Couple perfume class in Dunsan-dong, Daejeon: orange & tonka at Scent

• A personal blending class where you make a perfume to your own taste
• You can try many luxury perfumes, including Byredo and Diptyque
• Recommended as an unusual date in Dunsan-dong, Daejeon
• Naver booking available, 2 hours of free parking

Why Scent Perfume Workshop before the Daejeon bread festival?

Scent Perfume Workshop (센트 향수공방) is a perfume studio in Dunsan-dong that I found while looking for something to do with my boyfriend before the Daejeon bread festival started in the afternoon. We wanted to go to the bread festival, so we headed to Daejeon for the weekend, but since it starts in the afternoon I wondered what to do until then, and that's when I found the perfume workshop. I'd tried a perfume workshop in Daejeon before and loved it, so I booked again this time, haha.

This time it was Scent Perfume Workshop! I booked through Naver, and being able to pick and blend your own scents made it a really special date with my boyfriend. And everyone... please leave plenty of time! I thought an hour would be enough, but smelling and blending one scent at a time, an hour and a half flew by, lol. I'll explain below why you need that time. Let's go, perfume-making review!

Scent Perfume Workshop booking, hours and parking

Scent Perfume Workshop is at 19 Dunsanjung-ro, B187, Seo-gu, Daejeon, and is open daily 10:00–19:00. You book through Naver and then visit, and I heard same-day booking is possible too! Parking is free for up to 2 hours, so it was easy to come by car.

Through the main entrance you get a pretty pink sign and a lovely scent drifting out. We came up from the parking lot and used the back door, and the front was definitely prettier, haha.

If you come up from the parking lot, look for B187. After you get out of the elevator, turn left twice and the place that smells wonderful is the perfume workshop.

What is Scent Perfume Workshop like inside?

Inside Scent Perfume Workshop there is a display of luxury perfumes and a desk with fragrance materials for blending. The moment I walked in, all the perfumes and materials caught my eye. Luxury perfumes were displayed on one side, and the desk was set with the many materials used for making perfume.

There was a space for one-day classes and a big table for group lessons. As you'd expect from a perfume workshop, the whole place smelled great, and I was in a good mood from the moment I entered.

There were also light snacks on one side! Your sense of smell gets tired if you keep sniffing, so it felt like they'd thoughtfully prepared things for breaks in between.

What do you get in the 30ml, 40,000 won personal blending class?

The personal blending class at Scent Perfume Workshop costs ₩40,000 for 30ml, and you make a perfume with a premium bottle and 15% parfum concentration. Out of about 100 fragrance materials, you get recommendations following the top, middle and base structure, and blend several scents into your own perfume.

I especially liked that the perfumer gives a lot of direction, so the scent can be designed in detail around each person's taste and what they want. It's fine if you don't know exactly what scents you like! Describe the mood you want and the teacher helps from recommending materials to blending them.

There were also other activities like a Korean-scent blending class and sachet making. Since you can do various scent-related experiences besides making perfume, it seemed like a good fit for anyone looking for an unusual date in Dunsan-dong, Daejeon.

1. Sampling luxury perfumes to find your taste

At Scent Perfume Workshop, before the actual blending, you sample luxury perfumes to find the scents you like. Before making our own, we spent some time smelling luxury perfumes to figure out what we like.

There was a wide range of perfumes you'd know by name, like Byredo, Diptyque, Chanel and Dior. From familiar scents to ones I was smelling for the first time, I sampled them one by one and found the direction I was after.

And you can take a scent you like home in a small empty bottle! Since we were going to make perfumes to our own tastes in the personal blending class, we decided to pick scents we thought would suit each other, haha.

The ones my boyfriend and I picked were Acqua di Parma Osmanthus and Kilian Moonlight in Heaven! Choosing what suits each other was surprisingly fun. For the ones you pick this way, you put in a set amount of the ingredient following the guidance and fill the rest with a base solution, so I heard you can use it without any aging.

2. Making your own personal perfume

2-1. Choosing a perfume bottle

The first step in making your perfume is choosing the empty bottle. Finally, time to start making my own perfume! First we each chose a container from several bottles. There were designs from round to rectangular, and a perfume needs a pretty bottle as well as a good scent, right? Haha.

After some thought we each picked a bottle we liked. Even the same scent would feel different depending on the container, so I was excited from the bottle-choosing stage!

2-2. How top, middle and base notes differ

At Scent Perfume Workshop, you choose top, middle and base materials using an explanation board and the teacher's recommendations. Now the real blending! You have to find and combine the scents you want out of a huge number of top, middle and base materials, but they gave a detailed explanation board so even first-timers don't struggle. The teacher kept helping too, so it was less difficult than I expected.

First you tell the teacher the mood and scent family you like, and they recommend materials and smell them with you so you get closer to the scent you want. Here's the difference between top, middle and base notes, good to know!

