Thierry Wasser was born in Lausanne on Lake Geneva, Switzerland.  As a young boy, he was fascinated with plants and nature, drying herbs and mixing various syrups, alcohol infusions and teas in his attic.  From age sixteen to twenty, he pursued his passion in earnest, obtaining his Federal Diploma of Botany when he was twenty.  He then attended the Givaudan Perfumery School in Geneva and, at age twenty-four, became a Junior Perfumer.  Two years later, he was promoted to Perfumer and sent to Givaudan in Paris where he worked for six years in fine fragrances.

In 1994, Wasser moved to New York City and joined Firmenich International Fine Fragrance Center as a fine fragrance perfumer.  Moving to Paris in 2002, he worked at Firmenich Paris until May 2008, when he became the new Guerlain nose.  Appointed the fifth in-house perfumer, Wasser was the very first perfumer there not from Geurlain lineage.

Sacré Nobi, a former olfactory artist and the founder of S-Perfume, identified him as the “Le Corbusier of perfumery” and his oeuvre was described as “power perfumery.”  Despite widespread fame in the fragrance world, aspects of Wasser’s persona remain cloaked in mystery, earning him the sobriquet, “international man of mystery.”