sorbet
16.08.07, 20:53
The New Sophisticated-Smelling Me
By MIKE ALBO
Published: August 16, 2007
www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/fashion/16CRITIC.htm
YOU can go through life for only so long smelling like a dessert
topping. For a few years now, I have been wearing a mix of a coconut-
y moisturizer, Skin Trip, and a cake-batter-y perfume oil, Tunisian
Amber, both acquired from the Integral Yoga store on West 13th
Street. It was cool for a while, but I am nearing 40, and this sweet
concoction doesn’t cut it anymore, unless my goal is to attract a
doughnut.
This is the fate of many yoga folk like me: we try to be socially
conscious, but we smell like syrup. We scoff at the unenlightened
fashion victims slathered in Creed and CK in2u, but we have our own
effluvium, reeking of the musky Jivamukti studios and the health
food stores we frequent.
Le Labo, a year-and-a-half-old fragrance shop in NoLIta, wants to
help us escape our outdated olfactory routines while becoming a
globally aware alternative to the oppressive essential oils worn by
naturopaths and the overwhelming body mists of chic department
stores. The interior of the shop is rustic and warmly distressed.
The room has been ripped away at, exposing brick, rough wood and an
old tin wall with a fleur-de-lis pattern, creating that worn-in look
we all enjoy these days.
When I walked in, a saleswoman wearing glasses and a smile asked me
if I had been there before. She showed me the fragrance line,
presented on three tables along the wall, 11 selections in all. They
have names like Labdanum 18 and Ambrette 9. The numerals signify the
number of other ingredients, like star anise and oak moss. You can
sample the scents with long white paper wands, but this didn’t work
for me. I needed to spray all 11 on my forearms, until I was an
especially redolent Christmas tree.
The fragrances smelled organic but not thick or weighty, a
complicated balance best exemplified by the full-bodied but floral
tones of Iris 39 and Jasmin 17. Even Patchouli 24, an oil as
ubiquitous as corn syrup in my Kundalini scene, had an airy quality.
The shop offers a variety of sizes: a half-ounce spray bottle for
$50; a 34-ounce decanter at $900. This one is huge. It must be for
someone who plans to live to be 500. I settled on the $50 bottles of
Vetiver 46 and Bergamote 22, which will last me until next spring at
least.
Bergamote 22 has hints of lemon and apples. But I may be wrong — my
olfactory talents are pathetic. Here is a sampling of the
conversation I had with the lovely saleswoman:
Me: “Wow, this one is so fruity. ...”
Her: “Earthy?”
Me: “Yes! Yes! Earthy!”
Thankfully this place does not turn up its nose at those who don’t
have one. Fabrice Penot, one of the owners, honed his nose in an
intensive five-year training program at L’Oréal in Paris. L’Oréal
hired him as a marketing executive on the Acqua di Gio and Armani
Privé fragrances. There he met Eddie Roschi, who had come from
Firmenich, a huge fragrance, flavor and chemical manufacturer.
Every three weeks, the two flew to Milan to present new product and
marketing campaigns to Giorgio himself. As they became friends, they
shared their frustrations with the tightly wound perfume industry,
which, like many monolithic industries and some governments, has a
difficult time imagining a world outside of its outdated dogma, and
absently ascribes to dumb rules like (1) Men will never buy scents
with the word “rose” in the name; and (2) It’s impossible to open a
store in Tokyo because the Japanese don’t like smells.
By 2004, the two friends were living in New York and feeling
revolutionary. They quit their high-paying jobs, pooled their money,
enlisted four friends to invest, found space on Elizabeth Street and
installed a lab. After two years of experimentation, they had
created 10 fragrances. They decided to forgo a blitzy ad campaign
and spend their budget on high-quality ingredients that would be
mixed at the store. One creation was Rose 31 for men, now its best-
selling fragrance. (No. 1 down.)
This fall, they plan to open stores in Los Angeles and Tokyo. Mr.
Penot says Le Labo will be the first independent perfume brand with
a free-standing store in the Japanese city. (Sayonara, No. 2.)
Le Labo is one of a wave of idealistic merchants, “antipreneuers”
who want to create products that aren’t obnoxious, cut out
unnecessary advertising and exist within their means.
Antiglobalization talk is all over its Web site and packaging.
On the phone a few days after I visited the shop, Mr. Penot was as
passionate as his signage, saying things like: “The prevailing model
in the industry focuses on business and hopes for creation to
happen. We decided to focus on creation and hope for business.”
Listening to his idealism was totally enchanting and filled me with
hope for a world that is not one giant Wal-Mart, but maybe it’s
because Mr. Penot has a lilting French accent.
After I selected my fragrances, a woman in a white lab coat and
surgical gloves began to compound my little half-ounces behind the
long bar. There is a slightly commercialized theatricality to it
all, as if I were sitting at a Cold Stone Creamery while someone
mixed a Heath Bar into my chocolate ice cream.
In accord with its stripped-down aesthetic, the fragrances come in
brown cardboard boxes labeled in a plain, almost generic font. Each
bottle is marked with your name (or someone else’s), the name of the
mixologist and the date of its creation.
For all of its antipreneurial attitude and talk of individualism, I
worry that Le Labo, no matter how nonconformist, will fall prey to
the evils of the seemingly unstoppable “masstige” — produce huge
quantities, spend gobs of money on advertising and quickly ship all
over the world. But so far, Le Labo doesn’t smell disingenuous. And
I don’t smell like a cupcake.
Fotki:
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