Guerlain archive: From world's first lipstick to Queen Elizabeth's favourite perfume

Founded in 1828, the French cosmetic company's warehouse is full of interesting anecdotes

Guerlain has created its first archive and unveiled the inventions and stories that have marked the French company’s illustrious past. All photos: AP

Guerlain's director of art, culture and heritage Ann-Caroline Prazan

The first lipstick in history, a pink wax stick named Ne m'oubliez pas or Forget me not, invented by Guerlain in 1870

An Eau de Cologne Imperial Bee bottle

Facsimile of the patent for the first pivot toothbrush, dated 1845

A Guerlain perfume box, dated before 1889

A pot of the original Nivea cream, invented by Guerlain and later bought by a German company of the same name

The first bottle of the Eau de Cologne Imperial of Guerlain is displayed

Perfume bottles are displayed

A view of the the exhibition Chere Eugenie at Guerlain's boutique located on the Champs-Elysees avenue

People walk past the Guerlain boutique at the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris

Pictures of celebrities in the archive

The world’s first lipstick. The first modern perfume. A pivoting toothbrush. The original Nivea cream and serum. Not to mention the intimate secrets of Queen Elizabeth II. These are some of the treasures held in Guerlain’s first archive, which brings stories from the French cosmetic company’s sensational past to life.

The warehouse of wonders, shrouded in secrecy and hidden from public view by Paris’s Seine river, is a gem of documents and mysterious objects spanning three centuries, each with a unique history of its own.

Yet what is perhaps most remarkable about the collection is that the company founded in 1828 that invented modern perfumery hadn't assembled it before.

“It’s what we call our little secret,” says Guerlain heritage director Ann Caroline Prazan, who sifted through a mine of artefacts to compile it in a years-long labour of love.

“It was hard to whittle down 18,000 pieces to just 400 from so many years, but we did it ... Some of the pieces are so fragile, I’m scared to touch them.”

The ambitious project exists thanks to Prazan's passion – and patience. Through a mist of perfume, she reels off vignettes about Guerlain's innovations and famous patrons, including French Empress Eugenie, Josephine Baker, Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy, Barbra Streisand, Margaret Thatcher and the late Queen Elizabeth II.

As Prazan turns to handle the collection’s most prized object, a lipstick created in 1870 and housed in a contemporary-looking gold bullet, she carefully takes off her white gloves as if she were performing a sacred ritual.

“It’s so modern,” she whispers, her finger carefully operating a push-up mechanism to reveal a dark Bordeaux wax pigment still intact after 153 years.

The refillable lipstick has a remarkable story, like everything else in the archive seems to. An employee of Aime and Gabriel Guerlain was walking in a street and happened upon the store of a candlemaker, whose wax and coloured pigments gave him a eureka moment.

At the time, women used tubs of coloured powder to paint their lips with a clunky brush. Seeing the candlemaker's tools gave the Guerlain employee the “mad” idea of creating a waxy, lip cosmetic as a stick, Prazan says.

“That small object revolutionised women’s make-up for ever,” she says.

Prazan also procured the world’s first lipliner, also in sleek gold casing. It turned out to be a liner that women used to paint the veins on their arms and necks blue, a popular technique women used in late 19th-century Paris to appear paler. Thankfully, Prazan says, it has gone out of fashion.

That Guerlain is a family-run house across five successive generations is perhaps one reason why these archival pieces have been so fastidiously kept. The company was bought by luxury conglomerate LVMH in 1994, but has managed to keep its unique identity.

Innovation, including beyond the sphere of perfume, is the brand's hallmark. Among the archival treasures is the patent for the first pivoting toothbrush. Documents revealed a 1845 design that looked like a precursor to today’s electric toothbrush.

A tub of moisturising cream called Nivea that was whisked out of a drawer told another tale that connected past and present. The cream, which contained ingredients to whiten the skin of European women, was sold off by the house to create the famous skincare company of the same name.

Then there is the old bottle of Jicky, the world’s first modern perfume. Created in 1889, it revolutionised the market with the concept of a scent cocktail – not just one note like previous fragrances – that featured hints of spice, lemon, lavender, wood and vanilla. It also included synthetic ingredients and is, incredibly, the world's oldest continuously produced perfume.

Yet it is the anecdotes of the house’s stars that bring the most dazzle to a collection, which seems so alive despite its history.

Queen Elizabeth II, featured in a photo on the wall wearing a glamorous white fur stole, was such a fan of Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleue perfume, Prazan says, that she emptied a bottle and filled it up with the oil from her 1953 coronation. It was kept for years, such was the late monarch's emotional attachment to the scent.

From another archive shelf, a bottle for a different perfume gleamed with allure. It was the fragrance created for the baptism of the queen's uncle years before he became King Edward VIII – and famously abdicated the throne for love. Sometimes the collection seems like a potted timeline of the key moments of the world’s historical figures.

While the archive is a secret affair, the brand has created an exhibition open to the public for the 170th anniversary of its most famous design, the Bee Bottle. The show, called Chere Eugenie, is on view at Guerlain's Champs-Elysees shop until September 4.

There, the original Bee Bottle – a historical artefact – is on display like a crown jewel with light reflecting off hand-painted bee reliefs. It was created in 1853 for the nuptials of Empress Eugenie and Napoleon III.

The bee was the French imperial emblem and also the emblem of Clovis, first king of the Francs. It has come to represent Guerlain to this day.

For the bottle's anniversary, 11 international artists and actors, including Charlotte Rampling and Audrey Tautou, created a series of photographs inspired by the Bee Bottle.

A foot in the past with eyes to the future seem to define Guerlain, a mantra its longevity has forced the company to perfect.

“I plan well into the future, easily 100 years away," Prazan notes while putting away her nearly 200-year-old objects. "I know the house will be around for that long, long after we're gone. How many people can say that?”