Scent / Berlin

Fine Fragrance City Exclusive Collection

Le Labo’s City Exclusive Collection explores the malleability and recollection of memories.

Introducing the latest addition to their collection,

CEDRAT 37.

SMELL. MEMORIES. PLACES. CITIES.

Scent is not only used to please the body’s senses, but also to reproduce episodic memories in life. Normally, we would not describe a place by its smell, but smell, inadvertently brings us into a place and scene of memory.

One often associates memories with magnificent sceneries or experiences that once brought happiness to their lives. Through the passage of time, these fond memories gradually fade away and break into fragmented pieces. These fragments are also soon forgotten and you can no longer remember. These memories, however, are not permanently removed. One day, when you pass the corner of a street, you may encounter a familiar scent, bursting into the air and bringing you back to the depth of your memories. Here, you are reminded once again of this fond experience and this memory now belongs to the air.

The core difference between smell and other sensory sensations is that scent takes a direct route to the limbic system in the brain, including the amygdala and hippocampus, the regions related to emotion and memory. Memories that are triggered by scent are more emotional and moving as compared to others. For decades, individuals and businesses have explores ways to harness the evocative power of smell, think cologne or perfume, in an attempt to pull users deeper into a story or memory and manipulate behaviour.

Fine Fragrance City Exclusive Collection

“The perfumer’s work is “sexy” as in desirable, tempting... It is a true art form and craft that very few master well and that takes many years of apprenticeship. It is secretive and exclusive as there are not many true perfumers out there hence its attraction is even stronger for outsiders who have a curious mind. The creative development itself is a controlled and tedious process that requires experience and a specific language mastery that comes with years of practice, of failure and of success.”

Scent is not only used to please the body’s senses but also to reproduce episodic memories in life. Normally, we would not describe a place by its smell, but smell inadvertently brings us into a place and scene of memory.

Each and every person has their own unique emotion and memory of each place, including smell, sight, sound, touch, and taste, and just like perfume, the action of spraying onto your body will also trigger various emotions. Through this limited City Exclusive Collection from Le Labo, I recalled some of my forgotten memories of Hong Kong, those mixed with the gushing and smell of seawater, the fragrance of flowers, the smell of rain and fog...

At Le Labo, every creation has its own special soul, it is created and inspired by the mental construction of a certain character e.g. his or her character traits, main values, personal style, and what fragrances he or she would wear. The brand believes that fine perfumery must create a shock – the shock of something new combined with the shock of something intimately familiar. When creating the City Exclusives, Le Labo selected cities where they already had boutiques and where they had particular memories of or emotional connections with, and Hong Kong has the pride of place amongst the other iconic cities honoured by the brand. Bigarade 18 places tribute to co-founder Eddie Roschi’s memories of Hong Kong where he lived as a child in the early 80’s, strolling through the hallways of the Repulse Bay hotel that was lined with fragrant lilies and citrus trees. Hong Kong was new then and even newer for him were his days there were endless discoveries. In developing Bigarade 18 for Hong Kong, he wanted to mix the old classicism of “old school” ingredients while making a scent that stayed contemporary and unforgettable, a tribute to his exposure to his days and memories of Hong Kong, a mix of oldness and newness. The founders did not want to give any names to a fragrance that would stereotype a scent. For example, it is not hard to resonate with the word feminine when talking about a rose. Thus, they use the simplest way to name their fragrances that also encourage their customers to focus on what is used in the bottle.

Each scent is named after its primary scent note and given a number, indicating the composition’s total ingredient count. The ingredients are truly what sets Le Labo apart, all of its perfume and creations are made with the finest and highest quality ingredients, imported from various countries. For instance, Rose 31 uses rose petals handpicked in Grasse, France. While, Santal 33, is made from Sandalwood harvested from Australia. The important of ingredients to the brand can also be reflected in the way Le Labo names its fragrance creations and how they do their packaging. All of their bottles are standard and the same for each of their scents. The labels and boxes are kept simple and minimal.

Every creation has its own special soul, it is created and inspired by the mental construction of a certain character e.g. his or her character traits, main values, personal style, and what fragrances he or she would wear.

The rationale behind this is that the two founders wanted to focus on what is inside: a soulful perfume crafted with the finest ingredients. At the heart of Le Labo, it is all about bringing sensorial experiences to clients and giving them the space to smell, to feel, to experience, to react, and to project their own emotions. The founders, Fabrice and Eddie, wanted to share with people the marvel of wandering in a perfumer’s lab and discovering all the different ingredients and smells captured in these little vials. Perfumery at that point had become more about marketing the packaging and the image versus the craft and the knowhow.

Le Labo means “The Lab” in French and each boutique is designed as a fragrance laboratory that is open to the public by offering the possibility to smell and touch raw materials to awake the olfactory system. Every fragrance is freshly hand-blended and each label is personalized to order, providing client’s with a unique, sensorial, and personalised experience.

La Muralla

A living minimalist eatery by Yakusha Studio