Think of the most iconic fragrances and it’s easy to name the brand, but you probably don’t know the name of the perfumer behind it. But why? For many years perfumers were hidden away in their scent dens, never to be unveiled to the world, particularly women - who were either refused employment or remained faceless behind the scenes while their male counterparts took the glory.

One of the reasons for the female to male imbalance is that fragrance houses were often passed down through male members of the family. This was was the case with Guerlain and still is with Creed and Chanel — which is ironic considering the first recorded chemist was a woman named Tapputi-Belatekallim, who developed methods for scent extraction in 1200 BCE Mesopotamia.

Patricia de Nicolaï, for example, the great-granddaughter of Pierre Guerlain, was never allowed to work in the family business, yet she’s gone on to earn a knight of the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits) in 2008 and won the International Prize for Young Perfumers for her Parfums de Nicolaï fragrance Number One in 1988.

However, the tide is changing and there are reportedly more women than men joining the famous French perfumery school, International School of Perfume, Cosmetic and Flavour (ISIPCA).

Iconic fragrances you never knew were created by women