Scent Shopping

If you’ve toured the storied perfume laboratories of Grasse, France, then you’ll recognize the process of shopping at Le Labo.

The craft fragrance company — with stores in posh places such as Hong Kong, Moscow, Dubai, and Paris — has opened its first boutique in Dallas, with a standalone downtown near The Joule hotel and Forty Five Ten on Main. (The store opened quietly after Forty Five Ten on Main debuted with its own Le Labo shop-in-shop.)

Our city’s discerning noses are rejoicing — and not just for the return of the discontinued Aldehyde 44, which has been revived as a Dallas exclusive. Scent shopping at Le Labo is far from getting spritzed at a department-store beauty counter — it’s more akin to working inside an impeccably designed, delicious-smelling science lab.

Here, nothing is pre-made: Instead, select your preferred essential-oil concentrate, and a Le Labo technician blends the final perfume on the spot, via a process similar to those used by Grasse’us perfumers.

The Dallas boutique offers Le Labo’s full range of unisex scents, room sprays, soy-based and hand-poured candles, body lotions, shower gels, bath and massage oils, and soaps.

We’ve long obsessed over Le Labo’s Tubereuse 40 (New York), part of its City Exclusives collection of scents, which are strictly available in the city noted. Our curious noses wonder whether Dallas will soon be crowned with its own Le Labo sig.

Le Labo, 1604 Main St., 214.261.4595.