New Perfume Review Le Labo Tonka 25- The Beat Goes On

In 2014 the Estee Lauder Group acquired one of the flagship brands in niche perfumery, Le Labo. While there haven’t been a lot of new releases, 2015’s The Noir 29 and 2017’s Mousse de Chene 30, there has been a noticeable expansion of presence. Le Labo now has a presence at shopping malls everywhere. They went from being perfumes that were hard to find to being much easier to experience. This is the upside to Le Labo being acquired; the opportunity to be discovered. I can only speak about the one near me but whenever I go into talk it is not an empty space. Lots of shoppers coming to check it out.

Fabrice Penot and Edouard Roschi

The brand founded by Fabrice Penot and Edouard Roschi stands for a style of perfumery far from the mainstream offerings. It is the reason there was concern. If they are going to expand will they dumb things down. What I’ve experienced in my area is the opposite. The “Field of Dreams” effect of if you build a different kind of perfume they will come. Which means there is no need to change for both the older fans and the new ones. The newest release Tonka 25 exemplifies this.

Daphne Bugey

Daphne Bugey is the perfumer for Tonka 25. Mme Bugey was one of the founding perfumers for the line responsible for three of the debut releases. She is best known for what has probably become the flagship perfume for Le Labo, Rose 31. Tonka 25 shares a tiny bit of similarity to Neroli 36 from those early efforts. What it shares with most of the Le Labo fragrances is if you expect the ingredient on the bottle to be front and center you will be surprised.

If there was truth in advertising at play this would be Cedar Noir 25 or Musks 25. Those are the two most compelling pieces of Tonka 25. Also notice the plural of musk I used in my faux name. Tonka 25 is an exercise in layering the synthetic musks to produce their own special effect.

This layering begins early on as Mme Bugey uses a clever mixture of the higher showing musks to create something soft. I have spent a lot of time trying to pick this apart and I’ve just quit trying. I am confident there are a lot of musks here and they make the perfume. Early on orange blossom lilts through the musks. The cedar shows up after that. It is not the pencil shaving style of cedar. This is a deeper version. Identified as Atlas cedar in the notes list it reminds me of the smell of an old cedar closet or cedar lined chest. Mme Bugey swirls the musks through this and this is where Tonka 25 spends much of its time on my skin. The promised tonka along with vanilla essentially make a drive-by without adding any significant impact. The final ingredient which adds to this is benzoin which provides a resinous warmth for the musky cedar to nestle within.

Tonka 25 has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.

I wouldn’t have expected to like a perfume made up of cedar and musks. It shows how Messrs. Penot and Rouschi are not giving up the Le Labo way of making perfume. I know I will be wearing out my sample over the next few weeks as it is a great choice for fall. If you like musks and cedar this needs to be on your list. If you like the way Le Labo makes perfume this also needs to be on your list. If you’re walking through the mall and you see an interesting little shop with Le Labo on the sign walk in and ask for Tonka 25 it is a great place to start. For everyone who loves the brand Tonka 25 shows the beat goes on.

Disclosure: this review is based on a sample provided by Le Labo.

–Mark Behnke