MAISON DE L’ASIE: From Singapore to the World, a New-Generation Fragrance House Carrying Asia’s Memories in Scent

“Fragrance weaves narratives without words, whispering stories that words cannot express. And it awakens emotions that linger long after the moment has passed.”
— Elizabeth Liau, founder

Key Facts

Founded: 2019 in Singapore; online sales began in late 2020
Founder: Elizabeth Liau
Official website: maisondelasie.sg

“Maison de L’Asie” means “House of Asia” in French. Liau explains that choosing a French name embodies her approach: drawing on French perfumery techniques while infusing them with her own voice as an Asian.

The Founder and the Origins of the House

A Story-Loving Girl Growing Up in Singapore

Elizabeth Liau was born and raised in Singapore. With Shanghainese Chinese, Malay, and Dutch-Indonesian roots, her multicultural heritage is quintessentially Southeast Asian. As a child, she was especially close to her paternal grandfather, who she says opened the door to creative worlds such as art, cinema, and history. Together with her two older brothers, she loved classic works. Although she was not very talkative, she later recalled that “there was always a story forming in my mind.”

This introspective girl left Singapore at 18 and set out abroad: Australia, Dubai, New York, South America, London, Paris. Beginning her career in finance before spending around ten years working in the arts, she followed a path that called on both analytical and creative thinking. Reflecting on that period, Liau has said, “As I encountered many different forms of art, I think I was searching for a medium through which I could observe the movement of emotions closely.” She also considered becoming a film director, but ultimately found her way to the “invisible medium” of fragrance.

One Perfume, Discovered in Florence

Around the time she began working in Dubai, Liau started traveling frequently to Italy. On one visit, she encountered an artisanal fragrance, a perfume produced on a small craft scale, in a niche fragrance shop in Florence, specializing in independent perfumes outside the major brands. She says she was “completely captivated.” She bought ten bottles at once and has continued refining her collection for at least 20 years since. Liau describes this as the olfactory starting point from which today’s Maison de L’Asie grew.

Her encounters with niche fragrance began in the early 2000s as she visited shops while traveling around Europe. Describing her education in scent, Liau says, “As with art and design, the more fragrances you encounter, the more you recognize subtle differences in quality and refinement. Just as in literature, the more you read, the more you notice the beauty of a distinctive voice.”

A Loss in 2018 Opened the Door to Creation

According to Liau’s interview with Fashionsnap, the turning point came in 2018, when her mother died. In her grief, she sensed intuitively that fragrance could express those emotions more accurately than words.

“It was an extremely sad event, but the time I spent looking inward to understand this fragile, human moment was also an experience in which I felt a certain beauty. Losing someone dear is something we all experience, isn’t it? I felt there was meaning in translating the story of this beautiful, emotional moment into something creative and sharing it.”
— Elizabeth Liau

The first creation to emerge was Mother x Love. Top notes of lychee, ginger, and vanilla are followed by delicate flowers of magnolia, jasmine, and saffron, closing with a lingering trail of musk and suede. The fragrance is described as an attempt to capture, in an invisible form, the embrace and comfort her mother had represented.

The Birth of the House and Its First Steps

Maison de L’Asie was established in 2019, and online sales began in late 2020. Its launch was supported by Liau’s own funds, subsequent fundraising, and angel investors. Although she had neither industry experience nor connections, she says she “kept sending samples to everyone, from industry insiders to major brands’ marketing companies and large distributors.” Those efforts paid off: Michael Edwards’s Fragrances of the World, a well-known fragrance reference database, and Fragrantica covered the house early on, contributing significantly to its recognition.

“In the beginning, gaining validation from the industry was the real goal. There are very few Asian perfume houses.”
— Elizabeth Liau

In 2023, the house exhibited for the first time at Esxence in Milan, a major international niche-fragrance fair. Experiencing the response from Middle Eastern and European markets firsthand gave Liau confidence in pursuing full-scale global expansion. By 2025, she had been invited to speak on a panel at the same fair. “For an Asian brand that was initially unknown to speak as a representative felt like a tremendous responsibility, but it was also an incredibly proud moment,” she has said.

