Tried & Tested: Perfume-making at Oo La Lab (+ win a perfume making session!)

The Sassy Mama team fulfilled our celebrity namesake perfume dreams by mixing up our own scents at Oo La Lab!

If you’re picky with your scents and nothing on the shelves tickles your fancy, why not just make your own? Oo La Lab is a cool new service in town which lets you work with a mixologist to custom-create your ideal perfume – from picking all the notes to choosing a name! The man behind it is South African fragrance designer Terry Jacobson, who has helped design fragrances for everyone from ION Orchard (yup, it’s that whiff you smell when you tap out of the MRT station…) to Changi Airport.

Terry invited us down to the pop-up at Mandarin Gallery to experience a 90-minute perfume making session for ourselves. Starting with a quick theory lesson on the Oo Fragrance Table with 25 eau de parfum core scents available (from Fresh notes to Florals and deeper, heavier Oriental and Wood fragrances), we then set out to start our perfume making process!

It’s quite simple, but taxing on the nose if you’ve got a sensitive sniffer. Start by smelling each and every fragrance note, and note down your faves. We were allowed 20 drops for each round (there are 2 rounds of mixing in a small beaker – Chemistry lesson throwback, anyone?), which must include 10 drops of the bottom notes and 10 more of anything else.

We alternated between finding the perfect blend of smells on our own and consulting Terry on what adjustments to make based on what we each preferred. Oo La Lab also has a few pre-mixed fragrances to choose from, like the Tonka & Tomato Leaf scent that had our Managing Director, Emilie, swooning (she then made her perfume using just this and one other fragrance note!).

Once we were happy with our second mixture, it was time to translate 20 drops into 20ml, the amount needed to fill our perfume bottles! We got cracking on measuring the correct amount into our measuring cylinders and decanted each mixture into the little perfume bottles provided.

After being professionally sealed with a spray nozzle and cap, we each got our sticker labels printed with our namesakes! You can choose to have them packaged nicely in plastic wrappers with a card indicating your mixture (which you can then re-order on the website if you run out!), or go green like a couple of us and take the bottle home as-is. It’s also perfectly sized to pop in your bag for on-the-go spritzing!

The workshop is perfect as a birthday gift or even as a bonding session with your kiddos. You’d be surprised to find out how everyone’s tastes in smells are so different! If you’d like to try it out, enter our giveaway below and we’ll pick TWO lucky mamas for a perfume making workshop at their next pop-up in River Valley. Each winner will be able to attend with a friend!

Oo La Lab, Delta House, #02-04, 2 Alexandra road, 159919. Open Mon – Sat 11am – 8pm. Advance booking required. WhatsApp (+65) 8567 5776 to book. 

www.oola-lab.com