Shyamala Maisondieu

Born in Malaysia to an Indian father and a Malaysian mother, Shyamala Maisondieu is a perfumer at Givaudan. A chemical engineer by training, she created Charogne for État Libre d'Orange in 2007, co-created Idôle for Lancôme in 2019 and the Prada Paradoxe line from 2022 on. The François Coty Prize honored her entire career in 2019.

From Chemistry to Perfumery

Shyamala Maisondieu grew up in Malaysia, with a Malaysian mother and an Indian father, and first dreamed of astronomy. She studied chemical engineering, trained in London and settled in France. She dates her entry into the profession to 1992, at 23: a classified ad, an interview with a perfumer who hired her on the spot.

Her first formulas scented laundry detergents, before she joined Givaudan Roure, whose perfumery school she attended, then in Grasse. She married perfumer Antoine Maisondieu, also at Givaudan. In 2023, she claimed more than eighty creations or co-creations, in a profession where four or more perfumers often work on a single project.

Charogne, Idôle, Paradoxe

In 2007 she composed Charogne for État Libre d'Orange, an animalic floral where bergamot, ginger, ylang-ylang and jasmine meet leather and ambrette. In 2019, Lancôme launched Idôle, co-created with Adriana Medina and Nadège Le Garlantezec: a musky floral chypre built around an Isparta rose essence reserved for the house and a centifolia rose grown in France, with Zendaya as its face.

In 2022, Prada brought together Nadège Le Garlantezec, Shyamala and Antoine Maisondieu with Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons for Paradoxe, an amber floral that the house presents around a bud-extracted neroli, Ambrofix and Serenolide. The trio also created Paradoxe Intense, Virtual Flower and Radical Essence.

A Warm Signature, an Acclaimed Career

She links her taste for spices to the cooking of her childhood, when her mother ground coriander and cumin for curries, and says she always slips a touch of them into her formulas. Her dream as a perfumer: “a very beautiful wood, balanced, powerful, sensual… universal.”

The François Coty Prize, which since 2000 has honored a creative perfumer for an entire career, went to her in 2019; she sat on the jury of the 2022 edition. In October 2025, the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts opened “La balade olfactive,” an olfactory trail designed with Givaudan's perfumers: she created an accord of myrrh, styrax and oakmoss for a Roman balsamarium.