Maison de L’Asie is rewriting the rules of Asian perfumery

For Liau, the creation and storytelling behind a fragrance must be layered with nuance and emotional resonance. Each one is concocted with a specific memory, moment or even image. “A lot of perfumes, when you look at the marketing, play to basic, primal desires,” she posits. “We’re trying to reach something deeper, a philosophical or emotional truth.” It is the same ethos that underpins her mission to “champion an Asian voice and define what luxury from Asia is”. Her approach resists the tendency to rely on familiar olfactory signifiers, such as jasmine for femininity or sandalwood for spirituality, which often distill Asian identity into a single note or cultural reference. “

What does an Asian fragrance smell like?” she asks. “I don’t think it should be as narrowly defined as people make it out to be.” She recalls, with measured reflection, coming across a fragrance designed to evoke mango sticky rice as an ode to Thailand. While evocative, it reflects a wider impulse in scent‑making to translate culture into something instantly recognisable and palatable. “I understand where we want to use scent to capture the cultural aspect of a country,” she says. “But it comes down to a subjective stance on what narrative we are pushing.”

By contrast, Maison de L’Asie’s Thailand-inspired scents: Bangkok 9/9, Rivière Siam and Les Soirs de Siam draw on Liau’s time in the region to evoke specific moods and moments. Each fragrance is crafted to unfold through texture and contrast, capturing, for instance, the restless pulse of a city or the hush of twilight. It reflects her belief that Asian scents should tell stories shaped by memory and a strong sense of place. This philosophy is backed by meticulous craft. Each perfume is produced in Grasse, the historic heart of French perfumery, at a high concentration of 35 to 40 per cent. A blend of fine botanicals and sustainable, lab-crafted synthetics ensures that each scent evolves slowly on the skin—and lingers long after it is worn.

When she launched Maison de L’Asie, Liau received no shortage of opinions on how a Singaporean fragrance brand should look and smell. “Of course, I disagreed with them all.” To her, the idea that a fragrance must reflect its country of origin through ingredients is reductive. “It’s hard to define it by [geography]. Middle Eastern brands [are known for using oud] but they don’t just use it. They use florals from France, citrus from Italy. European brands have started using oud too.”

For Liau, Asia isn’t a fixed identity, but a layered, evolving one. “It’s not just about representing Asia for Asia’s sake,” she explains, “but [showing how] Asia plays with the rest of the world.” When asked what is missing from Asian perfumery, she doesn’t point to ingredients or formulas. “It’s not easy to define what’s [absent],” she says. “I think it’s more about the intent behind why a brand even exists.”

This narrative clarity has led to collaborations with renowned perfumers such as Antoine Lie—a revered name more commonly associated with iconic European maisons. Lie, known for commercial successes such as Armani Code and Romance for Men by Ralph Lauren, as well as avant-garde works for Comme des Garçons and Etat Libre d’Orange, recently worked with Liau on a Master Perfumer Collection inspired by Japan. “He gets me and I get him,” she says. “I gave him a creative brief, a few images and a soundtrack. When he came back with the first draft, I said, ‘I would never have envisioned that it would smell this way’. But it was exactly what I was trying to convey,” she shares.

Guns of Sakura is a bold, avant-garde scent that juxtaposes delicate floral notes with smoky, metallic accords. It opens with blackcurrant, green olibanum and sharp metallic notes, building to a heart of birch and gunpowder, before settling into a base of guaiac wood, sandalwood and musk. L’Ibasho offers a softer, introspective experience, with gentle notes of Turkish rose, Japanese cherry blossom and cherry. These give way to unusual middle notes of rice and ink, before settling into a warm base of musk, patchouli and orris butter.

Aside from its fragrances, Maison de L’Asie has also expanded into lifestyle products with interior sprays, and candles which will launch later this year. The brand will also be entering eight new markets, including Japan this month. “[We aim to] move beyond being just a fragrance house, and position ourselves as a global Asian luxury brand with a wider category of products,” says Liau.

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