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Oaken Lab brings fresh scent to Indonesia’s perfume market
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A customer explores fragrances at Oaken Lab's artisan perfumery in Pererenan, Bali. (Courtesy of/Oaken Lab)
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n Indonesia’s expanding fragrance industry, Oaken Lab focuses on artisan perfumery to produce authentic scents through in-house experiments.
Oaken Lab laid its foundation in 2018 but was initially driven by an effort to develop natural body care products, which appeared to be “scarce” in the market at the time, cofounder Cynthia Wirjono told The Jakarta Post on April 30.
“The inspiration came from my husband [...], because we also love to experiment in search of natural body care products for him,” Cynthia said.
After spending about two years blending and trialing ingredients, Cynthia and her husband gained the confidence to expand Oaken Lab into creating perfumes.
Organic growth
Cynthia described the business’s early journey as an “organic” process rooted in the passion to find “the right scent”, a creative ambition supported with funds and promotional activities from her other companies.
When the COVID-19 pandemic brought years of economic pressure to the country, Oaken Lab kept growing, Cynthia recalls, which she attributed to its online sales model and increasing consumer demand at the time for fragrances as a means of stress relief.
