Hello everyone, and welcome to another Singaporean review! On this “shiok” Saturday, I’m chronicling my experience undergoing a perfume workshop by Jetaime Perfumery.
Jetaime Perfumery is actually the sister brand of Singapore Memories, a local brand offering Singapore-inspired perfumes and room fragrances. After I reviewed their perfumes here, Mrs. Prachi (founder of both Jetaime Perfumery and Singapore Memories) invited me – and several of my friends – to experience their perfume workshop, and of course I said yes!
Jetaime Perfume Workshop – the Experience
I was invited to Jetaime Perfumery’s outlet at Goodman Arts Center, which is within walking distance from Mountbatten MRT. A new workshop at the Sentosa Nature Discovery Center will also be opening soon – it opens 1st November – though I suspect that location will likely cater more towards tourists.
The location is pretty spacious, with various tables available in the room. As I brought quite a few of my friends along (6, to be exact), we took up an entire table.
A few items greets you at your station. There’s a big wooden box that contains the various ingredients which you will use to make your own personalised perfume, as well as a personality test questionnaire (more on that later). If you book the workshop more than a week in advance – which I did – Jetaime Perfumery throws in free name engraving on the perfume bottles, which I found to be a very nice touch.
The workshop starts by taking a 20-question personality test. There’s different questionnaires for men and women, so make sure you get the correct one! Based on your answers, you calculate your own personal scores for 5 different olfactory families – Citrus, Fresh, Floral, Woody and Oriental.
After discovering which are your dominant olfactory categories – based on the personality test taken earlier – the real fun begins! We opened up the box, which contained a whole host of perfumed oils. You might notice that the bottles are colour coded – each denote the olfactory family the bottles belong to. We then opened up the bottles and smelled them one by one to shortlist the scents that appeals to us. The composition of the scents are supposed to be based upon your dominant olfactory categories – for example, if through the personality test you found out that Floral and Woody are your main categories, you are supposed to use more Floral and Woody scents. Again, men and women have different scents in their boxes, so make sure you get the right one!
If that sounded confusing to you, Jetaime Perfumery provides a checklist to simplify things. Xin Ying suggested us to work our way through methodically, and place ticks (multiple ticks for scents you really like) to denote the scents that we enjoy. Based on the personality test, my main olfactory families were Fresh and Woody, and thus Xin Ying suggested for me to place more drops (the numerical number in the last column) to those categories. You are suggested to add 500 drops of perfumed oil in total, but it’s up to you to create the composition of those drops.
Before you start adding the perfumed oils into the bottle, Xin Ying will come and check your scent checklist to ensure you don’t end up with a perfume that you eventually hate – the perfumed oils may smell nice to you in isolation, but may not work well when mixed together. She has been working at the Jetaime perfumery for several years now, and thus knows what goes well together and what doesn’t.
I showed Xin Ying my checklist and my shortlisted bottles, and she voiced her approval. (“You have good taste in scents,” she said.) Once you have your shortlisted bottles, the next step is simply to add the perfumed oil into the perfume bottle!
The perfume bottles come pre-loaded with solvent, with enough space to accommodate about 500 drops of perfumed oil. Based upon the checklist, one simply adds the allocated amount (usually 15-30 drops per scent) into the bottle. This really brought back memories of secondary school chemistry lessons!
After you’re done adding all 500 drops, simply pass the bottle to Xin Ying and she will seal it up to you! She also shared that because the perfume bottle is sealed, perfume will actually not evaporate, meaning that perfumes can be stored for a prolonged period of time. “That’s why you don’t usually see expiry dates on perfumes,” she quipped.
And that concludes the Jetaime Perfume Workshop! Personally, I found it an intriguing experience, and really enjoyed smelling all the bottles of perfumed oils and coming up with a unique concoction that is based upon my personal taste. I learnt that perfumery – like watchmaking, tailoring and shoe-making – is a complex and intricate field, and I’m glad to have had a small insight into the world of perfumery.
For those interested, Jetaime Perfumery has kindly offered readers a 10% discount, applicable on their $125/per pax (the session’s MSRP) workshops. Simply quote the promo code “WAHSOSHIOK” upon checkout when booking online! After the discount, it would simply be $112.50/per pax. I think that’s a fair price, considering that most (decent) off-the-rack bottles of perfume already cost around that much! Whether you’re looking for a date idea, or simply searching for a fun group activity, I think the Jetaime perfume workshop fits the bill pretty well. I certainly enjoyed my experience there!
In addition, the entire catalog of Singapore’s Memories’ room fragrances and perfumes are also available for testing at the Je T’aime perfumery! I absolutely adore their room fragrances, especially the Atas and Bugis Street. If you fall in love with some of Singapore Memories’ products whilst at the perfume workshop, you can also use the promo code “WAHSOSHIOK” for 10% off all items on their online store!
Book a Jetaime perfume workshop here.
View the full range of Singapore Memories’ products here.
Jetaime Perfumery locations:
Workshop@Goodman
90 Goodman Road, Goodman Art Center. Block O, 01-57
Singapore 439053
Scent-Osa@Sentosa Nature Discovery
51 Imbiah Road, Singapore 099702
P.S Do check out the new “Discounts!” page for exclusive discounts for Wahsoshiok readers! More brands will be added very soon – stay tuned!
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