Le Labo: A Brief History
The perfumery has scaled to heights of which the co-founders never imagined.
I’ve lived in California off and on for seven years. Working in tech with friends who run in the same professional circles, I’ve heard more founder stories than I can count. The stats you hear about start-ups are very real. Plenty of people move to Silicon Valley or Silicon Beach wanting to fulfill their dreams with the next multi-billion dollar idea. Unfortunately only a tiny percentage of these dreams come true because so many of these start-ups fail to get the necessary traction and run out of money. So anytime I hear a household name in any industry get their start by bootstrap their idea, I’m always thoroughly impressed. One of the biggest names in the fragrance world, Le Labo, is a company built from passion and no money from outside investors.
Eddie Roschi didn’t necessarily know what he wanted to do when he grew up, so he studied chemical engineering in college. He knew that he didn’t want to be a chemist in the traditional sense and wanted to do something fun with his career. He reached out to a friend who worked at Firmenich, a company that has been producing fragrances since the late 1800s, and that led him to his first job as an Account Director. With his knowledge of chemicals and compounds, he thoroughly enjoyed working in sales for the North African and Middle Eastern markets. He would eventually get a job at L’Oreal where he would meet Fabrice Penot, his future co-founder. They enjoyed working together so much that it was a no-brainer to start a company, and the idea came to them while they worked on product launches for Armani. Eddie and Fabrice agreed that fragrances were straying too far away from artistry and quality ingredients and moving to anything that had mass appeal. They wanted to bring personality and life back into the equation, and that’s exactly what they did.
The Early Days
The first Le Labo storefront was in New York’s Nolita neighborhood. They went to market with 10 fragrances, but Santal 33 originally didn’t make that cut and was relegated down to a scented candle. Ian Schrager, the owner of the Gramercy Hotel, ordered a smokier batch of the Santal candles for the lobby, and his guests started to lose their minds over it in the best way possible. As it swelled in popularity, they decided to make it into a room spray. The decision to integrate it into a formal fragrance came from a random interaction with a customer at a bar. Fabrice smelled a man in front of him and couldn’t get the familiar yet intoxicating scent out of his mind. When he asked the man what he was wearing, the man responded something to the tune of “It’s actually not a fragrance; I’m embarrassed to admit that it’s actually a room spray that I really enjoy.” That moment would change the course of the company’s trajectory. They’d later go onto open their second location in Los Angeles’ West Hollywood neighborhood.
International Expansion
In a move counter to most brands, they decided to expand internationally for the third and fourth storefronts three years after starting the company. While most companies wait to reach some form of critical mass before turning it’s focus overseas to completely different markets, they entered early, but with a slowed approach. They decided to have a retail counter in Liberty and Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, highly revered department stores in London and Paris, respectively. Once they saw the sales numbers prove that demand was present and growing, they opened their own retail space in those cities. They’d then move onto entering the hottest Asian markets by targeting Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong for their next wave of expansion. By 2015, the brand had become so popular that the NY Times published an article titled, “That Perfume You Smell Everywhere Is Santal 33.”
The Acquisition
In 2014, Estée Lauder acquired Le Labo for an estimated $60m. It was mutually agreed upon with everyone involved that they would stay relatively independent of the parent company so as to preserve the brand as much as possible. The founding duo feels quite comfortable pushing back against things they don’t believe in. Estée Lauder executives wanted them to release up to five new fragrances a year; they flat out told them no. Personally I’m glad that there has been a full separation between the two companies as we’ve seen dramatic changes once small brands get swallowed up by larger companies. Bonobos was never the same once they became part of Wal-Mart (we all knew that was going to happen). Should this be a lesson to large corporations and private equity firms that have been buying companies with cult followings? Absolutely. Improve other parts of the business and leave the creative processes alone as much as possible.
Interesting Facts About the Brand
I’ve been a fan of Le Labo for a while. We always have the basil hand soap and shampoo for special occasions and my girlfriend has Another 13 in her fragrance arsenal. The more research I did regarding the moves Eddie and Fabrice made have probably turned my fandom into borderline obsession. First of all, they don’t spend any dollars on advertising. Any fashion/beauty brand hearing that was part of a go-to-market strategy would probably mock them saying, “Ha, good luck!” Their rationale is that while some PR opportunities are necessary, advertising takes away from the product. Customers are more worried about celebrating the milestone than what the new product actually is and represents. Some people love the brand’s city exclusives (Tokyo’s GAIAC 10 is one of my favorites) but these are exclusively sold in their respective countries. However, in August and September every year, customers can buy all of the fragrances at any location or online - a huge pro tip if you’ve been trying to get your hands on bottles from other regions. Finally, the number in each fragrances is the number of ingredients each fragrance has. Ambrette 9 is their “simplest” formula while Ylang 49 is their most complex. They start from scratch each time because in order to not be mass appealing and evoke specific feelings and emotions, they didn’t want to use a base formula. Santal 33 took close to 93 revisions and iterations before proclaiming it was what they wanted.
With no signs of slowing down, a good relationship with their parent company, and staying true to their roots, Le Labo has such incredible momentum to continue to succeed. Their thoughtfulness across every part of the creative process is masterful and I hope more brands take note of what they’re doing. Bringing back originality would benefit the industry as a whole.