A scent nobody else is wearing
You choose from three families of materials, we build the formula and leave it four weeks to settle, and you live with a two millilitre sample for a month before we bottle it. Forty bottles a batch, and your formula is kept on file.
What makes this different from a blending counter
Four weeks of maceration
A fresh mix smells of alcohol and of its loudest material. Four weeks later it smells of itself. Every batch we have compared at day one and day twenty eight has been a different scent, so we no longer ask anybody to judge one early.
The sample comes first
You cannot buy a bottle of your own build until you have had the sample for a month. We check the batch code before we make anything, and if there is no sample against your name we will write back rather than take the order.
Every material on the label
The full list is printed on the bottle and on the card, in order of quantity, naturals and synthetics alike. There is no secret formula here and no claim that natural means safer.
Paid by bank transfer
An order is placed, gets a reference and is held. You transfer, quote the reference, and we start the batch. There is no card payment on this site and no instalment arrangement.
Six things, and a list of what we refuse
Two people, one bench, forty bottles a batch. The limits are deliberate and most of them are written down.
The sample set, which is where everybody starts
Six materials in two millilitre vials and a card explaining what each one does on skin.
Building a formula with us
An hour at the bench choosing a top, a heart, a base and a concentration, then four weeks of waiting.
Four weeks of maceration, and the week after
Why nothing leaves early, with the test cards to show anybody who asks.
The studio scents, in batches of forty
Four of our own, made in small batches, sold until the batch is gone.
Refills, in the bottle you already have
Bring the atomiser back and pay for the liquid. Considerably cheaper, and one less bottle in a drawer.
What we refuse to do
No copies, no rush, no oud, and nothing shipped by air or cargo boat.
Why we will not blend while you watch
It is the question we are asked most, usually by somebody who has been to a counter where the bottle is handed over in twenty minutes. Those counters work in oil, where the case for waiting is weaker. Ours is alcohol, and the case is overwhelming.
A scent mixed into alcohol this morning is not finished. The alcohol has not yet bound to the materials, the loudest thing in the formula dominates everything, and the base has not begun to show at all. Smelled at that point, nearly every good formula seems sharp and thin.
We test the same batch at day one, day seven and day twenty eight, and we have the cards to show anybody who wants to see them. The difference is not subtle. On several occasions a formula we would have thrown away at day one turned out at day twenty eight to be the best thing we made that month.
So nothing leaves this bench early. A build takes four weeks and then a week of resting in the bottle, and we would rather tell you five weeks at the start than have you judge our work at its worst.
The other half of the same argument is the sample. You cannot know a scent in a studio at eleven in the morning. You know it after a month of wearing it to work, in the rain, on a day you were tired of it. That month is the most useful thing we sell and it costs a fraction of a bottle.
The studio in numbers
What people say a year later
They sent two unlabelled samples and made me wear both for a month. I chose the one I had liked less in the studio, which I would never have believed beforehand.
I offered to pay double for a bottle at a market stall and was refused. A year later I have a formula of my own and I understand why.
Every material is printed on my bottle. After a reaction to something else, that list is the only reason I can wear anything at all now.
What people ask before their first build
Why can I not buy a bottle straight away?
Because a scent smelled for two minutes in a studio is not a scent you know. A month of wearing it to work, in the rain and on a day you were tired of it, is.
So a full bottle of your own build needs a sample of that build against your name first. We check the batch code before making anything, and if there is no sample we will write back rather than take your money.
How long does a build take?
Five weeks from the appointment. Twenty eight days of maceration, then filtering and about a week resting in the bottle.
There is no express option and no exception, including for weddings. Come to us eight weeks before a date and everything is comfortable.
Can you make something like a perfume I already own?
No. We do not make copies, and beyond the question of somebody else's name, a copy built from memory and a photograph disappoints after a four week wait.
Bring the bottle to an appointment and we will smell it together and talk about what you actually like in it. Frequently it turns out to be one material, and that is a far better place to start.
Do you work with oud?
No. It is expensive, it varies enormously between batches, and we cannot promise you the same bottle twice, which is the one promise this studio is built on.
There are people in Malé who do it well and we will tell you who if you ask.
Start with the sample set
Six materials in two millilitre vials, a card explaining what each one does, and a month to decide whether any of this is for you.
Tell us what you are trying to make
Describe it badly. Everybody does, and the words people reach for tell us more than a list of notes copied from somewhere else.
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Where we are
Unit 6, Raiverikan Flats
Hiyaa Faseyha Magu, Hulhumalé 23000
Maldives - Call us +960 335 7712
- WhatsApp 9607957712
- Email us studio@vashiscent.mv
- Opening hours By appointment only, Sunday to Thursday, 11am to 6pm No walk in counter Deliveries on Monday and Thursday