If you are what Scent Bar co-owner Adam Eastwood calls a "perfume head" then most likely you know the fragrance boutique Scent Bar in Los Angeles and its companion website LuckyScent. "Our core business is helping people find very hard to find and rare types of fragrances that are not readily available in the marketplace," says Adam. I've ordered countless samples on LuckyScent, a great service that's offered so you can try these exotic perfumes in your own home.
You won't find celebrity fragrances here. "Our market is a much smaller segment of perfume users, people who are really serious about it." He describes his clients as willing to experiment with perfumes to find new and unusual scents. The fragrances they stock are from very small brands made in very small amounts. They are not scents for the masses.
Then Target came calling.
"Being graphic designers ourselves we've always admired what Target has done with the designers they bring in," says Adam. "They cultivate these relationships with really good design and quality products." He and Franco Wright, Scent Bar's other co-owner, saw this as an opportunity to bring fragrance to a larger audience, but done their way.
Adam and Franco specialize in fragrance, although they do carry a small amount of bath and body products. They saw the Target collaboration as an opportunity to create a line of bath and body products that are what they call approachable and easy to wear. Adam says, "Fragrance is a real commitment to wear it. The scents evolve on your skin, they take time to discover. It can take hours for you to get an idea of what the perfume is really like on you."
Bath and body products are different. "It's more predictable," Adam says, but not boring. When you take a whiff, the scent you smell is the scent you will get on your skin. "When you try a body lotion on your skin it's gonna smell the same way after five minutes as it will in two hours." Adam also says it's harder to overdo fragrance when you're using bath and body products, so you don't have to worry about offending people with heavy scents.
There are four fragrances in the Scent Bar line and most are light but not too sheer and fun. I got a sample of each to try. Blush is a light and cheery mix of peony, cassis and pink Champagne. Cabana, which to me smells like the beach has coconut, Tahitian vanilla and papaya. Forbidden is what Adam calls more expressive, with pomegranate, blackberry and amber notes. You just don't see amber in bath and body products, but Adam and Franco thought it would be cool to try it. I think they've succeeded with Forbidden. Sunswept has vibrant citrus notes of Sicilian orange, lemon and bergamot. "We love a nice citrus in a bath and body product," says Adam. The scents come as a body wash, body lotion, body mist and a body butter. Every product is $8.99, a pretty amazing price considering the quality inside.
For inspiration, "we thought about what we like in terms of the products we use, not just in the types of products, but how they look and feel." Adam and Franco were involved in every step, and they feel the package design reflects their aesthetic, which they say is light, fun, approachable but somewhat sophisticated, clean and restrained." I'd put these in my bathroom where they would look great sitting by my bathtub.
One nice thing about the Scent Bar collection that I really appreciate is that it is not a limited edition. So no crashing Target website or empty shelves because people bought out the line in a frenzy. And I also appreciate Adam's and Franco's goal with this collaboration. "We want to make perfume more approachable, more welcoming and to demystify it. But we also wanted to create something that is special and a reflection of us."
By the way, Scent Bar's LuckyScent celebrates its 10th year sourcing rare and elusive scents for perfume obsessed people like me. Congrats guys!