Le Labo: Rose 31

What i found was what looked like a small, cosy and clean perfume lab with people who were more than willing to help me with everything i needed. The energy in the store was one of youthfull people enjoying life's gifts of nature and translating this trough the subtracts they put inside their little fragrance bottles.
I can only guess this is what Le Labo is all about…

I started my way discovering the fragrances with the more woody or masculin scents. As always sandalwood, vetiver and patchouli got a lot of my attention. The people of Le Labo explaned to me that the names of every scent existed of its main ingrediënt followed by the number of other ingrediënts added. For example Santal 26, Cuir 28 or Vetiver 46.

But then they drew my attention to something else. The nice girl who worked at the store (i think her name was Taïta) asked me what my thoughts were on roses…

The rose fields of Grasse, France, where the Centifolia rose is hand-harvested by pickers. These men and women, who wake up early and work hard are the first to care for the beloved rose petals before these undergo the long transformative process of extraction that makes them end up in the bottles of Rose 31.

The perfume’s aim is clear: to transform the famous Grasse Rose, a symbol of voluptuousness and unqualified femininity, into an assertively virile fragrance that can be worn by both men and women… The result is a model of its kind: alternating feminine/masculine with the disturbing ambiguity of the Centifolia rose, quickly picked up by a chorus of warm, spicy and woodsy notes such as cumin, olibanum, cedar and a touch of amber… In the background, the declared sensuality of Gaïac wood and cistus highlighted by a distinctly physical animal note, give this perfume a disconcerting sense of mystery.

Well, i can tell you my thoughts on roses…
I love roses…
140 euro for a bottle of 50ml.