Le Labo’s ‘steampunk apothecary’ aesthetic permeates its austerely chic perfume boutiques, with their distressed concrete walls and wabi-sabi shelving. This Industrial Revolution redux finds fullest expression in Le Labo’s fragrances, which are sturdy slabs of smell bolted together to withstand nuance and electrical fires.
One of the most robust ones is its worldwide bestseller Santal 33, a figgy-woody musk bomb that wears like a weighted blanket and emanates from every fifth hipster. A victim of its (deserved) success, Santal 33 is now so wrung out/sung out that it’s lost its hard-on.
