The art of fragrance gifting
Fragrance is quite personal. What may be everyone’s favorite scent—the bestseller—does not automatically appeal to others. Conversely, some scents that you wouldn’t normally gravitate to, you could fall in love with once it touches your skin.
In Manila, for instance, the worldwide no. 1 bestseller of the cult fragrance brand Le Labo, Santal 33, a woody, smoky fragrance with musky and leathery notes, is not the top pick of Filipinos (though it comes close). That honor goes to Another 13, a musky, mossy scent with notes of jasmine.
That’s why it’s tricky to choose a scent for a gift, even if you know the receiver’s personality quite well. If you’re thinking of gifting a Le Labo scent, and spoiling the surprise is no issue—hey, better than wasting a splurge if you end up picking something they don’t like, right?—bring the receiver to the store and allow them to try and choose.
The best way to pick a scent is really to spray it on your skin. And even the first whiff may not be the best barometer. Allow for it to develop, to react to your skin’s unique body chemistry. On some people, citrusy scents smell funky, so don’t think this family of scents will instantly please a receiver who lives in the tropics and may like a crisp and zesty fragrance.
It’s wise to wait for the drydown, or some period to allow the fragrance to settle on your skin. Many fragrance shops will encourage you to spray the scent on your skin, and come back after, say, an hour or more, before you decide if you still like the perfume. You may have liked the opening (top notes) but not the drydown—or you might.
When they’ve chosen their scent, they can have the bottle personalized with a name or message of choice (with emojis, if they so please) printed on the label. The perfume bottles at Le Labo—100 ml, 50 ml, and 15 ml—are refillable. This follows the brand’s ethos: “Our credo has always been to create beauty, without destroying beauty.” Le Labo fragrances are unisex.
A New York brand, Le Labo—French for “the lab”—was inspired by the capital of perfumery, Grasse, in France. Its fragrance names are made up of the French name of the main ingredient—say, Thé Matcha, for matcha tea—and the number of ingredients used, thus Thé Matcha 26.
Le Labo is at G/L Greenbelt 5, Makati City.
