The Noses Behind White Diamonds Icon: Carlos Benaïm and Natasha Côté-Mouzannar on Reimagining Elizabeth Taylor’s Legacy
Images: Wini Lao Photography
Every great fragrance has an origin story, and some so great that they inspire a brand new iteration, decades later. With the release of the new fragrance White Diamonds Icon, we're thinking of its predecessor: the original White Diamonds, dreamt up by Elizabeth Taylor and IFF Master Perfumer Carlos Benaïm. Decades later, Benaïm returned to reimagine it, this time alongside IFF Senior Perfumer Catapano Natasha Côté-Mouzannar.
By 1991, Elizabeth Taylor had already created an impact on the fragrance world with her first scent, Passion, and with a new lease on life after a life-threatening health scare, the formation of The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, and an upcoming wedding, she was ready to do it again. White Diamonds itself was inspired by two of Elizabeth's greatest passions — the beauty of her gardens and the glamour of the diamonds she cherished. She didn't just lend her name to the project, rather she worked personally with master perfumers on each of her scents — and that's where Carlos Benaïm came in.
When Benaïm flew to Los Angeles to meet Elizabeth Taylor, no one had briefed him on what she wanted from a fragrance — only that she wanted something, and that he needed to find it. "I decided to test her with 10 fragrances, without telling her what they were," Benaïm recalled at the recent White Diamonds Icon launch event. Though he worried about how she would react, his fears were unfounded. "She was extremely kind, and extremely understanding," Benaïm said. "She really wanted to make the whole thing happen." From the ten unmarked bottles presented to her, Elizabeth picked three, and that selection became the starting point for White Diamonds. Benaïm then asked her what her favorite flower was. Her easy answer, Narcissus, became a defining note in White Diamonds, sourced from IFF’s factory in the center of France, where the absolute is cultivated and extracted.
Benaïm was no stranger to building a fragrance from scratch. Born in Tangier, Morocco, he trained first as a chemical engineer before his path into perfumery began in Grasse, France, where he married his love of science and scent. His career has been punctuated with famous fragrances, like Ralph Lauren Polo, Calvin Klein Euphoria, and Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb. In 2013 he was named IFF's first-ever Master Perfumer, and his career has since been recognized with lifetime achievement honors from both the American Society of Perfumers and the Fragrance Foundation. More than fifty years into his career, White Diamonds remains one of the fragrances he's most closely identified with — the one that, by his own account, changed the course of his life from the moment he stepped into Elizabeth's home in Bel Air.
Decades later, when the call came to revisit White Diamonds for a new generation, Benaïm was more than ready. "It was such a momentous experience in my life that when the opportunity came to work once again on a White Diamond fragrance, I decided to go for it,” he shared. “It was a very special moment." Benaïm brought in Senior Perfumer Natasha Côté-Mouzannar, and the conversation began.
For Côté-Mouzannar, the connection to White Diamonds started long before she was asked to help create the new scent. She'd studied the original fragrance back in perfumery school, so getting the chance to work alongside its formulator was a full-circle moment. Revisiting her impressions of the original, one thing stood out above all: the shine. “The original fragrance has an iridescent quality, like a diamond catching the light,” she shared at the White Diamonds Icon event. “I wanted to translate that into this new fragrance, while also bringing a sense of youth, modernity, and freedom.”
White Diamonds Icon begins with a note pulled from the same French flower fields that gave the original its heart. Elizabeth’s beloved Narcissus, Benaïm explained at the launch event, doesn't grow alone — it grows beside Jonquille, its close botanical neighbor, and both are extracted at the same source. For Icon, Jonquille stands in for Narcissus as the fresh center of the composition, complemented by top notes of Fraise Des Bois, Pear Blossom, and Green Mandarin LMR; heart notes of Cristalfizz™, Orange Flower LMR, and Orris; and base notes of Oakmoss LMR, Ambrain LMR, Ambergris, and Caramel.
It's a fitting through line for this special fragrance: a scent born out of one woman's second act, reimagined thirty-five years later by the same hands that first gave it shape. White Diamonds Icon from Elizabeth Taylor Eau de Parfum is now available on Amazon — click here to shop.