Le Labo hand-writes a label on every bottle with the city it was mixed in and the date. It reads like a small craft operation from the south of France. The truth is more corporate.
The house was founded in 2006 in New York, in a small shop in Nolita, by two industry men, Eddie Roschi and Fabrice Penot. The Grasse connection is real but softer than it sounds. Grasse is where the raw materials and heritage sit. The brand itself is a New York idea about stripping perfume back to the lab bench. Each scent is compounded fresh in store when you order it.
The names are just a main ingredient plus a number, like Rose 31 or Bergamote 22. Then there is the one everyone knows.
Santal 33 launched in 2011, made by the perfumer Frank Voelkl. Dry sandalwood, cedar, leather and a green violet, it became so common in hotel lobbies and coffee shops that it turned into a running joke about smelling like everyone else. It also made Le Labo famous.
One detail gets lost in the ritual. Le Labo has been owned by the Estée Lauder Companies since 2014. The hand-labelling and the fresh compounding are lovely, and they sit inside one of the largest beauty groups on earth. The sandalwood note in Santal 33 leans heavily on a synthetic accord, because real Mysore sandalwood is restricted. None of that makes the scent worse. It just makes the story smaller.
The Santal 33 signature is easy to live in. Our Santal Thirty Three is our take on it, and our Rose No. 31 follows Rose 31, both UK-made sprays at 35% concentration. See the full Le Labo collection.
