Craft

The hug me accord: four synthetics that held up a decade

Sophia Grojsman built it for Trésor in 1990 and gave it its name. Four materials, no smell of its own, and it is still holding up florals you meet every week.

12 August 2026 · 4 minute read · Crafted Scent

One of the four. Methyl ionone is the only one you would recognise on its own.

In 1990 Sophia Grojsman built Trésor for Lancôme around four synthetic materials. She called the combination "hug me". The name stuck, and so did the accord: it sits under a great many florals released since, and once you have smelled it on a blotter you start noticing it everywhere.

It is worth learning early, for a reason that has little to do with Trésor. Most accords you meet as a beginner are impressions. A pear accord smells of pear. This one does not smell of anything in particular. It is a structure, a bed you lay other things on, and it teaches you that a formula can have a job that is not a smell.

The four materials

Two parts Iso E Super. Two parts Hedione. One part methyl ionone. Two parts Galaxolide.

That is the whole thing. Seven parts, four materials, all of them synthetic, none of them expensive.

Each one is doing separate work. Iso E Super gives a dry woody radiance that pushes outward without smelling loud up close, which is the quality people mean when they call a fragrance diffusive. There is a whole post on it, including the part where a good share of people cannot smell it. Hedione adds transparency and lift, and makes other florals read as more themselves. Methyl ionone brings violet and orris, powdery and slightly cool, and it is the only one of the four with an obvious character. Galaxolide is the clean sweet musk underneath, holding everything down and giving it length.

Take any one of them out and you can hear what is missing. That is the exercise: build it, then build it again with three of the four, and smell the gap.

Making it at the bench

Work in parts by weight, not by drops. At 10% dilution in ethanol, a small trial is two grams Iso E Super, two grams Hedione, one gram methyl ionone, two grams Galaxolide. Leave it a day before judging it, because Galaxolide takes time to settle and the first hour is misleading.

Then use it. Put a rose material on top of it and the rose gets rounder and lasts longer. Put jasmine on it and the jasmine stops smelling like a solvent. That is what the accord is for.

The most useful accords are often the ones with no smell of their own.

What to be careful about

Galaxolide is a polycyclic musk and has been under environmental review for years. Some suppliers have moved to Romandolide instead, which is cleaner and lighter and does not sit in the same place. Sylvamber substitutes for Iso E Super in a similar spirit. Both swaps work, and both change the accord, so treat them as different accords rather than replacements.

Concentration limits are not ours to set. IFRA's standards and your supplier's safety data sheet decide what is safe on skin and at what percentage, and they are the documents to read before you wear anything you have made.

The point of studying it

You are not copying Trésor. You could not, and there would be nothing in it if you could. You are learning that four materials in a fixed ratio can behave as one, and that a structure with no character of its own can be the most valuable thing in a formula.

The ratio above is the one commonly published for this accord and it is a starting point, not a recipe to be defended. Check every material against the current IFRA Standard for your product category before you make anything you intend to sell.