Creative Commons Scents
Most women I know have been making unauthorized fragrance and makeup mashups since they began playing with these transformative compounds without concern for intellectual property issues. As wise Helen explains in Kissing Jessica Stein, “You gotta blend.” Le Labo is the first perfume company I’m aware of to embrace a Creative Commons philosophy for their scents and actively encourage this sort of creativity.
Le Labo’s beautiful site features fun treatise on olfactory resistance with so many of my favorite elements: inspired by Mike Mills‘ declaration about “fighting the rising tide of conformity,” lovingly formulating each of its 10 fragrances by hand, on demand, by happy people filled with passion and intuition. Well worth downloading: the Olfactionary (PDF) a “dictionary of olfaction” detailing the origins and properties of the raw materials that make up what we buy as fragrance and an advice guide explaining how perfumers sample scents.
If you can’t find me this rainy spring afternoon, I’ll be playing hooky and filling my senses with Jasmin 17 and Neroli 36 at Le Labo (after a rosemary mint mani/pedi at Priti).
Le Labo 233 Elizabeth St New York, NY 10012 (map) +1.212.219.2230
Priti 35 East 1st St New York NY 10003 (map) +1.212.254.3628
(Thanks Juli B., for the pointer this morning.)