Room 1015 Discovery Set

What it smells like

The Room 1015 Discovery Kit is the house's own boxed sampler: ten 2.5 ml vials covering the full range, laid out in a white sleeve with each name printed down the side. Because this is a house built on counterculture rather than on a single accord, the ten scents sit a long way apart from one another, and the set is a genuine cross-section rather than ten variations on a theme.

The box contains Kokoa Bang, Wasabi Klub, Poppy Riot, Wavechild, Love-O-Matic, Jasmine Freak, Cherry Punk, Sonic Flower, Sweet Leaf and Purple Mantra. Between them you get the green, sharp and electric end of the line, the surf-inspired citrus and coconut of Wavechild, the cherry-and-leather darkness of Cherry Punk, the cannabis-and-jasmine green of Sweet Leaf, and the incense and freesia calm of Purple Mantra.

Two of the ten, Kokoa Bang and Sonic Flower, are not currently stocked as full bottles at Redolia, so the set is also the only way to try them here.

Who made it

Room 1015 was founded by Michael Partouche — Dr. Mike — a musician by instinct and a trained pharmacist by education, who built the house at the meeting point of those two disciplines. He describes what the brand does as olfactory counterculture: fragrance used as a means of expression rather than as decoration.

The house works with outside perfumers rather than keeping a single in-house nose, which is part of why the range is as varied as it is. You can see the full line, and who composed what, in the Room 1015 collection.

Who it's for

Anyone considering a full bottle and sensibly unwilling to commit without trying first. At 2.5 ml each, these vials hold enough for several complete wearings, which is what you need to judge a fragrance properly — most of these change considerably between the first ten minutes and the drydown, and a paper strip will not tell you where they end up.

It is also a reasonable gift for someone whose taste you do not know precisely. The range is wide enough that almost everyone finds at least one they want, and the packaging is handsome enough to give as it comes.

If you already know you want a particular scent, buy the bottle instead — this set is for exploring, not for topping up.

When to wear it

The set spans the year by design. Wavechild and Wasabi Klub are the warm-weather choices; Cherry Punk and Purple Mantra want cooler air and later hours; Love-O-Matic and Jasmine Freak sit comfortably in between.

The practical approach is one scent per day over a couple of weeks, sprayed on skin rather than on card, with a note of which ones you find yourself thinking about hours later. The vials are sprays, so they apply the way a full bottle will rather than puddling the way a dab sample does.

About the house

Room 1015 is a Parisian niche house named after a hotel room — room 1015 of the Continental Hyatt House on Sunset Strip, the setting for some of rock's most notorious nights. The brand takes that as shorthand for a particular kind of freedom, and names its fragrances Cherry Punk, Sweet Leaf and Electric Wood rather than after flowers and places.

The bottles are wide cylinders of coloured glass under a faceted gem-cut cap, with the colour changing to match the juice. See the rest of the line in the Room 1015 collection at Redolia.