“50 ml is above all a meeting place for enthusiasts.”
Matteo Stringhini (translated excerpt from Italian)
Milan’s 50ml is a perfume and beauty specialist that began by introducing fragrances on a screen and grew into a place to smell them and talk with people in person. Brothers Fabio and Matteo Stringhini created a way to broaden encounters with unfamiliar perfumes by moving between online discovery and the shop.
The name 50ml refers to a volume found in both perfume bottles and skincare containers. It connects perfume with the pleasure of choosing things for daily use rather than shutting it away in a separate world. Following the brothers’ story reveals less about the number of products than about the conversations that lead someone to a particular bottle.
Essential Information
- Name: 50 ml / 50ml
- Business and online sales launched: 2013
- Founders: Fabio Stringhini and Matteo Stringhini
- Milan boutique opened: 2017
- Shop address: Viale Monte Nero 16, 20135 Milano, Italy
- Operating company: Fast Ventures srl
- Official website: 50 ml
From the Brothers’ Online Business to a Milan Perfume Shop
Fabio’s Digital Strengths and Matteo’s Love of Art
The brothers had different strengths. Fabio was interested in numbers, business development, and digital sales infrastructure, while Matteo was drawn to art and communicating its appeal. In 2013, Fabio launched an online sales platform. Tracing the history back from today’s shop leads first not to a shop door, but to a website.
That sequence says much about 50ml. Perfume and beauty products offered in one Milan shop could reach people outside the city. Yet some aspects of perfume cannot be communicated through a screen. After four years of online business, the brothers felt the need to handle products and engage directly with customers.
Opening in 2017 to Engage Directly With Products and Customers
The reason for opening a physical shop was not simply to add another sales outlet. In IMAGINE in 2021, the brothers identified three aims: direct contact with products, conversations with customers, and collaboration with certain distributors that had not previously worked with an online-only business. What they learned in the shop fed back into their communication online and on social media.
“It all began in 2013.”
Matteo and Fabio Stringhini (translated excerpt from Italian)
The boutique opened in 2017 at 16 Viale Monte Nero in Porta Romana. This was the neighborhood where the brothers grew up and came to know the work of local perfume shops. Unlike a trip to a glamorous city-center retail destination, it offered somewhere to drop in during daily life. In 2018, nearby resident Giulia Torelli visited and described its predominantly pink space, which sold haircare and grooming products as well as perfume.
Its identity as a place to choose perfume and beauty products together also remained in its name. Easy to remember internationally, 50ml applies both to bottles used by people who rotate several perfumes and to jars of cream. It was a name suited to cross-border online sales and everyday grooming alike.
Expansion in Late 2023, at the Same Address
The shop expanded considerably in late 2023. In 2025, Matteo described its growth from approximately 50 to nearly 320 square meters. The official expansion announcement described the new space as approximately 300 square meters and reported its unveiling in December 2023. This was an expansion at the same address, 16 Viale Monte Nero.
The official shop information in October 2026 still gives this address. The operating company’s headquarters are at 3 Via Paolo Pallia, separate from the boutique visited for sampling perfume. Confusing the shop’s expansion with the company’s address would also obscure how 50ml developed.
50ml Timeline
| Period | Event |
|---|---|
| 2013 | The online retail business launches. This is distinct from the opening year of the current physical shop. |
| 2017 | The boutique opens at 16 Viale Monte Nero, Milan. |
| 2018 | Giulia Torelli publishes a shop visit, describing the perfume and beauty space of the time. |
| 2019 | Specialist media cover the introduction of Orto Parisi and the shop’s collaborative approach to finding perfume. |
| Late 2023 | The shop expands at the same address. The official announcement reports a December unveiling. |
| October 2026 | The official website lists online sample sales, individual shop consultations, and ingredient workshops. |
50ml’s Thinking, Expressed Through Selection and Service
Placing Different Expressions of Perfume Beside Familiar Names
50ml’s selection is not unified around a single fragrance preference. The brothers have looked for new brands through travel, the internet, trade fairs, word of mouth, and customer requests in the shop. The current official description also emphasizes researching candidates and testing products themselves.
The introduction of Orto Parisi in 2019 reflects this breadth. Luxury perfumes share the shop with brands whose expression does not fit established conventions. Rather than keeping Orto Parisi at a distance as merely “unusual perfume,” the shop creates opportunities to smell it and judge it firsthand.
“We’ll find it together.”
Matteo Stringhini (translated excerpt from Italian)
These words were addressed to people who do not yet know exactly what they are seeking. Being able to name the perfume you want is not a condition of entry. Even when unfamiliar fragrances leave someone at a loss for words, there is room to begin a conversation. That kind of service makes the breadth of the selection useful.
