The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Shiu 25 belongs to Le Labo's City Exclusive collection, a series of scents bottled for a single place and nowhere else. This one lives in Beijing. The name itself, Shiu, refers to camphorwood, a material that anchors the composition. The fragrance draws from the quieter, contemplative side of Beijing, capturing something of the city's stillness rather than its noise. Launched in 2026 as part of the house's ongoing series of location-specific releases, it continues Le Labo's interest in releasing compositions tied to particular cities around the world. Each release becomes an attempt to bottle a sense of place, something the wearer can carry without ever visiting.
The composition centers on camphor wood and frankincense, two materials that set the temperature for everything else. Camphor wood carries that cool, almost mentholated lift that hits the back of the throat, while frankincense brings a warmer, balsamic gravity. Pink pepper adds a quiet spark at the top without breaking the hush. Together, these notes create a composition that feels less about projection and more about presence. The camphor offers something cold and clean, a kind of aromatic airiness, while the frankincense settles in with its slow, smoldering warmth.
The evolution
The first 15 minutes are the most surprising. Pink pepper stings faintly, almost like citrus that lost its way, and there's a fleeting brightness before the camphor takes hold. That camphor note is the backbone of the entire drydown, cool and woody and faintly medicinal, the kind of note that fills the space around the wearer rather than radiating outward. The frankincense arrives in the second hour, warming the composition from beneath, and the iris settles in like dust on a windowsill, powdery and still. What lingers past the six-hour mark is mostly camphor wood and the ghost of resin, a smell that reads more like architecture than cologne. The composition shifts in subtle registers over the course of a wear, with the opening brightness gradually giving way to the cooler, woodier base.
Cultural impact
Shiu 25 is part of Le Labo's City Exclusive series, a format that ties specific scents to specific cities. For Beijing, that means a composition built around camphor wood and frankincense, materials that carry their own weight in the air without needing decoration. Wearers describe it as evoking incense and old wood rather than any Western category of cologne. One review draws a comparison to Diptyque's Tam Dao as a point of reference, noting the shared interest in sandalwood-adjacent materials and quiet, contemplative compositions.
