In early 2022, Scentopia opened its first retail space at Sentosa Island which consists of a perfume-making section, a retail section and an Augmented Reality (AR) section.
For the perfume-making activity, you can choose to make either a 50ml or 100ml perfume. Personally, I’d recommend that you go for the 100ml one because the price difference between the two is not a lot, but you’ll get double the perfume amount compared to the 50ml one.
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At the retail section, Scentopia offers various products, including Singaporean floral heritage and cultural scents. Meanwhile, at the AR section, visitors can learn about the world of perfume as well as Singapore’s history and unique floral heritage.
In this article, I’ll share about my experience making my own customized perfume, as well as a peek into the retail and AR section.
Opening Hours & Admission
Scentopia is open daily from 11am to 7pm (last booking at 6pm).
Admission is free, however, perfume making activity requires a ticket.
The prices of perfume making activities are as follow:
- Perfume Making 100ml (Adult): SGD 125
- Perfume Making 100ml (Child up to 12 y.o.): SGD 95
- Perfume Making 50ml (Adult): SGD 95
- Perfume Making 50ml (Child up to 12 y.o.): SGD 75
How to get to Scentopia Sentosa
The address of Scentopia is 36 Siloso Beach Walk, Singapore 099007 (location on map)
By car: Drive to Beach Station, Sentosa and park at Beach Station’s carpark. Then, walk to Scentopia (7 to 10 mins) or take the beach tram towards Siloso Point and alight at “Opp Siloso Beach Resort” which is the second stop from Beach Station.
Alternatively, you can drive to Siloso Point and park there, then walk to Scentopia (5 to 7 mins) or take beach tram and alight 2 stops later at “Siloso Beach Resort”.
By taxi: Alight at Beach Station and then, walk to Scentopia (7 to 10 mins) or take the beach tram towards Siloso Point and alight at “Opp Siloso Beach Resort” which is the second stop from Beach Station.
Alternatively, you can alight at Siloso Point, then walk to Scentopia (5 to 7 mins) or take beach tram and alight 2 stops later at “Siloso Beach Resort”.
By Sentosa Express (monorail): From Harbourfront Station, go to VivoCity Level 3 and take Sentosa Express. Alight 3 stops later at Beach Station. Then, then walk to Scentopia (5 to 7 mins) or take beach tram and alight 2 stops later at “Siloso Beach Resort”.
Read my detailed guide on getting around Sentosa (map included).
By cable car: Take Mount Faber Line cable car from either Mount Faber or Harbourfront, and alight at Sentosa Station. Walk to Imbiah Lookout Station and take the Sentosa Line towards Siloso Point. Alight at Siloso Point. Walk to Scentopia (5 to 7 mins) or take beach tram and alight 2 stops later at “Siloso Beach Resort”.
Read my detailed guide on Singapore Cable Car.
Perfume Making Workshop
There are 4 main steps in perfume making: taking the personality assessment, choosing the scents, making a trial mix and finally getting the final mix in a bottle.
I’ll break down each steps and share more detailed information in the following sections.
Step 1: Taking the Personality Assessment
The first step is taking the Personality Assessment by filling up a 2-page questionnaire. At the end of the test, you’ll find your dominant personality.
There are 5 personalities: Citrus, Fresh, Floral, Woody and Oriental. For me, my result is a tie between Fresh and Oriental.
Step 2: Choosing the Scents
The second step is choosing our preferred scents from the rack. We’re encouraged to choose at least 6 scents, up to 10 scents.
There are two sub-sections: men and women; each has 5 racks that correspond with the 5 personality types. Usually women will prefer the scents from the women’s sub-section, but they can choose men’s scents if they wish.
Each personality rack has about 12 scents. If you do the math, that means there are 5*12*2 = 120 scents in total! Wow, that’s a lot of scents!
Because I have FOMO, I did smell the entire 60 scents in the women section and probably 20 scents in the men section.
Some of the wands (aka the tube that store the perfume) has very faint smell, and I had to temporarily take off my mask to smell them. There are coffee beans in aluminum containers for visitors to smell to neutralize their sense of smell.
I really love how they play with words when naming each scents. Like, Perfect Thyming, It’s Just a Matter of Lime, 50 Shades of Grape. ROFL!
After a lot of sniffing, I narrowed down my selection to 9 scents. To my surprise, my selection doesn’t really correlate to my personality result. Instead of Fresh & Oriental, I have more Citrus and Floral scents instead. And that’s totally okay!
Step 3: Making Trial Mix
In Step 3, we were given a small cup to mix all the scents that we’ve chosen. If we like what we smell, we can then pass the list of our scents to the staff and they’ll make the final mix. If not, we can tweak the mix by adding or reducing the scents.
This process is quite fast and straight forward. It took me probably 5 to 10 mins. I decided to omit 1 scent from my list. Hence, I have only 8 scents in total.
Step 4: Final Mix
Finally, the staff created my final mix based on the scents that I’ve chosen. It took them less than 5 minutes, that’s amazing!
They also let me smell the final product and asked me if it’s okay. Oh boy, I’m so impressed because I truly enjoyed what I smelled. It smelled better than what I had imagined! I’m a happy woman!
Self-Guided Tour (AR Exhibits)
According to Scentopia’s website, the perfumery guided tour will be conducted when there are a minimum of 15 people. During my visit, there were less than 5 people around. I was told that I could do a self-guided tour by scanning the QR codes on the exhibit frames. The staff did a demo to show me how it works.
After scanning the QR codes, it will link to your Facebook App, and then an animated character will appear on your phone’s monitor.
Retail Section
In the retail section, Scentopia offers various perfumes, from the basic single scent perfumes to specially-mixed Singapore-themed perfumes, as well as scent-related products such as scented soap, bath salt and essential oils.
Conclusion
As someone who’s quite picky about perfume, I seldom find a perfume that I truly like. I’m so happy that this experience allowed me to create my own perfect perfume.
The perfume-making activity is a great experience for people who can’t find their perfect perfume from mass market brands. It is also a great activity to celebrate important occasions, like bridal shower, birthday or anniversary.
I like that we can take our own time to choose the scents that we want without being watched, and we can do a trial mix first before having it turned into the final mix.
What I think can be improved is probably the self-guided tour. With so many AR exhibits to choose from, I do feel a bit overwhelmed. Perhaps, the team can highlight the most important exhibits for us to prioritize.
Thank you Scentopia for the opportunity to make my own perfume. All opinions are my own.
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