Le Labo city exclusives are as elusive as they are maddening to get hold of for eleven months of the year. If you love the concept of fragrances inspired by different cities, or fragrances that not everyone around you will smell like, you’ll also feel September approaching with a kind of excitement that has nothing to do with the weather changing. For one month only, every Le Labo city exclusive is available to purchase right here on the little red dot, and this year, there is something new.
Shiu 25, Le Labo’s first fragrance created for Beijing, joins the collection for its global debut. Built around iris, olibanum, and warm woods, it expands the Asia-inspired corner of the city exclusive collection in a direction that feels considered rather than conquering in its references. I’ve had the privilege of wearing it for a while now as a special preview, and I’ve received compliments not only on the scent itself but also on the imagery it conjures up in those around me. It’s a fragrance that puts a very specific place and feeling into a bottle, and clearly this one strikes a chord in Malaysia.
Le Labo’s City Exclusive Collection
If you don’t already know, each Le Labo city exclusive is created as a tribute to a specific city and available only in that city’s stores for most of the year. That’s what makes the annual month-long window the only way to smell Tokyo’s fragrance in Singapore or Seoul’s in London. To the fragrance community, it’s a must-shop to complete your city exclusive collections, but to the more casual perfume buyer, it’s a way to explore scents you’d normally have to purchase an air ticket to even smell the tester. My personal favorites from the collection are the next on my to-buy list, Gaiac 10 from Tokyo—a subtle guaiac wood and musk composition that stays on skin as private, yet delightful, scent bubble; Osmanthus 19 from Kyoto, built around the osmanthus flower with incense and lavender before creamy florals settle into resinous woods; and Citron 28 from Seoul, the most regularly wearable of the three for Singapore’s heat and humidity, with lemon, ginger, and jasmine in the top and cedar and musk below, that smells like a honey lemon tea in the best possible way.
Discover Le Labo’s City Exclusives before shopping in store.
Le Labo’s 2026 City Exclusive: Shiu 25
Shiu 25 is not your stereotypical China-inspired fragrance. To me, it’s something quieter and more specific, and shows first-hand experience of Beijing’s more intimate spaces. Built around the concept of the Ho tree with iris, olibanum, and warm woods, it conjures up the memory of a night I spent in a luxury hutong in Beijing when I lived in China. Antique wooden furniture, soft incense drifting from somewhere in the next courtyard, crisp Beijing air, and a floral note of Chinese home and beauty rituals. It’s the type of fragrance that gives you a moment of contemplation and space to breathe, but not in a manufactured, westernised, beige wellness studio kind of way. It marries modern perfumery with traditional elements and lets the two exist in calm.
Get Them Before They’re Gone
Whether you are completing your collection or trying on a new city for the first time, Le Labo’s City Exclusives are only available throughout September in Le Labo stores. Skip them at your own peril. The next time you get the chance might be in the cities themselves.
This story first appeared in Grazia Singapore.
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