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[2023.10.22 Peachi Design Diary]
Exprive is delighted to welcome Peachi Design Diary (桃气设计日记), whose primary focus is unveiling hidden treasures within the beauty landscape. With their keen eye for cosmetics and fashion brands, Peachi Design Diary provides a fresh perspective on the global beauty scene.
A Guide to Must-Visit Niche Fragrance Brand Stores in Korea! (PDD90 Part 2)
#04 COSMIC MANSION
"Cosmic Mansion," like "Nonfiction," is a brand from the Sinsa neighborhood of Seoul. It primarily uses white with black as a secondary color, giving off a modern, minimalist, and fashionable style. It may not be as well-known as "Nonfiction" and seems more like a small brand doing its own thing.
"Cosmic Mansion" focuses on fragrances rather than perfumes, offering a range of products such as scented candles, home fragrances, room sprays, fabric sprays, fragrance sachets, hand creams, and more. While it's niche, it's a well-established design fragrance brand. You can find many product and scent descriptions online, so I won't go into detail here. They have released approximately 13 different scents, including "Fig & Black Bay" with notes of fig, blackberry, and bay leaf, "Girl With Rose" with rose and grapefruit as the primary notes, "Full Moon" with lavender, musk, and peony as the main scents, and "Garden Rain" featuring white rose and white tea, among others. Overall, each scent is described as very natural and fresh.
The original store of "Cosmic Mansion" is located in a stylish alley in the Sinsa neighborhood, and a new store can be found in the Sogyeok-dong area near Gyeongbokgung Palace.
#05 CLOUD EIGHT
Cloud eight" is a lifestyle fragrance brand founded in Seoul in 2020, and yes, all the brands discussed in this article are "lifestyle fragrance brands!
The brand's name comes from Dante's "Divine Comedy," where "cloud nine" is mentioned as the happiest state. Therefore, the brand takes a step back and presents various small pleasures in life more gently under the name "cloud eight." "Cloud eight" represents a mild and comfortable state of happiness. Just like its name, in the long journey of life, occasionally looking up to appreciate the changing clouds, face-to-face communication with people, and every little thing in daily life are worth treating with care.
The packaging design of "cloud eight" features ever-changing clouds, and the yellowed, nostalgic labels are distinctive. The label stickers use special paper that presents a natural texture, combined with textured glass bottles, making it a favorite among young people in South Korea.
Currently, the brand offers only perfumes and body lotions with 10 fragrance options. The most popular scents in the brand include the woody "Essentia," with notes of rosewood and cedar, the "Terre" fragrance with a combination of rosewood and cedar notes, and "L'Etranger," a blend of sandalwood and vanilla. These fragrances have warm and natural woody notes. Additionally, the "Land of Morning Calm" fragrance body lotion is also popular, making it suitable for those who prefer woody scents.
#06 PESADE
Founded in 2022, the fragrance brand "pesade" has quickly gained recognition, thanks to its focus on three key fragrances. It's a relatively new niche brand with a simple and stylish design aesthetic, featuring a retro-inspired blue as its brand logo.
"pesade" believes that there are many beautiful moments in daily life, but due to the passage of time and the busyness of life, these moments are often forgotten. The brand aims to convey an attitude of "savoring all the beautiful things in everyday life." It's not about defining beauty standards but rather about hoping to discover and collect the beauty found in daily life. The fragrances offered by "pesade" are meant to be a part of this beautiful life, filling everyday life with fragrance.
The brand currently offers only three perfume choices. The most popular one is "In Hindsight," featuring musk as the primary note combined with sweet jasmine and rose scents, offering an intellectual yet slightly sweet feeling. The packaging for this fragrance includes a white cap with a substantial feel, a simple bottle, and a delightful label design. "The New Error" primarily uses citrus notes, with a blend of pepper, tea scents, and musk, creating a citrus fragrance with a slightly spicy twist. "Mid Mountain" combines woody and oriental floral notes, with a base of patchouli bringing out the floral and frankincense scents. It offers a refreshing coolness for bright daytime wear and a captivating allure with the scent of lilies and roses for the evening. In addition to perfumes, they also offer basic body care products like hand soap and hand cream with simple, minimalist packaging.
"pesade" has several offline stores in South Korea, including those in Seoul, such as Samcheong-dong, Yeouido, and Hongdae, as well as in Gyeonggi-do and Busan. However, the flagship store located in Hannam-dong is especially worth visiting. The overall store design is clean and minimalist, with a predominantly white color scheme, featuring plants and woven elements, creating a simple display that's easy to navigate.
Despite being founded in 2022, "pesade" is already showing great promise in the world of fragrances.
This time, I present my list of must-visit fragrance shops in Seoul. As I reflect on the concept of brands, I've come to a new understanding. The era when a brand merely meant selling products has passed. The concept of a brand involves "identifying products and services, differentiating products and services, and creating a symbol of experiential value that resonates with consumers." It's not just the brand name, logo, packaging, or the quality of the products; it also includes creating a series of experiences that make consumers feel valuable. All these elements together constitute what we call a "brand," and the actions taken to enhance these experiences are referred to as "branding."
Looking at it from this perspective, merely adding a name and some design elements to a product and selling it through influencers on e-commerce platforms like Taobao doesn't qualify as branding.
Moreover, when it comes to fragrance brands, which deal with the intangible "scent," the consumer experience is even more critical and profound compared to other types of brands. A brand's overall identity is shaped by the combination of various elements: the music in the space, the layout, the design, the language and attitude of the staff, the peripheral products, the packaging, and numerous other small and large details.
For fragrance brands, the essence lies in the "scent." However, the space is the most effective way to convey this essence to consumers positively. In the case of fragrance and beauty brands, which are sensory experiences, the space is an essential element through which consumers can perceive and remember the fragrance with their five senses.
I believe that, in the near future, there will be an increasing number of domestic fragrance brands that meet the demands of this era. The future holds great promise! 😌
Disclaimer: Image sources are from official websites and Instagram. Those interested can find more information there.
To read PDD90 Part 1.