CALIFORNIA GIRLS

Suki Waterhouse and Poppy Jamie talk LA living, friendship and female entrepre

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quite desirable and its founders were pleased with its success. But it was to be superseded. “Wood, woods and more woods,” is how the boutique perfumer describes the seductive yet subtle scent of its best-selling cedar and sandalwoodimbued scene-stealer.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a store with no marketing plans, cult status came by accident. Roschi tells the tale as if this monumental success could just as easily not have happened. It starts with the entry of one woman to the store. Jane Larkworthy, W Magazine’s feted beauty editor, gravitated on that day to a candle, named Santal 26, which had been part of the core collection.

When she asked if she could include it in an exclusive story, the founders told her no, it was being discontinued.

“We’d decided we were a perfume company, and asked ourselves why we even had a candle,” Roschi explains. As a consolation they offered to personalise the remaining 400 or so candles they had left in the stockroom as gifts for guests attending Larkworthy’s upcoming wedding. The editor accepted. The story in W came and went. And then the phone started ringing. People were requesting Santal 26 perfume – but there was no perfume.

One night in Brooklyn changed things. Penot was partying and in the crowd caught a whiff of something familiar. Someone had spritzed on the Santal 26 Home Fragrance. The pair tweaked the scent and released it as Santal 33. In 2015, The New York Times was calling it “the perfume you smell everywhere”.

Today, Le Labo – the name references the perfumiers’ laboratory – runs 40 stores worldwide, with Hong Kong boutiques on Star Street and in ifc. There are 17 available fragrances in the collection, alongside shampoo, lotion, lip balm and candles – including Santal 26 and 33. The company famously offers city exclusives. Hong Kong is due its own, which is expected early next year. Roschi gives nothing about it away except that it will command a feeling of “power”.

Such is the company’s cachet that hotels complain of the spiralling cost of stocking Le Labo in their amenities kits, because guests steal armfuls from housekeeping trolleys, evidence of which can be seen on the Instagram accounts dedicated to showcasing the loot.

In 2014, Le Labo was acquired by Estée Lauder, adding to its growing list of niche brands. It seems as if the brand that wanted not to sell has sold billions; the brand that envisioned scent for the individual has created a cult classic for the masses; and that the brand aimed firmly at independence has now rejoined corporate beauty.

Roschi describes this union as very necessary. Going alone has brought success, to be sure, but not without struggle. Challenges in owning the business came daily, and pushed them way beyond their comfort zone. “It’s like, we gave birth to Le Labo. It was our baby. But, you know, that baby grows up. Becomes a teenager. A young adult. We didn’t think we were quite the right parents for that stage.”

Instead, he moved to Portugal, where he’s based, and where he enjoys the laid-back European pace of life, has had some human babies and will venture next into beekeeping. Roschi and Penot do remain very much involved in Le Labo. And in stores not much appears to have changed. A visit to the boutique remains a nurturing experience in which perfumes are tailored for the individual wearer, hand-bottled and personalised by name. But these days, Roschi and Penot are free to focus firmly where their passion lies – on making scent.

Le Labo’s success wasn’t calculated. It wasn’t supposed to become huge. It was born from a dream to do something different, Roschi says. And it worked.

“It was nothing about market timing. It was much more about personal timing. We never asked ourselves if it was the right time, though it turned out to be a good time – but that was more a consequence of us trying to be less frustrated. It was the ultimate freedom,” he says.

“And that’s priceless.”