The Fragrance Lab at Selfridges Beauty Project

fragrance lab 05Fragrance Freaks, attention please! There is an interesting experiment happening as part of Selfridges Beauty Project that you should take note of.

Trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory has collaborated with design studio Campaign and fragrance manufacturer Givaudan to construct The Fragrance Lab in a corner of the store’s ground floor. The idea behind it is to find you the perfect, mixed-for-you perfume that fits your personality. As Chris Sanderson, co-founder of The Future Laboratory said, you end up with ‘One’s essence, distilled in to a scent’. Neat huh?

Clearly, I had to give it a go and Selfridges kindly invited me along to try it out. There’s an initial quiz to find out a bit about you then you are sent on an olfactory journey -through rooms and scented spaces to further deduce your character. I’m not going to tell you too much about it, as The Future Lab want it to be a surprise if you do end up going. Suffice to say I loved it. Part of the journey takes you through the Selfridges window space, so at one point you are part of a display.
fragrance labAt the end, you get a document which is ‘About You’. Mine was so horribly close to me it was a bit spooky.

And then I got my fragrance ‘prescription’, smell number 248, a bouquet of rose, jasmine sambac and tuberose with a base of tonka bean and vanilla. All spot on choices for me. Did I like it? Well yes, surprisingly I did. I’m not sure I’d have chosen it myself but I’ve been wearing it all week and liking it more and more after each wear.

As Chris said, not everyone will like the way their personality smells, but some final tweaking can be done if things really do go pear-shaped until you are happy.

But for me, it’s all about the experience of fragrance more than the final product, although since you are spending £65 on the fragrance journey and the final bottle of perfume that obviously has to count.

Fragrance is SO difficult to buy, particularly if you want a new smell, so what a terrific idea to make it a fully immersive adventure to try and narrow down that selection process. When we open our own TWR shop, we will definitely have a Fragrance Lab in it, to help you narrow down your choices and point you in the right direction for your perfect smell.

Bravo Selfridges for making the buying process more personalised and fun and well done Future Laboratory for coming up with something so innovative.

fragrance lab 03Below is the personalised bottle and label, each one will be different. The Fragrance Lab is on as part of Selfridges Beauty Project for the next six weeks, when the Lab will go on tour around the remaining Selfridges stores. Definitely worth doing if you are a fragrance fan.
fragrance lab 02
Top two and last image credits; Hufton+Crow

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