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Railing against bland made-for-all-noses perfumes, guerrilla fragrance-makers Le Labo started a revolution with unique, hand-formulated scents and plenty of soul. Now Le Labo is a top cult perfumer and has successfully brought back the art of go-slow perfume-making.
Le Labo began as an artisanal perfume-maker and now the phenomenally successful brand has expanded to candles, skin care and home fragrance.
Choosing a scent is part of the personalisation journey. Each perfume is freshly created at the in-store laboratory, hand-blended and bottled with the customer’s name on it. Base ingredients such as rose comes from Grasse in France, also hand-picked. For those wanting to break away from commercial perfumes, the individualism of theses fragrances offer a new path into olfactory.
There are over 18 scents including fragrances such as Bergamot 22, Neroli 36 and Jasmin 17. In addition are 13 exclusive ‘City Scents’ which can only be bought in the city of its origin, such as Vanilla 44 in Paris and Poivre 23 from London, which are designed to recreate specific moods of visiting certain places.
Le Labo has also created a chameleon-like sandalwood fragrance called Santal 33. This perfume became Le Labo’s ‘Chanel No. 5’ and achieved cult status among New York’s movers n’ shakers.
Turned off by commercial perfume-making processes, Fabrice Penot and Eddie Roschi, best friends turned business partners decided to forge their own route in perfumery, slowing down the process and disrupting the industry by employing rule-breaking techniques such as purely unisex scents and perfumes limited to certain cities.
They also bucked convention by turning away from traditional advertising techniques, yet the hypnotic aroma of their scents spread through creative communities, and Le Labo grew internationally from New York and Tokyo to London, Paris and Sydney.
A guerrilla perfume-maker with killer scents that tapped into our desire for personalised, slowed-down experiences.
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