Maison Laugier, a niche perfume boutique-workshop where you can create your own bespoke fragrance

If you have a fine nose, here's a piece of news that should delight you. Maison Laugier, a French perfumer originally from Lyon, is moving to Paris to immerse us in its world of haute parfumerie. The new boutique-atelier is located in the trendy Haut-Marais district. We're off to 9 rue de Picardie to immerse ourselves in the heart of this French perfume house founded by Elodie Campagne.

When you open the doors of this boutique-atelier, you'll discover a sober, intimate setting that showcases rows of bottles containing Maison Laugier's signature fragrances. Labels with enigmatic names conjure up scenes and paintings, rather than referring directly to the notes they contain.Océan Noir hides a flowery Oud, while Tueuse de fleurs refers to a leathery rose. Le Sombre secret promises to leave a musky trail, while Le Prince des Nuées announces itself with a woody, marine fragrance.

From eau de parfum to home fragrances, not forgetting candles and body care products, Maison Laugier unveils a whole range designed to embalm our daily lives. Like an invisible painter, olfactory notes create moods, frozen moments in our lives and paintings. But theexperience goes even further:
In this boutique-atelier, Maison Laugier also invites you to enjoy a tailor-made experience with a perfume creation workshop. Accompanied by a nose, you compose your own fragrance while learning about thehistory of the art of perfumery, and how a bottle is put together.

You'll then be able to leave with either a 15ml spray bottle during a 1-hour workshop at 59€, ideal for those who change perfume with the seasons. If you're more the type to make your perfume your signature, then the 2-hour private workshop for groups of three should be more your thing. Priced at 139€, you'll leave with a 100 ML bottle of your very own bespoke perfume. You can then refill the bottle with your personalized formula for 90€.

• To be read
• Where to shop for bargains in Paris?
• Tips for the week of December 16 - 22, 2024 in Paris: free or cheap outings
• What to do in Paris in December 2024? Discover this month's events in the Paris Region

For our part, we tried out the 2-hourprivate workshop in the company of Wahiba, a perfumer who shared her passion with us by explaining the basics of this olfactory art. Set up in front of the perfume organ, you find yourself surrounded by rows of bottles. While perfumers work on isolated notes to create bottles containing 50 to 70 ingredients, here the experience is simplified with pre-defined accords made from 1,200 raw materials, no less!

To patiently guide us in our choice, Wahiba begins by asking us which fragrances we wear, which we enjoy, which we love, which take us back to our childhood, and which we hate. After a presentation of what an olfactory pyramid is, she pre-selects a few bottles likely to appeal to us, so that we can start composing our heart note, the one we smell next. Then it's up to us to make our choice, finally selecting 4 or 5 fragrances. The same process is repeated for the top notes, the first ones we smell, and the base notes, which are the ones that last the longest.

Wahiba is also a great listener, and she manages to dispel any preconceptions we may have about certain fragrances, so we can be pleasantly surprised by notes we wouldn't have included in our bottle, but which turn out to be enchanting. So as not to cloud our judgment, she first lets us smell these accords, waiting for our reaction, then explains how the fragrance has been crafted, giving us an even clearer idea of what we really like.

Once we've selected the notes, Wahiba recommends adjustments (and it's best to trust her advice!). Based on our reactions, she calculates the ideal doses for the composition, and then it's up to us to slip into the skin of an alchemist. Armed with our pipette and our scale, we scrupulously follow the recipe and, as the dispenser fills up, we feel our fragrance being born, and for our part, every step of the way makes us excited and impatient to discover the final result. Once this phase is over, Wahiba mixes everything together before putting it into a bottle, sealing the spray and affixing a label with the name of our creation. We then have to wait 15 days, the time it takes to macerate, before we can wear our own made-to-measure perfume.