Le Labo Shiu 25: Beijing Gets a City Exclusive Built on Stillness
A perfume about silence, hidden courtyards and inner calm, released through a collection designed to make everyone check the calendar. Luxury remains impressively committed to contradiction.
Le Labo has added Beijing to its City Exclusive map with Shiu 25, an Eau de Parfum inspired by spaces where craft, contemplation and time appear to move a little more slowly. The fragrance is built around shiu, described by the house as the Ho tree’s quieter expression, with iris, olibanum and warm woods forming an intentionally compact composition.
The concept is restrained. The commercial strategy is rather less so. Like the rest of the City Exclusive collection, Le Labo Shiu 25 belongs to one city for most of the year, then briefly becomes available worldwide during Le Labo’s annual August and September event. Apparently inner peace can be scheduled, but only for a limited time.
| Transparency note: this is a preview based on official information and published notes. I have not tested Le Labo Shiu 25 and make no claim about how it smells, develops or performs on skin. |
Beijing joins the City Exclusive map
Le Labo Shiu 25 is the Beijing entry in the house’s City Exclusive collection, joining fragrances associated with cities including Tokyo, Paris, Kyoto, Seoul, London and Mexico City. These perfumes are normally available year-round only in the city they represent, with a short global window that turns geography into part of the product.
The official story looks to Beijing’s time-honoured spaces of traditional artisanship: worn wooden floors, hidden gardens and the kind of silence in which creativity is supposed to wake up. Hypebeast places that idea more specifically around the historic Beijing He Yuan Lab, a protected siheyuan courtyard at Wang Fu Central. The setting gives the launch more substance than a city name applied to an otherwise generic composition.
What is shiu?
Le Labo describes shiu as the quieter expression of the Ho tree, valued in the fragrance narrative for balance and inner peace. Other launch coverage identifies the material more directly with camphor wood. That distinction matters, because camphor can suggest something cooling, medicinal and almost bracing, while the official description deliberately moves toward serenity rather than chest-rub drama.
On paper, the material gives Shiu 25 a useful tension. The fragrance is not presented as a literal blast of eucalyptus-like freshness. Instead, the sharper idea of camphor appears framed by powdery iris, resinous olibanum and warmer woods. Whether the result feels meditative or medicinal is precisely the question that requires skin testing.
What is officially in the bottle
Le Labo keeps the official description concise: shiu, ethereal iris notes, olibanum and warm anchoring woods. The house does not publish a conventional top-heart-base pyramid on the product page, nor does it name the perfumer behind the composition.
Fragrantica and additional launch reports expand the picture with pink pepper, camphor, white florals and, in some accounts, freesia. Those materials are useful context, but they should not be confused with a complete official formula. Note lists are storytelling devices, not laboratory inventories wearing minimalist labels.
The contrast is promising. Iris can add powder, coolness and texture; olibanum brings a dry resinous lift; pink pepper could sharpen the opening; and warm woods may stop the camphor idea from becoming too clinical. That remains an interpretation of the published materials, not a wear impression.
A City Exclusive that briefly leaves home
Shiu 25 is available throughout the year in Beijing Le Labo labs. For the annual City Exclusive event, discovery samples are available worldwide during August and September, while full-size bottles are sold online and through participating labs during September. Official regional pages list 1.5 ml discovery samples and 15 ml, 50 ml and 100 ml Eau de Parfum bottles; prices vary by market and should be checked immediately before publication.
The arrangement is both inconvenient and extremely effective. Le Labo turns access into ritual: smell in August, decide in September, then wait another year or book a flight to Beijing. Your collection was doing perfectly fine. Geography has now entered the chat.
Should you care?
Le Labo Shiu 25 deserves attention because the material story is specific. Camphor wood, iris and olibanum suggest a dry, resinous and potentially powdery direction that sits outside the endless parade of edible vanillas and loudly labelled elixirs. The Beijing courtyard concept also feels connected to the composition rather than added after the formula was finished.
There are reasons for caution. Camphor can become medicinal, the language of stillness can occasionally be luxury shorthand for very quiet projection, and limited availability creates urgency before most people have had time to test properly. For now, this belongs on the sample list, not the blind-buy list. September has enough financial problems already.
Le Labo Shiu 25: quick facts
| Brand | Le Labo |
| Fragrance | Shiu 25 |
| Collection | City Exclusive Collection – Beijing |
| Year | 2026 |
| Concentration | Eau de Parfum |
| Perfumer | Not disclosed by Le Labo |
| Official materials | Shiu / Ho tree expression, iris, olibanum, warm woods |
| Additional reported notes | Camphor wood, pink pepper, white florals / freesia |
| Sizes | 1.5 ml discovery; 15 ml, 50 ml and 100 ml full sizes |
| Availability | Year-round in Beijing; samples worldwide August-September; full sizes worldwide in September |
| Testing status | Preview – not tested |
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