How to Create Your Own Perfume at a RAD LVNG Workshop
Most perfumes you own were made by someone else, for a market, with a brief that said something like "fresh, approachable, broad appeal." They were designed to offend no one. That is also why they belong to no one.
The RAD LVNG Perfumer's Palette workshop exists because there is another way. In two hours, you build a perfume from the ground up, using fragrance accords, learning the structure of scent, and leaving with a bottle that smells like nothing else in the world - because it came from you.
This is what the workshop involves, who it is for, and what happens after you leave.
The Idea Behind Making Your Own Perfume
Perfume has a reputation for being mysterious. Centuries of branding have made it feel like alchemy - something only trained noses in French laboratories can do. The truth is more interesting and more accessible.
A perfume is a formula. It is proportions of different fragrance materials, layered according to how quickly each one evaporates. Once you understand that, the mystery lifts. What remains is composition - the same logic a cook uses when balancing flavours, or a painter uses when mixing colours.
The moment you grasp that structure, you stop being a consumer of fragrance and start being a maker of it. That shift is the real point of the Perfumer's Palette workshop.
What Is the Perfumer's Palette? (Two Sentences - Then Into It)
The Perfumer's Palette is RAD LVNG's in-person perfume-making workshop. It runs for two hours and takes you from knowing nothing about perfume construction to leaving with a bottle you built yourself.
The name is deliberate. A painter arrives at a canvas with a palette of colours. Each colour is distinct, but the painting is not any one colour - it is what happens when they are combined in a particular order, with intention. The Perfumer's Palette works the same way, except the medium is fragrance accords and the canvas is a perfume bottle.
You arrive. You are introduced to a selection of RAD LVNG fragrance accords - distinct scent materials with different characters and behaviours. You learn how they work together. You experiment. You build your formula. You blend, bottle, and take it home.
Two hours. One perfume. Entirely yours.
What You Actually Do in 2 Hours
The workshop is hands-on from the start. There is no passive lecture phase where someone talks at you about the history of Grasse.
You begin by understanding what is in front of you: a selection of RAD LVNG fragrance accords, each with a distinct character. Some are light and immediate. Some are deep and slow. Some do something unexpected when combined with others. Your first job is to smell them and begin forming an instinct about which ones you are drawn to.
From there, you learn the composition logic - how top notes, heart notes, and base notes work together to create a complete perfume. This is general knowledge about how fragrance is structured, and it is the thing that makes everything click into place. Once you understand why some scents announce themselves immediately and then fade while others build slowly and stay for hours, you can use that knowledge to make decisions.
Then you start building. You choose your accords. You work out proportions. You blend, smell, adjust, blend again. The formula you arrive at is yours - it reflects what you respond to, what you want to wear, what you want to smell like.
At the end of the session, your perfume is bottled. You label it. You take it home.
The Composition Logic - How Perfume Is Built (Top, Heart, Base)
This is the knowledge layer of the workshop, and it is genuinely useful long after the session ends.
Every perfume is composed of three layers, defined by how quickly the fragrance materials evaporate. Top notes are what you smell first - they are typically lighter, brighter, and more volatile. Citrus, green accords, and fresh herbs are common top notes. They make the first impression, but they do not last.
Heart notes are the core of the perfume. They emerge after the top notes settle, and they carry the character of the fragrance for the longest part of the wear. Florals, spices, and softer woods typically live here. When you think of what a perfume "smells like," you are usually thinking of the heart.
Base notes are what remains hours later. They are the slowest to evaporate, the densest in character, and the ones that make a perfume linger on skin after everything else has faded. Sandalwood, musks, ambers, and resins are typical base notes. They also act as fixatives - they slow down the evaporation of the notes above them, which is why a perfume built on a strong base lasts longer than one without.
Understanding this is what separates someone who picks a fragrance from someone who builds one. When you know that a sandalwood base will anchor your blend and slow its departure from your skin, "sandalwood base" means something very different from "sandalwood top note." The workshop gives you that knowledge in a way that becomes instinctive, not academic.
What You Take Home
The immediate answer is: a bottle of perfume. Your perfume, with your formula, made by your hands in the workshop.
The less obvious answer is the knowledge. After two hours in the Perfumer's Palette, you understand why your favourite perfume smells the way it does. You understand why it lasts. You understand why some fragrances disappear twenty minutes after you apply them and others are still on your skin when you go to sleep. That understanding does not go away.
Participants who want to continue working with fragrance can purchase raw materials directly from RAD LVNG after the workshop. The materials available include: Perfumer's Solvent (250gm and 500gm), Rad Perfume Accords, Rad Perfume Caps, Perfume Bottles, Perfumer's Beaker, Funnel, Pipettes set, Perfumer's Manual Vial Crimper, and Perfumer's Mist Spray Pump. Prices range from Rs 299 to Rs 899, so continuing to experiment at home is not a significant additional investment.
The workshop is also available as a complete Xperiences experience, alongside the candle making workshop and other RAD LVNG sessions.
Who Books the Perfume Making Workshop
The people who book the Perfumer's Palette tend to fall into a few recognisable types.
There are the fragrance people - people who already love perfume, who have opinions about what they wear, who have tried several bottles and found them all slightly wrong. They want to stop choosing from someone else's options and start making their own. The workshop is exactly what they have been looking for without knowing it existed.
