PHOTO COURTESY OF LE LABO
For most of the year, Le Labo’s City Exclusive fragrances refuse to travel. Each scent is bottled and sold only in the city it was made for. No shipping, no online orders, and no workarounds, so you can only own one if you visit in person. That rule has held since the collection began, turning every bottle into something closer to a souvenir. Every September, however, Le Labo bends the rule. So for one month, the entire City Exclusive collection opens up to noses around the world.
PHOTO COURTESY OF LE LABO
This year’s window opens with a new addition to the roster. For the first time, Beijing has a fragrance of its own. Shiu 25 draws on the hush of the city’s old courtyard houses, the kind of rooms where light falls slowly and nothing hurries. Notes of iris and olibanum sit at the top, drifting over a base of warm, grounding woods. Altogether, they create something composed, contemplative and built for stillness.
Le Labo’s Beijing He Yuan Fragrance Lab certainly makes a fitting home for the new City Exclusive. The boutique sits inside a culturally protected Siheyuan courtyard mansion in the Wang Fu Central district. There, the brand’s signature stripped-back aesthetic meets centuries-old architecture. Shiu 25 joins 18 other fragrances in the collection, each tied to a specific place, from London’s pepper-forward Poivre 23 to Paris’ deceptively un-vanilla Vanille 44.
The rollout will happen in two phases. Samples and discovery sets arrive from 1 August 2026, offering newcomers a low-commitment way to explore the range. From 1 September through 30 September, the full collection then lands worldwide in 15 ML, 50 ML, 100 ML and 500 ML sizes.
After 30 September, the door closes again. Shiu 25 returns to Beijing, while the rest of the City Exclusive scents head back to their respective labs. Thereafter, the only way in is to wait for next year’s window. Or, of course, you could always book a flight or two.
