The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2017–2019
Scent Library's 2017 Liang Bai Kai perfume turned boiled-water scent into a hit
Scent Library turned the Chinese memory of boiled water into a perfume, selling 400,000 bottles in one month in 2017.
Scent Library (气味图书馆)
What it had to solve
From 2009 it distributed more than 20 foreign perfume brands and opened more than 40 stores, but the brand remained niche; to become a mass-market brand, it had to find a scent truly belonging to Chinese people.
How it works
In 2009, Lou Nanshi (娄楠石), who returned to China after studying in New Zealand, opened the first Scent Library (气味图书馆) store in Sanlitun, Beijing, and began the scent business distributing more than 20 perfume brands worldwide. Over five years, the brand expanded to more than 40 stores nationwide but remained in a niche circle—she found that none of the collected scents truly moved her, let alone the mass market.
The turning point came with the Liang Bai Kai (凉白开) series launched at the end of 2017. The team did not copy the floral, fruity, or woody notes commonly used in Western perfumes; instead, it started from the shared memory that many Chinese households boiled water in aluminum kettles, recreating the scent of boiled water cooled in summer as a perfume. To help foreign perfumers understand this scent, the founder took them to visit the Forbidden City and taste Chinese tea, and personally demonstrated the process of boiling water in an aluminum kettle in front of the perfumers.
After this scent was launched, it immediately became a hit: in 2017 it sold up to 400,000 bottles in a single month and more than 1,000,000 bottles for the full year, and it then held first place among domestic perfume brands on Tmall for 3 consecutive years. In an exclusive interview, Pinguan (品观网) called Liang Bai Kai (凉白开) a key 0-to-1 moment for the brand, and a landmark product that helped Scent Library (气味图书馆) break out of the niche perfume market.
Why it lands
- Defining the product through collective memory rather than Western fragrance families, Liang Bai Kai (凉白开) is a summer scene familiar to Chinese people and naturally carries emotional connection.
- Turning the abstract sense of smell into everyday scenes such as boiling water in aluminum kettles and children blowing electric fans solved the communication challenge that scents are invisible.
- The product concept aligned with the brand mission, 'Make life better through scent,' connecting the brand, product, and consumers.
- The team spent three years refining the product before launch, preferring to be slow rather than rough, so that the perfumers truly understood Chinese life instead of merely creating a name.
What it did
In 2017, it sold up to 400,000 bottles in a single month and more than 1,000,000 bottles cumulatively for the year; it then ranked first among domestic perfume brands on Tmall for 3 consecutive years, changing the brand from a niche agency store into a mass-market brand.
What you can take
When category logic comes from another culture, return to shared memories for differentiation; a familiar scent beats an unfamiliar one.
Since then
After Liang Bai Kai (凉白开) succeeded, the team codified 'creating scents belonging to Chinese people' as a method and launched a series of Chinese-memory products, including White Rabbit (大白兔) milk candy scent and Xiqi (喜气). In 2019, the fragrance co-branded with White Rabbit became a phenomenon-level product again. The brand also gained the creative capability to replicate the same method in new categories.
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