Mathilde Laurent

Mathilde Laurent is a French perfumer and the in-house nose for Cartier since 2006. Born in Paris near Montparnasse, she grew up in a family of artists and developed an early habit of experiencing the world through her sense of smell. After earning a degree in chemistry and physics, she attended the Institut superieur international du parfum, de la cosmetique et de l'aromatique alimentaire (ISIPCA) in Versailles, encouraged by a family friend who recognized her olfactory sensitivity. At a school event, Laurent approached Jean-Paul Guerlain and asked for an internship. Guerlain agreed, and she began working alongside him in the early 1990s. After a three-month internship, she was offered a permanent position at Guerlain, where she remained for eleven years. Her creations during this period include Herba Fresca, inspired by early mornings walking barefoot in her grandfather's garden.

In 2006, Laurent joined Cartier as their exclusive in-house perfumer, where she created the fragrance Baiser Vole. She launched L'Heure vertueuse in 2012 and continued to push creative boundaries with her 2015 composition L'Heure perdue, which was crafted exclusively from lab-created molecules. With this work, Laurent sought to challenge the perception that synthetic ingredients necessarily produce hard or aggressive results. Writing in Le Monde, Claire Dhouailly described the fragrance as soft, caressing, and almost maternal, demonstrating that synthetic materials could achieve warmth and intimacy. Among her other recognized works is Attrape Coeur.