the same idea could still be found in a different type of fragrance.  When Creed released Aventus in 2010, it presented a modern version of the Fruity Chypre built around the same light to shadow relationship, but this time using pineapple and blackcurrant in the top notes for brightness.  In the base, the traditional mossy character (albeit in lower quantities-more on that later) was reinforced with Ambrox, birch tar, and a remarkably powerful leathery material called isobutyl quinoline, commonly abbreviated as IBQ.  The birch tar and IBQ gave the darker side of the fragrance a distinctly smoky and leathery character, creating a different type of shadow beneath the bright fruit above.

Nearly a century separated Mitsouko and Aventus, yet the relationship was remarkably similar: where Guerlain had contrasted peach against a dark, mossy Chypre base, Aventus contrasted pineapple and blackcurrant against moss, woods, smoke and leather.

Other versions and interpretations followed, but one material remained important to the identity of a Chypre, and that was oakmoss, which over time, became a problem.  Oakmoss contains naturally occurring substances, particularly atranol and chloroatranol, that have been associated with skin sensitization and allergic reactions in some individuals.  As fragrance safety standards became more restrictive, the amount and type of oakmoss that could be used in a finished fragrance became tightly controlled.  

This presented a challenge for perfumers, so they adapted.  Modern Chypres can use specially treated oakmoss extracts in which the problematic materials have been greatly reduced.  Additionally, perfumers can use synthetic mossy materials such as Evernyl, which can provide some of the dry, woody and moss like character of natural oakmoss.  

The result is that the Chypre didn't disappear but rather evolved to meet modern requirements while keeping the fundamental illusion of light above, shadow below intact.