Tucked away amidst lush greenery along Sentosa’s Siloso Beach, Scentopia is a fragrance retail store that specializes in providing customized perfume-making experiences. I came to know about this attraction via a mailer from the free-to-join Sentosa Islander membership programme, where they were offering a complimentary Scentopia tour and an accompanying perfume gift worth $25. Since my husband and I were already going to be on the island for an Oasia Resort Sentosa stay, the timing lined up just right for us to go check this out!
- Inclusions:
- Complimentary Scentopia tour with a dual-scent perfume gift
- Perfume-making experience (30ml)
- Spent: SGD$40 (for 2 pax)
The whimsical interiors of this place gave off a bit of an Alice-in-wonderland vibe with its myriad colours and smells. There were all sorts of fragrances, diffusers, bath bombs and such for sale too.
Once the staff verified the memberships of all the participants (there was another family of four that joined us), the tour commenced. It was actually less of a tour and more of a presentation of the scents available here.
There are five categories of scents, each one with their own defining characteristics:
– Citrus scents have sweeter notes
– Fresh scents are more uplifting
– Floral scents expectedly smell of flowers
– Woody scents are more musky
– Oriental scents carry a hint of spice in them
The staff expounded a little on the sample scents from each category before proceeding to dab some on our fingers for us to smell. He also explained that because men generally have a less acute sense of smell as compared to women, scents designed for men are typically stronger and more intense. Intriguing fun fact!
The presentation was rather brief, lasting about 30 minutes, and was followed up with a mini sales pitch that put forth an offer I felt was too good to pass up 😀 For just $20 (discounted from the regular $45 because we were participants in this tour), we could customize our own 30ml perfume by picking out three of our favourite scents. Surprisingly, my husband was also keen to go ahead, and so we did!
Choosing just three scents was a mammoth task because at the point of our visit, there were 120 different scents to choose from – 60 for males and 60 for females. There was no real restriction though and we could mix the “male” and “female” scents as we wished. With the sheer number of options before us, my husband remarked that there were basically 280,840 possible concoctions we could end up with, talk about analysis paralysis…
To my knowledge, every scent has a corresponding information panel with a short write-up of its key ingredients and the overall odour profile. These panels also have an augmented-reality element where you can scan the displayed QR code with your phone to see an animated image.
Anyway, it was pretty cool that they presented the scents in solid wand sticks, which was great for my non-aerosol preferring nose. They even thoughtfully included a couple of containers with a coffee bean scent as a neutral smell to help “reset” our overwhelmed olfactory systems. Interestingly, every scent has a quirky, and sometimes punny, name (check out the whole list here!), making the entire experience more fun and relatable.
After a good 45 minutes of repeated sniffing, we finally selected our preferred scents (or rather, I narrowed mine down to a 6-choose-3 situation). What was awesome was that the staff could pump a sample of the combined scents so we could have a preliminary whiff. If we didn’t like it, we could try another combination (although I’m sure they wouldn’t let you just keep trying indefinitely).
My concoction:
– Citrus WC8 (midnight’s summer dream)
– Floral WFL2 (I am daisy about you)
– Woody WWD9 (why so serious?)
My husband’s concoction:
– Citrus MC5 (go kiwi on this)
– Fresh MFR11 (speak of the basil and the basil appears)
– Oriental MOR12 (powerful you have become, the nutmeg I scent in you)
Both of us nailed it on our first attempt (: We absolutely loved our creations, plus it was even more memorable for me as I’d never seen my husband so enthusiastic about fragrances ever!
Once we confirmed our choices, the staff went ahead to mix the actual perfume for us to take home. They came in pretty bottles with his and hers stickers as well (but the off-centre pasting did make me twitch a little).
My overall rating of the experience: 4 out of 5 stars. The Scentopia tour on its own wasn’t particularly comprehensive and only entailed a very basic introduction to Scentopia, along with some scent sampling. But of course, this could’ve been due to the fact that it was complimentary after all. Having said that, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience of exploring and selecting our preferred combination of scents from the massive array of options! Plus, it was nice to be able to relish the final products that were uniquely ours. We really appreciated that the staff were so helpful and patient, never once hurrying us despite us taking quite a bit of time to decide. We’ll certainly be back when we want to customize our own fragrances again!
If this post helped you in some way and you’d like to buy me a coffee, I’d be incredibly grateful (:
Dania Experiences 