Which French perfumer created Chanel No. 5 for Coco Chanel?

The French perfumer who created Chanel No. 5 for Coco Chanel was Ernest Beaux.

Beaux was a French-Russian chemist and perfumer who had worked for A. Rallet and Company, a fragrance house associated with the Russian imperial family. Coco Chanel commissioned him to develop a modern women’s fragrance, and he presented her with numbered samples in 1920. She selected sample number five, a choice that helped give the perfume its famous name.

Beaux refined the fragrance during the late summer and autumn of 1920, combining floral materials such as rose and jasmine with aldehydes, synthetic compounds that helped produce Chanel No. 5’s distinctive, abstract character. The perfume was released to selected Chanel customers in Paris on 5 May 1921 and later became one of the world’s best-known fragrances.

Coco Chanel was the creative force and public identity behind the product, but Beaux compounded the formula. That distinction explains why the answer is not another famous perfumer such as Jacques Guerlain or François Coty. Later Chanel versions, including some modern concentrations, have had different formulations; the original creation is specifically credited to Beaux.