Slow perfumery

Definition

Slow perfumery describes a production posture in niche perfumery that favors time, small batches and traditional methods. The term draws on the slow food movement born in Italy in the 1980s and on the slow fashion wave that followed. It describes a way of producing rather than a stylistic family: the central criterion is the relationship to time and to the process, not company size or ownership.

Origin and history

The term is widely attributed to Le Labo, founded in New York in 2006 by Fabrice Penot and Eddie Roschi (source: Wikipedia). From the Nolita laboratory, the brand framed its work as slow perfumery, an explicit response to mass market fragrance, with bottles hand blended in front of the customer.

The expression existed before Le Labo: Mandy Aftel, an American natural perfumer in Berkeley, has spoken of slow scent since the late 1990s and has registered Slow Scent as a mark for her teaching classes (source: Aftelier). The movement widened in the early 2020s in the wake of slow fashion.

Use in perfumery

Three technical criteria recur in the professional literature. Long maceration, which lets the concentrate rest for several weeks to several months, up to a year in some artisan houses. Small batch production, often hand assembled and sometimes filled to order. The privileged use of natural raw materials and traditional processes such as tincture, infusion and enfleurage.

Frequently cited precursors are L'Artisan Parfumeur (Paris, 1976) and Les Salons Serge Lutens at the Palais Royal (Paris, 1992). On the natural side, Aftelier in the United States has worked in this spirit since the 1990s.

Related terms

Slow perfumery is best understood by contrast with neighboring terms in niche perfumery: artisan describes a company size, niche a distribution model, independent an ownership status.