shot from the hip

a colleague of mine is spending this weekend in nyc, and before she left she asked if i needed anything from the city, as i haven’t visited since last fall. my first instinct was to see if she would be in the vicinity of soho, specifically near 233 elizabeth st, just south of houston.

233 elizabeth is the home of le labo, a perfume boutique that specializes in micro-produced and bespoke fragrances, luscious and sweet blends composed of essential oils. the lab is tucked away under sprawling fire escapes and trees, and the atmosphere is laboratory-decay-chic, in a way that’s totally comfortable and pleasant. the 10 proprietary blends line the south wall, divvied up as male, female and unisex. the lab where they actually make the perfume while you wait is along the north.

this is one of my favourite places to visit, because they articulate the best of bespoke principles.

craft
it is made by hand – you make your selection, and then wait while they create your selection. the lab is in plain view, and questions are welcomed by the super friendly people.

humanity +experience
it begins the moment you walk in the door and form a relationship with them around the thing they create for you. this is craft – it’s human, and isn’t about “look what i made” but “i made this for you” – and this is why it resonates.

craft + passion
to master anything, you’ve got to be committed, dedicated, disciplined. learning the process, the ingredients, the history – sweating it out over the years and figuring out how something works and what is possible with it. honing talent and skill. le labo tells us about that effort.

process +experience
each fragrance is numbered – such as patchouli 24 or fleur d’oranger 27 (this is the one for me), which indicates the principal essence as well as the total number of sekret ingredients composing the scent, sekret in part because choosing your perfume by reading an olfactory description is like asking for someone’s resume before falling in love…

meaning + learning
however, despite this, le labo is committed to preserving and sharing the knowledge of perfume – the making, the formulas, the history, and hence the olfactionary.

quality
the fragrances are very good. they are wonderful. empathy, emotion, memory, dreams, hopes… the impact of these fragrances is similar to how you feel the first time you smell freshly mown grass after a long hard winter or how a brief scent on the breeze momentarily reminds you of someone you love. the brains behind le labo have created fragrances that tap into your deepest place of total awesomeness. if you’ve ever seen the animated film ratatouille, you know the moment when the critic finally eats the eponymous dish – these fragrances are like that.

commitment to craft
the treatise on olfactory resistance, whereby the founders refuse to flood the world’s perfume shops with factory-made products, but instead make each of the 10 fragrances by hand, on demand, in ny. they are carving their own path.

affordable + authentic
you are not buying a conflated name, you are purchasing a product reasonably priced, and participating in a brand through their openness and access to knowledge.