When considering the shop’s early relationships, Laboratorio Olfattivo is important too. It is one of the brands Matteo associates with the shop’s beginnings, and a 2018 shop visit also described him explaining its creations. From early on, the shop’s work involved not just gathering perfumes, but communicating the thinking of individual makers.
Building a Relationship Customers Can Return To, Rather Than Pressing for an Immediate Sale
In 2025, Matteo identified an unhurried approach, without insisting on a sale here and now, as one of the shop’s defining traits. Even as the shop grew, conversation, listening to preferences, and helping customers explore remained at the heart of its service.
“To me, the customer is a friend.”
Matteo Stringhini (translated excerpt from Italian)
The official boutique introduction likewise sets out a goal of customers enjoying the products they use and returning the following week, rather than leaving with empty wallets. The shop is less a stage for displaying perfume knowledge than a place to think together about what fits someone’s life. This approach supports its identity across both perfume and skincare.
Connecting Perfume Encounters Online and In-Store
Sampling Beyond the Shop Through Samples and Communication
Online activity has a role beyond shipping bottles. The official website sells perfume samples and lets customers choose complimentary samples in their cart when ordering. This offers a way to experience a fragrance at home before buying a full bottle. For people far from the shop, it connects learning about a perfume with smelling it.
Alongside product explanations, the online Magazine and the YouTube channel Profumi di Nicchia by 50 ml feature conversations with makers. For example, 50ml interviewed Jean-Claude Ellena about his flower-inspired creations for Laboratorio Olfattivo. Ellena explained the difference between a flower in a garden and a flower expressed as perfume.
Even when a flower has the same name, a perfume is not simply a copy of the plant: it includes the maker’s perspective. Such conversations reveal creative choices that cannot be understood merely by memorizing ingredient names. Read before or after smelling, they can change the questions one asks of a bottle.
A 45-Minute Personal Consultation and a 90-Minute Ingredient Workshop
The official information in October 2026 describes two different olfactory experiences. One is a 45-minute personal consultation with a fragrance specialist. Customers choose their specialist when booking, and a telephone conversation about their preferences takes place approximately a week beforehand. Rather than beginning to think of candidates only when the customer enters the shop, the process establishes their interests in advance.
The other is a 90-minute small-group workshop with Matteo, introducing fragrance materials. Participants smell ingredients such as flowers and woods, along with essential oils, encountering the smells that underpin perfume. Themes change monthly. A consultation to find a finished fragrance that suits someone and a learning session that broadens olfactory experience through ingredients serve different purposes.
Booking information for both is provided on the official page. These are neither professional perfumery qualification courses nor services that necessarily involve blending a personal perfume, but the shop’s initiatives for choosing and understanding fragrance.
Events Where Makers’ Words and Fragrances Share a Space
The boutique has also hosted gatherings with brands and perfumers. At a Floris event, Edward Bodenham and in-house perfumer Nicola Pozzani presented creations alongside Matteo. Participants could smell the fragrances while asking about their history and creation. It was an opportunity to connect a label on the shelf with the people behind it.
At an event where Lorenzo Pazzaglia presented Sun-Gria, the connection between his interest in fragrance and his chef father’s kitchen was also discussed. For the fig-inspired Adam & Eve’s Dress, he explained that he wanted to express grass, leaves, and fruit together, as when picking figs in his grandfather’s vegetable garden. Participants could try the finished perfume and ask its creator why those smells had been brought together.
Matteo also visits makers at trade fairs beyond the shop. Coverage of Pitti Fragranze includes encounters with figures such as Coreterno’s Francilla Ronchi and Baruti’s Spyros Drosopoulos. The work of finding new perfumes connects with the work of explaining their backgrounds.
The key to understanding 50ml is not a choice between online and physical retail. A perfume discovered on the web can be tested through samples, discussed in the shop, and smelled again after hearing its maker’s story. Through that movement, it becomes a place to discover not only perfume names, but what one is drawn to.
References
- Giulietta Ptoyan’s conversation with Matteo Stringhini, June 6, 2025 — Fragrantica Italia
- The Stringhini brothers’ retail story — IMAGINE, February 2021, page 60
- Official company introduction — 50 ml
- Business profile for the affiliate program, supplied by 50 ml
- Online retail and boutique service — I Like Milano
- A visit featuring Laboratorio Olfattivo, November 12, 2018 — Rockandfiocc
- Official announcement of the December 2023 boutique expansion — 50 ml
- Official boutique and headquarters addresses — 50 ml
- The introduction of Orto Parisi, May 23, 2019 — Extrait
- Official boutique introduction — 50 ml
- Official conversation with Jean-Claude Ellena — 50 ml
- Official personal consultations and ingredient workshops — 50 ml
- Official report on the Floris London event — 50 ml
- Official report on Lorenzo Pazzaglia’s Sun-Gria presentation — 50 ml
- Matteo Stringhini’s visit to the fragrance fair — Pitti Immagine
