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Saturday Question: What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?

Hello Fellow Fumies,

At ULG we have a Saturday Question. Everyone gets to chime in with an answer, chat with other responders and it’s a fun event each week. Taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

The idea is you’ll see it on the weekend or chime in through the week. Hopefully you will come back regularly and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them. The aim is to generate real conversation and connection even though we are scattered around the globe.

 

Saturday Question: What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?

Found this amazing question on  Facebook many years ago. Audrey posed the question and there were some really terrific answers. Don’t worry if your city has been done. Give it your own twist, tell your story through scent.

If Le Labo did a city exclusive for your closest city, what would be the note focus? You can only choose one city for the name but include a bunch of notes that you think would be symbolic of the atmosphere there.

My Answer:

Sydney: Aquatic, Ozonic, Salty, Car Fumes, Eucalyptus and Mown Grass with the smell of baristas making sweet, clean Coffee running in and out through the whole life of the fragrance. There would also need to be some Spices, Sydney is very multicultural and one of the things I love about walking its streets is the diversity of food smells coming from shops and homes. I’m thinking there should also be hints of smoke from the famous Aussie BarBQs.

My Saturday Question to you is:

What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?

27 thoughts on “Saturday Question: What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?”

  2. I live equidistant between two large Yorkshire cities. I’ve lived & worked in both. Hence I’m going to cheat & fragrance both.
    Sheffield – the steel city. Famed for heavy industry, cutlery, the Full Monty, synth bands & clubs. Sheffield would have metallic, concrete & crackling electro notes with an a base of human musk. Sadly, as the notes indicate there is an underlying scent of human toil & misery.
    Leeds – the Kensington of the North. Built on wool & textiles, now a financial hub, home to banks, insurance & trading.
    Leeds has the green valley of the River Aire & ruined Kirkstall Abbey standing just a couple of miles from the centre. So Leeds smells green but with the addition of the beauty halls of the upmarket department stores. So Iris, rose & a touch of violet would give a lipstick accord atop the green of the valley, the parks & the tropical butterfly house.

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  3. interesting question! I’m in Pittsburgh and to be honest, despite no longer being a city of steel mill smoke, we still get an industrial, sulphur like scent wafting through the city when the wind is right (or wrong, I suppose.). I regularly see FB posts about the smell of the air. So maybe I’ll go with the scent of my town growing up in eastern Iowa in summer. Warm earth, chlorine from the pool, cotton candy at the county fair, a bit of funk from the 4H livestock pens, rhubarb from the backyard, and the honeysuckle that I walked by every day on my way to wherever the day’s adventures were leading.

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  4. Great question! Several years ago when I first visited the Le Labo boutique on Newbury Street, I asked them if they were doing a Boston city exclusive anytime soon. However, I never really thought about what it would smell like… raw seafood would have to be a component because of the harbor. Glass and metal (which were conveyed as a hairspray-like note to my nose in Pulse of Astana by Aura of Kazakhstan). Earthy notes to represent the old brownstone buildings. Green grass for the Boston Common and Public Garden, which are beautiful spaces made even brighter with tulips in the spring. Roses and cherry blossoms. Rubber and more metal for all the sports stadiums. Wood to represent various musical instruments in the conservatory and symphony hall. Soot and fumes from the underground trains (“the T”)… maybe that could be translated with a light touch of cade?

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  5. I love this question! I’m in Atlanta, Georgia, whose nickname is “the city in the forest” (though the developers are cutting down more and more of our tree canopy every day, ugh). We also have the most beautiful spring flowers because the season is so long and mild here. So I would make a Le Labo for Atlanta that is a green floral (heehee, one of my own favorites), with notes (in no particular order) of daffodils, jasmine, pink magnolia, white rose, neroli, peach, galbanum, earth, and oakmoss, and a chypre structure.

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  6. My humid mostly tropical climate would reveal itself through notes of magnolia, gardenia, green leafy notes, oak moss, orange and satsuma, cedarwood, and pine needles.

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  7. I don’t have an olfactory affinity with any of the cities near me(!), but I am reminded of the time that Geza Schoen captured my home town of Belfast in four different scents, which I went on to try to attribute to different districts. ;)

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  8. This question is well timed, because I’ve had my niece from Australia visiting my hometown of Fort Worth, TX, so we’ve been playing tourist. First I would say a solar note, because it is so hot here in Summer. And social life seems to involve a lot of margaritas, so maybe a touch of lime. But the main note would be leather. We walked into so many western shops in the Stockyards here, and the leather of the boots, saddles, belts, etc, just hits you when you walk through the door.

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  9. What a fun question. I have always wanted to make a perfume that is based on our walk to our favorite Seattle bar/restaurant – located on a steep stair climb between our amazing downtown farmers market and the waterfront. Initially you would smell newly rained on concrete mixed in with scent of damp greenery. This is the underlying smell of downtown Seattle. In the background is coffee because someone zipping past you will always have a cup in hand. Then there is the scent of the waterfront – car exhaust, tourists and the Puget Sound. The final notes would be a combination of old, polished wood from the bar and maybe rye or bourbon notes.

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  10. You’ve captured a great overview of Sydney, Portia, so I’m going to zoom in for a seasonal snapshot of my local Sydney area. Definitely the eucalyptus (or.maybe tea tree with its earthier terpenic aroma) and the cut grass, the honeyed pollen smell of wattle and eucalyptus blossom, a big slug of summer storm petrichor and a whiff of the orange-blossom smell of ubiquitous murraya shrubs and sunscreen.

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    • We have Murraya around our apartment block and over the last couple of years I’ve had the gardener let them grow nearly 2 stories tall (while still being clipped straight so towers) on our northern facing side. My bedroom faces it and the scent is utterly beguiling when it flowers. Added plus is the cooling effect in summer. A little spray of water over it and a little wind the extra temperature drop is appreciable.
      Portia xx

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  11. I live in Georgia (USA), just outside Atlanta. So I’m thinking peach (of course), gardenia, magnolia, galbanum and a bit of honeysuckle thrown in for good measure. Mostly green and floral goodness for our sunny, hot and humid climate.

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