Le Labo Just Gave Us Three Very Good Reasons to Slow Down

There is a particular kind of luxury that has nothing to do with price. It is the kind that asks you to be present. To notice. To linger. Le Labo has always understood this, and with their latest launches, the New York-based fragrance house makes the case more compellingly than ever.

Three new offerings arrived this June, and together they form something that feels less like a product drop and more like a philosophy. Here’s everything you need to know.

Santal 33 Perfuming Hand Soap and Hand Lotion

If you have spent any time at all in beauty circles, you already know Santal 33. The scent has become something of a cultural landmark, a fragrance that people recognize before they can name it, smoky and warm and surprisingly addictive. Now it lives at the sink.

The Santal 33 Perfuming Hand Soap and Hand Lotion ($237ml/8 fl oz each, available now in North America) brings that signature blend of cardamom, iris and violet, Australian sandalwood and cedarwood into your daily ritual. The hand soap cleanses and scents simultaneously, leaving a lingering trace that travels with you. The lotion, enriched with shea butter and jojoba oil, softens while it perfumes. Le Labo’s copy cheekily warns that accidental hand-holding may result. We believe them.

The Santal 33 story began with a vision of the American West, wide open spaces, firelight, the soft drift of desert air, and the hand care collection delivers exactly that kind of unhurried, sensory experience. It is the rare product that turns something as routine as washing your hands into a genuine moment of pleasure.

The Incense Collection: Santal 26, Encens 9 and Ambroxyde 17

Also launching globally on June 1st is something altogether more meditative. Le Labo’s incense collection, available in three distinct scents, is rooted in Kōdō, the Japanese Way of Incense, a centuries-old practice in which one does not simply smell fragrance but “listens” to it. That distinction matters. This is not incense as an afterthought. It is an intention.

Each set contains 35 handmade sticks, crafted at a twelfth-generation family-owned workshop in Kyoto using traditional Japanese techniques. Each stick burns for up to 25 minutes. A ceramic incense holder is included with every variety, and a hand-poured concrete holder, made in the US, is available separately.

The three scents each have their own personality:

Santal 26 Incense is the most recognizable of the three for Le Labo devotees, gentle and smoky with a leathery warmth that fills a room without overwhelming it. Consider it a companion to the hand soap and lotion for a fully immersive Santal experience.

Encens 9 Incense centres on frankincense, a resin with a history as rich as the scent itself. Warmed with amber and sharpened with clove, it is the one to reach for when you need to reset, to breathe, to think more clearly. Le Labo calls it aspirational. We call it necessary.

Ambroxyde 17 Incense is the wildcard, built around a synthetic ambroxide molecule that the brand describes, with characteristic candour, as something that will “blow your nose away.” Cousins to Another 13, it layers musks, woods and jasmine petals on a mossy base. Diffusive and deeply addictive, it is the kind of scent that becomes part of how your space is remembered.

Global Brand President and Creative Director Deborah Royer describes the intention behind the collection beautifully: watching smoke ascend becomes a reflection of the self, never fixed, always shifting, a slow burn forever finding form. For those of us who believe that beauty ritual is as much about the mind as the skin, this collection speaks directly to that.

The Takeaway

What Le Labo continues to do exceptionally well is make the everyday feel considered. A hand wash, a lotion, a stick of incense. These are not grand gestures. They are small ones, done with real craft and a clear point of view.

In a beauty landscape saturated with newness for the sake of it, that kind of quiet conviction is worth paying attention to.

The Santal 33 Perfuming Hand Soap and Hand Lotion are available now at lelabofragrances.com and Le Labo boutiques across North America. International availability begins August 3, 2026. The full Incense Collection launches globally in June, 2026.