A perfume shop on wheels is betting on the in-person shopping trip

One of Google’s most memorable April Fools’ pranks was 2013’s Google Nose, which offered a scent experience for search engines. As helpful as that would be for bakeries and perfumeries trying to sell their goods online, that technology has yet to become a reality.

In the meantime, one scent-focused brand is inviting people to shop in person.

Le Labo on Wheels is a mobile boutique of Le Labo, a New-York-born, high-end fragrance company. The pop-up — in Salt Lake City until Nov. 15 — visits cities across the globe to reach people without a brick-and-mortar store nearby.

Le Labo eschews a lot of common commercial techniques. The brand doesn’t do celebrity endorsements or drop a new fragrance each month. Although online shopping has become the norm and Le Labo does have an online presence, its physical storefronts have become somewhat of a destination; each fragrance is mixed by hand when a customer places an order, and a handful of its stores around the globe offer city-exclusive scents.

As the brand professes on its website, “We believe we/you should put away our modern tools and take the time to smell the roses along the way.”

This kind of experiential and interactive shopping is becoming increasingly popular as brands find new ways to encourage consumers to shop in person. Online platforms like Amazon have become ubiquitous, but companies from Anthropologie to Puma are turning to in-store events and interactive experiences to increase customer engagement and attract people to stores.

It may be working. According to Capital One Shopping, online retail sales increased dramatically after the COVID-19 pandemic, but 65% of American consumers still shop in stores on a weekly basis and 80.5% of U.S. retail sales come from brick-and-mortar locations.

Nathan and Paityn Sovereign, who live in Arizona but visited Le Labo on Wheels in Salt Lake City, are among those who prefer to shop in person.

Nathan said that although online shopping can be more convenient, he just prefers to shop in person. He is an architect, so that may have an effect.

“I love seeing design,” he said.

Paityn said the experience makes shopping in person more worthwhile.

“I don’t want to buy online,” she said. “I want to go. I want to see everything. I love store setups — how they do all of their interiors. I’m all about the experience.”

That experience, she said, is one of the reasons the Sovereigns wanted to visit Le Labo on Wheels; although they’ve purchased their perfumes online, this was their first visit to a store.

“Absolutely obsessed with it. It’s so cool that they have a lab in the back,” Paityn said. “We ordered our perfumes and they went and made them.”

What is Le Labo on Wheels like?

Le Labo on Wheels is currently parked in Salt Lake City’s trendy 9th and 9th neighborhood, where it will remain until Nov. 15. It sits just outside Curriculum, a stylish barbershop and boutique, and I’m not kidding when I say you can smell it from the sidewalk — not overpoweringly so, but enough to invite in passersby.

At the Salt Lake pop-up, I chatted with one of the lab technicians — also referred to as a “Le Labo Soul” — who showed me around the tiny store and explained some of the fragrances and the history of the company. Lots of perfumes try to sell an idea, he said — beauty, power, class — but Le Labo simply names their scents after the top notes and number of ingredients. Santal 33, for instance, is a sandalwood fragrance with 33 ingredients.

Le Labo was started in 2006 to create “soulful fragrances” with a focus on quality, sustainability and the human touch. It’s also cruelty-free. Its products are not cheap — a 250-mL shampoo will run you $45, and a 15-mL perfume bottle costs $113.

Le Labo co-founder Fabrice Penot told Huff Post that one factor in the pricing is the quality of ingredients, which can include hand-picked rose petals from France and sandalwood from Australian farms. Blending the scents in person rather than mass producing them also contributes to the cost.

Penot said he hopes people connect to the scents and wear them thoughtfully.

“People come, spray, wear, think,” Penot said. “It’s not an act of consumerism.”

Le Labo isn’t exclusively about its products and scents; it’s about experience and human interaction. You can get your groceries delivered these days, but even if you go to the grocery store, you can pick your items, scan in the self-checkout, and leave without ever speaking to anyone. That’s impossible if you go to stores, like Le Labo, that are trying to emphasize in-person experiences and connection.

One customer came in with an empty Le Labo perfume bottle and requested a refill. The technician explained to me that the brand encourages refills as part of its sustainability efforts, giving customers who bring in an old bottle a discount. Each refill gets a new label, personalized with the customer’s name and the date the perfume was mixed.

One lab technician told me he knew a customer who must have 30 labels on his bottle.

I watched as the technician mixed the perfume, carefully measuring liquids in beakers and using droppers. He poured it into the bottle and repackaged it, reminding the customer that because the scent had just been mixed, it would start out soft and gain strength over the next few weeks.

A stack of branded newspapers sits outside the store. “Le Journal,” which professes to be “cultural commentary with a scent of humor,” includes a crossword, horoscopes, missed connections and a guide to the brand’s City Exclusive fragrances.

“I’ve stopped missing home now that I realize I can wear it,” a quote on the front reads.

Travel the world and experience new things, Le Journal says, but find your way home. “These wandering fragrances know something we keep forgetting: a little distance restores wonder to the familiar.”