Le Labo has expanded into the incense category with a collection of three scents — Santal 26, Ambroxyde 17, and Encens 9 — each handcrafted in Kyoto at a twelfth-generation family-owned workshop that has been perfecting the art of incense-making for more than three centuries. The launch, which began June 1 across Le Labo’s global network of stores and its website, marks a significant extension of the brand’s olfactory universe beyond the perfumes, candles, and home fragrances that have defined its product range since its founding in New York in 2006.
The trio of scents draws on Le Labo’s existing fragrance language while introducing new elements specific to the incense format. Santal 26 amplifies the brand’s signature sandalwood note with a creamy, almost buttery warmth that fills a room without overwhelming it; Ambroxyde 17 translates the brand’s amber signature into a dry, woody smoke that reads as architectural and contemplative; Encens 9 is the most direct engagement with the incense tradition, a frankincense-forward composition that balances the resinous intensity of olibanum with a hint of citrus that prevents the scent from tipping into ecclesiastical heaviness. Each set contains 35 sticks and a ceramic incense holder designed in collaboration with a Japanese ceramicist.
The decision to produce the incense in Kyoto reflects Le Labo’s broader commitment to working with artisans who carry generational expertise in their chosen medium. The workshop, located in the Nishijin district of Kyoto, is run by a family that has been making incense since the Edo period, using techniques passed down through twelve generations. Each stick is made by hand: the base paste of sandalwood and natural binders is scented with essential oils, then extruded, dried, and aged in a process that takes several weeks. Le Labo has worked closely with the workshop’s master craftspeople to translate its existing fragrance compositions into the incense format, a process that required reformulating each scent to account for the different behavior of fragrance when it is burned rather than evaporated from a liquid or wax base.
For Le Labo, the incense launch represents a deepening of the brand’s home fragrance proposition at a moment when the category has become one of the most competitive arenas in luxury beauty. The brand, which was acquired by Estée Lauder Companies in 2014, has maintained its artisanal positioning through its core strategy of hand-blending fragrances in its own stores. The incense extension, with its emphasis on traditional manufacturing and the story of the Kyoto workshop, reinforces that positioning while opening a new revenue stream in a format that has seen renewed consumer interest as part of a broader turn toward ritual-driven self-care.
The incense category sits at an interesting intersection of trends: the growing interest in Japanese craft traditions among Western luxury consumers, the expansion of home fragrance from a functional category into a fully realized design and lifestyle proposition, and the desire for products that require a slower, more intentional mode of engagement than a spritz of perfume or the flip of a candle lid. Le Labo’s incense, priced at $85 per set, occupies the premium end of the category, where the craft story and the quality of the raw materials are expected to justify the price point. Whether the brand’s existing customer base, accustomed to the convenience of a spray or a candle, will adopt the more ritualistic practice of lighting an incense stick will test whether the appetite for intentional consumption extends beyond the fragrance itself to the way it is experienced.