• Top note: the first scent you notice when you spray the perfume. It's usually prominent for about the first 30 minutes and fades relatively quickly.
• Middle note: the heart of the perfume. It comes through after the top note fades, so build around the scent you want to enjoy the longest.
• Base note: the scent responsible for the lingering trail. It's the foundation of the scent that stays softly on your skin or clothes.

It was easy to understand if you think of choosing about two materials at each stage. Of course, the actual combination can vary depending on the scent you want! With so many materials, smelling them one by one with the teacher was much easier than picking everything alone.

When your nose got tired, you could reset by smelling coffee beans, and they also set out orange juice and a chocolate bar. But I was so focused on choosing scents that I forgot to eat, lol.

2-3. Blending your own scent: orange, tonka bean and more

For blending, you spray each material onto a scent strip, write the name, stand the strips up, and smell several together to check the harmony. If a scent doesn't appeal or doesn't go with the others, you drop it and keep changing combinations until it gets close to the mood you want. This is where you see why you need to leave time, lol. Smelling each one is fun, and checking how the combinations feel took longer than I expected.

I wanted something slightly cool, fresh and sweet. Not sugar-sweet, but the coolness of walking into a forest, a fresh, slightly bitter orange feel, and a soft sweetness lingering at the end. That's what I told the teacher.

But many of the materials I first picked faded relatively fast. So the teacher smelled them with me and recommended materials like tonka bean and lily of the valley that make up for staying power and harmony. They even suggested combinations I'd never have thought of alone, so the scent came out much richer! The final scent I chose was...

• Top note: fresh orange and citron
• Middle note: soft sweetness of white wine, lychee and lily of the valley
• Last note (base): soft, sweet vanilla, tonka bean and white amber

I aimed for a scent that starts fresh and cool and, over time, leaves a soft sweetness. Explaining the mood I wanted and finding matching scents one by one really made it feel like making my very own perfume.

Why do the first and second blends take so long?

In the personal blending class at Scent Perfume Workshop, you don't just blend once and finish; you can try two rounds, a 1st and a 2nd blend. You adjust the ratios differently each time and compare which combination is closer to your taste. Since the ratio changes the overall feel, this step was really important.

So that's why I told you at the start to leave plenty of time...! We thought it'd be done in about an hour, but comparing scents and adjusting ratios, an hour and a half had passed before we knew it, lol.

2-4. Filling the perfume bottle

Once you finish a scent you like, it's time to put the ingredients into your chosen bottle! You add the materials you picked at the set ratio, then the base solution, and the perfume is done~~

It was amazing to think the scents I'd picked became one perfume. They told us that if you age the finished perfume for about 2 weeks, the scents blend together more harmoniously and feel deeper. Checking the scent right away is nice, but I was looking forward to how it would change after aging.

2-5. Finishing, decorating and packaging your perfume

For the finished perfume, you freely mix and match the cap, decorate with stickers, and they pack it in a box. Ta-da! My very own perfume, finally done! Isn't it so pretty...? From blending the scent to choosing the bottle, everything was chosen to my taste, which made it feel more special. The top cap can be freely combined too, and you can decorate in your own style with stickers.

The perfume itself was pretty, but I really liked the final decorating time. Even the same perfume changes its mood depending on which bottle you choose and how you decorate it, which was fun. My boyfriend's perfume, mine, and a photo of the two of us together! Side by side they looked even prettier and I felt proud, haha. Our tastes differ, so comparing what scents we each chose was nice too, and being able to finish with the scent you each want seems to be the charm of a personal blending class.

Finally they neatly packed it in a box. It's a perfume I made myself, but with such pretty packaging it felt like receiving a gift, and I loved it! Doing it with my boyfriend made it an even more memorable time.

Is Scent Perfume Workshop a good couple date in Dunsan-dong, Daejeon?

My boyfriend and I both finished the scents we wanted at Scent Perfume Workshop, so satisfaction was really high. At first I worried there'd be too many materials and it'd be hard, but the teacher recommended materials to fit the mood I wanted and carefully helped with blending, so it felt stress-free. Above all, doing everything myself, from choosing scents to the bottle, the final decorating and packaging, made it extra special.

I came wanting a different kind of activity while waiting for the bread festival, but making perfume turned into a fun date course in itself! If you like perfume or want to make special memories as a couple, I'd recommend Scent Perfume Workshop in Dunsan-dong, Daejeon. Blending scents yourself is fun and the result looks lovely, so it suits anyone looking for an unusual date in Dunsan-dong, Daejeon.

And I'll stress it once more: if you really smell everything and keep changing combinations, it takes longer than you'd think, so please book and visit with plenty of time! When I finish the perfume I made this time, I plan to come back and make one with a different mood, haha.

Scent Perfume Workshop in Daejeon, where I made a perfume with my own taste and left with a pretty result!