There are the experience seekers - people who want an activity for a date, a birthday, a day out with a close friend that is genuinely different from a dinner or a movie. Making something together, in a room that smells extraordinary, with something tangible to take home at the end, is a particular kind of experience. The kind that gets talked about.
There are the gifters - people who want to give someone a perfume that could not have come from a shop. Not a bottle selected from a shelf, but a perfume the recipient actually made, with their own formula, their own choices, their own hands. The Perfumer's Palette allows you to give a skill, not just a product. That is a fundamentally different kind of gift.
And there are the makers - people who are drawn to understanding how things work, who want to move from consumer to creator in one of the most intimate categories of personal expression there is.
Private and Group Bookings
The Perfumer's Palette works beautifully as a group experience. A room full of people making their own scents, each arriving at something different from the same palette of materials, is a genuinely interesting thing to be part of.
Hen parties regularly book the workshop. The combination of something creative to do, something to keep, and a space that already feels elevated makes it a strong alternative to the standard pre-wedding activity roster. The same holds for birthday experiences - it is an activity and a gift in one.
Corporate teams use the workshop for team building. There is something about the shared process of making - the experimentation, the comparison, the small discoveries - that creates genuine connection in a way a generic activity day does not.
Private bookings are available for groups who want a dedicated session. If you are organising something for a specific group, the RAD LVNG team can work with you on it.
For the Ones Who Want to Keep Going
The Perfumer's Palette is a beginning, not an end.
Participants who discover during the workshop that they want to continue making fragrance at home can purchase raw materials from RAD LVNG directly. Everything you need to continue experimenting is available: the solvents, the accords, the bottles, the tools. The raw materials are priced to be accessible, from Rs 299 to Rs 899, which means building a small working perfumer's setup at home is genuinely within reach.
For those who want the home experience without attending a workshop first, the DIY Perfume Making Kit is the starting point. It gives you the materials and the method to begin making perfume at home, at your own pace, without the live workshop format.
If you enjoyed the candle making workshop and are curious about extending into fragrance, the Perfumer's Palette is the natural next step. Both workshops share the same underlying logic: understand the material, understand the structure, then make something that is entirely yours.
The Online Perfume Making Workshop
If you cannot attend an in-person session, the Online Perfume Making Workshop brings the same core experience into a format that works from anywhere.
The online session covers the same foundational knowledge: how perfume is structured, how to work with accords, how to build a formula. It is designed for people who want the knowledge and the experience of composition, regardless of geography.
For those who prefer to learn in person and in a room with other people, the in-person Perfumer's Palette is the version to book. Both exist within the RAD LVNG Xperiences range and both deliver the same central outcome: you understand how fragrance works, and you have made something with that understanding.
Where to Find the Workshop
The Perfumer's Palette runs in multiple cities - Chandigarh, Lucknow, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and others. New slots are added regularly, so the schedule is always live rather than fixed. The best place to check for upcoming dates and availability is the Xperiences collection.
Workshop price: Rs 1,999 to Rs 2,199.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need any experience with fragrance to attend? No prior knowledge is required. The workshop is designed to start from the beginning - understanding what an accord is, how notes work, and how to build a formula. People who know a lot about fragrance and people who have never thought about it in any structured way both enjoy the session, because the hands-on element levels the experience.
What is a fragrance accord? An accord is a fragrance material that has a distinct, complete character. In the workshop, you work with RAD LVNG's own accords rather than individual raw materials, which makes the composition process more accessible and more directly connected to results. Think of each accord as a colour on your palette - it has its own identity, but it also transforms when combined with others.
How long does the perfume last? The longevity of the perfume you make depends on the accords you choose and how you structure your blend. The workshop covers this directly - one of the key things you learn is how to build a formula that lasts. Generally, perfumes with strong base notes and a higher concentration of fragrance material will last longer on skin.
Can I book a private session for a group? Yes. Private and group bookings are available for hen parties, birthday groups, corporate teams, and other private gatherings. Contact RAD LVNG to discuss your group size and requirements.
Is the workshop available online? Yes. RAD LVNG offers an Online Perfume Making Workshop for participants who cannot attend in person. Details are available in the Xperiences collection.
What if I want to keep making perfume after the workshop? All raw materials are available for purchase from RAD LVNG after the workshop. If you want a complete starter kit for home use, the DIY Perfume Making Kit is also available in the Xperiences range.
Is the Perfumer's Palette suitable as a gift? Booking the workshop as a gift is one of the most common reasons people come in. You are giving someone a skill and an experience, not just a product. The perfume they make during the session is theirs, which makes it a different category of gift from anything you could buy off a shelf.
Where does the workshop take place? The Perfumer's Palette currently runs in Chandigarh, Lucknow, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and other cities, with new slots added regularly. Check the Xperiences collection for current availability in your city.
What is the price of the workshop? The Perfumer's Palette is priced at Rs 1,999 to Rs 2,199. The raw materials available for post-workshop purchase are priced separately, from Rs 299 to Rs 899.
What is the difference between the workshop and the DIY Perfume Making Kit? The workshop is a live, guided, two-hour experience with a facilitator, in a room with other participants. It is an event. The DIY Perfume Making Kit is for home use - you work through the process at your own pace, on your own schedule, without attending a session. Both are part of the RAD LVNG Xperiences range, and both give you the ability to make your own perfume. The workshop adds the learning environment and the experience of making alongside other people.
