Laboratorio Olfattivo

Laboratorio Olfattivo is an Italian niche fragrance house based in Turin. It was founded in 2009 by the husband-and-wife team Roberto Drago and Daniela Caon, and debuted with five fragrances [3][4]. The company operates as a creative workshop that commissions independent perfumers to develop its scents, and its products are sold in more than 40 countries [3]. The house remains active, running its own e-commerce and two boutiques in Turin.

The brand belongs to the Italian company Kaon lab S.r.l. [1] and sits within a small stable that also includes the fragrance house Maison Tahité.

Roberto Drago grew up in Turin, surrounded by perfumery through his family's small perfume business. His early career was spent on the commercial side of the industry: he worked at the Lancaster Group, representing names such as Davidoff, Chopard and Joop, and later became general manager of Orlane cosmetics, where he met Daniela Caon. In 2001 the couple launched their own fragrance distribution company, and eight years later, in 2009, they founded Laboratorio Olfattivo [3].

The two founders hold distinct roles. Drago serves as creative director, developing each fragrance in collaboration with the perfumers the house engages, while Caon, as image director, oversees the visual identity, packaging and bottle design.

Laboratorio Olfattivo is registered under the corporate entity Kaon lab S.r.l. in Italy. The brand is associated with a sister fragrance house, Maison Tahité.

The company frames itself as an artistic perfumery house run as a workshop, or officina, in which Italian and international master perfumers create with what it describes as complete creative freedom. According to the house, its fragrances are conceived as emotional experiences meant to be lived through the sense of smell, and the brand's stated guiding aim is to evoke "elegance and uniqueness" [2].

Central to its positioning is the idea that commercial logic does not drive its creations. As the company puts it, every perfume "never comes out from a market need or from a marketing study, but from the need to tell a story" [3]. The founding vision is summarised by three words the brand uses for itself: artigianalità, passione and innovazione — craftsmanship, passion and innovation [1]. Its collections carry an epigraph attributed to the writer Jean Giono: "The Gods create scents, men make perfumes" [4].

The range centres on personal fragrances, offered as eau de parfum, intense parfum, cologne and hair mist, alongside a home-fragrance line of diffusers, sprays and candles and a smaller bath and body range that includes body lotion, shower gel and soap. The eau de parfum collection had grown to 23 fragrances by the mid-2020s [6].

Rather than employ in-house noses, the house collaborates with established independent perfumers. Its early Nero and Masters' collections were created by Jean-Claude Ellena and Lucien Ferrero [4], and over time its roster has extended to perfumers including Pierre Guillaume, Cécile Zarokian, Luca Maffei and others [3].

The Perfume Society profiled the house as a Turin-based niche brand founded in 2009 by Drago and Caon, noting its work with leading perfumers such as Jean-Claude Ellena and Pierre Guillaume [3].

Laboratorio Olfattivo is active. It maintains its own online shop, distributes in more than 40 countries, and operates two boutiques in Turin — the first opened in December 2015, including a flagship at Via Giolitti 5, and a second followed in 2019 [3][6].