According to interviews in 2025, Maison de L’Asie was present in at least 16 markets, including Germany, Russia, and Italy, and in luxury department stores such as Neiman Marcus in the United States. It made its Japanese debut on June 25, 2025, through Bluebell Japan Ltd., and is available at fragrance counters in major department stores including Isetan Shinjuku, Daimaru Tokyo, and Takashimaya locations.

The House’s Commitments

The Philosophy of “Cinematic Fragrance”

At the heart of Maison de L’Asie is the view of fragrance as “a medium for storytelling.” Its official website states, “We do not simply make perfumes; we capture beautiful emotions and life stories in a bottle, creating timeless olfactory narratives.” Liau’s dream of becoming a film director is directly connected to how the fragrances are composed. Her approach is to create scents whose “beginning, middle, and ending unfold like the story of a film,” and she says that “individuality emerges through the subtle transitions of fragrance layers.”

Music also plays an important role as a source of inspiration. The story that she was guided by Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to Cinema Paradiso while creating Chapter 1 epitomizes this spirit. The house’s website publishes playlists corresponding to each chapter, intended to “allow the wearer to experience the emotions more deeply.”

Highly Concentrated Fragrances Born in Grasse

The core personal fragrances are offered in the highly concentrated form of Extrait de Parfum. They are prepared at a perfumery laboratory in Grasse, southern France, using a fragrance concentration of 35–40%, as stated on the official website and in interviews with Liau. This is substantially higher than typical eau de parfum and many brands on the market. Scents that “bloom elegantly on the skin over time, gaining depth and complexity” are the house’s benchmark for quality.

Sustainability and the Approach to Ingredients

The house combines botanical ingredients with high-quality synthetics. To avoid the environmental burden of overharvesting rare natural materials, it actively uses “nature-identical” synthetics, made with compositions identical to those found in nature. Its ingredient-selection policy also takes potential skin irritation into account.

The Bottle and the “Endless Knot” Logo

The bottle has a minimal, understated beauty. A rounded flacon, or glass bottle, that fits in the palm of the hand is finished in light gray lacquer, evoking “Asian porcelain.” Gold on the cap, plaque, and logo adds a delicate sense of luxury.

The logo used as the house’s seal is inspired by the “Endless Knot,” a symbol of “the interconnectedness of all things” in Asian cultures. It makes visible Liau’s philosophy that “like an invisible thread connecting different moments in life, fragrance awakens memories and emotions across time and place.”

The Perfume Collections

Maison de L’Asie’s collections unfold through a narrative structure of “chapters.” Each is set in an Asian country and expresses universal emotions or philosophical themes through three fragrances. “The protagonist is you, the person wearing the fragrance. The interpretation is entirely different for every wearer,” says Liau.

Chapter 1: Singapore — Remembrance

The first chapter consists of three creations returning to Liau’s own roots through themes of remembrance and homecoming.

Nanyang: Meaning “Southern Seas,” this tea fragrance is inspired by the South China Sea and overseas Chinese culture. Green tea, bergamot, saffron, and leather express a fusion of East and West, past and present.
Mother x Love: The creation at the house’s origin. It moves from top notes of lychee, ginger, and vanilla through magnolia and jasmine to musk and suede, expressing in fragrance “the embrace and comfort embodied by her mother.”
Lost Lovers: From a bright opening of bergamot and orange blossom to a heart of rose, violet, and sandalwood. A base of amber and vetiver holds the sweetness and complexity of memories of love.

Chapter 2: Indonesia — Reverie

The second chapter takes “reverie” as its theme, portraying dreamlike scenes of Bali.

