Stop and smell the roses

It’s easy to get caught up in the hectic hustle of meetings and events planning, and oftentimes, many forget to enjoy the beauty of life and all that it encompasses. For this reason, Prachi Saini Garg, director of Scentopia, is advocating for events professionals to stop and smell the roses, both literally and figuratively.

Playing with scents in the sand

Located along the golden coastline of Sentosa, Scentopia is home to over 160 unique scents, many of which have been especially selected to showcase Singapore’s rich floral heritage and botanicals native to the destination. This kaleidoscopic array of scents forms the basis of its perfume-making workshop that can accommodate 30 pax on-site at the perfumery.

“While perfume making may sound like a very individualistic experience, it presents an opportunity for many variations of team bonding,” Prachi shared. “For example, teams can concoct a perfume together that aligns with their corporate branding, or even create a fragrance for each other, depending on what they believe their colleague’s personality is like.”

Armed with a personality test that touches on aspects of one’s professional and personal life, Scentopia’s perfume-making workshop allows participants to get to know themselves, each other and the local floras better, including the orchid species indigenous to Singapore.

The various multiple-choice answers picked from the personality test point participants to different scent racks (citrus, fresh, floral, woody and oriental) from which they can mix and match a variety of aromas.
Upon identifying individual scents that match their personality and preferences, participants blend these scents together in a cup. If they’re happy with it, they can submit their formula to the staff for blending and bottling of their customised perfume.

For a quintessential Singapore souvenir, guests can mix in any of the orchid scents from the perfume bar’s floral rack. The orchid scents are the hardest and most expensive for Scentopia to procure due to the flowers’ rarity and the complicated process involved with extracting their essence.

Scentopia is able to extend this experience to the great outdoors for groups larger than 30 attendees. The perfumery opens up to Siloso Beach, where participants in bigger corporate groups can enjoy mixing up the varied scents while wriggling their toes in the warm, powdery sand.
Scentopia can also bring the perfume making teambuilding experience directly to corporate groups’ doorsteps at gala dinners or any other venue in Singapore.

Soaking in the forest and its aromas

Incentive groups can also opt for Scentopia’s forest bathing activity, conducted a stone’s throw away from the perfumery along Sentosa’s beach.

“There are very few rainforests left in the world, let alone rainforests located just next to a beach,” Prachi said. “Our location in Sentosa is ideal for providing our guests with two relaxing and yet very different experiences in nature — the beach and the rainforest — all within the same day.”

Groups of up to 600 participants (maximum 30 pax per group, capped at 20 groups a day) will be led through the dense foliage in Sentosa’s forested areas to simply be one with nature — breathing in the natural scents of surrounding floras and soaking up all of nature with guided mindfulness exercises.

“Forest bathing gives people the opportunity to take time out, slow down and connect with nature. Our guests would experience a whole different world when they step into the rainforest,” Prachi explained.

“When they partake in the forest bathing, they’ll then be able to understand the relationship between the perfume making activity and the flowers that grow on Sentosa’s rainforest floor.”