Bali H’ai: Inspired by the theme song of the 1958 film South Pacific, which Liau recalls watching repeatedly with her grandfather. An intoxicating floral fragrance, it unfolds from coconut, rose, and jasmine to vanilla, patchouli, and ylang-ylang, then tobacco leaf, musk, and cedar.
Bois D’Indonesie: A tribute to Indonesia’s intricate woodcarving. Incense, agarwood, bamboo, and lotus layer the warmth of wood with a sense of cleanliness.
Les Nuits de Bali: Vanilla, patchouli, oud, sandalwood, rose, and saffron express the dense atmosphere of Bali at night.

Chapter 3: Thailand — Chaos

The third chapter’s theme is “chaos,” reflecting the duality of Thailand as it transforms from ancient capitals into modern, neon-lit cities.

Bangkok 9/9: Built around gardenia, clove, myrtle, and sandalwood, this edgy fragrance expresses the city’s vivid energy.

Chapter 4: India — Transcendence

The fourth chapter’s theme is “transcendence”: introspection and tranquility through a spiritual journey.

Terre d’Inde: Opening with bitter orange and orris, it layers saffron, incense, and turmeric before sandalwood, amber, and leather create the lingering trail. It expresses the richness and spirituality of the Indian earth.
Jardin de l’Inde: From the gentle sweetness of peach and mate tea to violet, narcissus, pink pepper, and cinnamon. Sandalwood, musk, and vanilla envelop it in stillness.
God and Moon: Plum, Indian tuberose, and gardenia draw back the curtain of night, while coffee, honey, cardamom, and tonka bean deepen the atmosphere. The night concludes in the stillness of oud, rosewood, and cedar.

The Master Perfumer Collection

In February 2026, the new Master Perfumer Collection began its Japanese rollout. Conceived as “a tribute to the world’s boldest and most influential perfumers,” this evolving collaborative series invites renowned guest perfumers to interpret Asian cultures.

The first installment was created by French perfumer Antoine Lie. With a career spanning at least 30 years at companies including Givaudan and Takasago, he created hundreds of perfumes, including Armani Code and Tom Ford Private Blend Azure Lime, before becoming independent and gaining recognition for his “avant-garde style.” Lie chose Japanese culture as his theme, expressing two axes of contrast, “tradition and modernity” and “nonconformity and conformity,” through two fragrances.

“Japan is a world of beautiful contradictions. Boldness and fragility dance together. These fragrances explore that tension, inviting those who wear them to release both the visible and invisible parts of themselves.”
— Antoine Lie

Guns of Sakura Extrait de Parfum: A portrait of rebellious individuality built around a gunpowder accord, moving from the sparkle of blackcurrant and steel to a creamy trail of guaiac wood and sandalwood.
L’Ibasho Extrait de Parfum: Centered on an ink accord, it expresses an introspective moment facing a sheet of washi paper. This floral woody fragrance moves from the delicate beauty of cherry blossom and Turkish rose into the embrace of powdery orris butter.

At their Japanese launch, both were priced at ¥55,990, including tax, for 75 ml.

By the Way…

Bali H’ai’s Hidden Cinematic Roots

Bali H’ai, a signature of Chapter 2, is deeply inscribed with Liau’s personal memories of her grandfather. Its origins lie in repeatedly watching the 1958 Hollywood musical South Pacific with him at around the age of ten. She says she was profoundly moved by the film’s portrayal of Pacific islands as “a paradise dreamed of by those seeking escape.” The title of the film’s theme song was “Bali Ha’i.”

A Strategy of Fragrance That Travels

Liau says she had travel retail in mind from the beginning. “Since each chapter is set in a different country, positioning the brand as fragrance that travels felt natural,” she explains. This also led to a partnership with KrisShop, Singapore Airlines’ commercial retail arm.

The Challenge of Starting “from Zero”

Liau has repeatedly described her entry into the fragrance industry as starting “completely from zero.” With neither formal training nor industry connections, she candidly explained in another interview that she began by searching the internet for how to make perfume. In this context, brandabout magazine has described Maison de L’Asie as “a contender to become Asia’s next luxury fragrance powerhouse.”

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