Jo Shaw, the founder of Hong Kong-based artisan perfume house Floriography, has spent the past eight years crafting niche fragrances designed to evoke specific environments and experiences unique to the city. Established with the intention of moving beyond conventional, literal scents, Floriography’s collections aim to capture transient atmospheres such as old bookshops, the smell of rain-soaked earth, and the bustling urban air mingled with temple incense and street food aromas.
The journey began in 2013 when Shaw, then studying finance in Milan, developed an interest in scent through the city’s rich artistic heritage. Inspired by this exposure, she began exploring essential oils and the art of scent blending, eventually returning to Hong Kong to refine her skills. In 2018, she launched her first fragrance, Old Bookstore, a complex blend of pine, musk, vanilla, and wood notes intended to evoke the experience of entering a vintage library. The scent was partially inspired by the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.
Floriography’s early growth accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic as online shopping increased. Shaw left her corporate career in 2024 to focus full-time on her studio in Kwun Tong, by which time the brand had secured retail partnerships in Hong Kong and consignment agreements in Taiwan.
Old Bookstore remains the flagship scent and is part of the Frames collection, which simplifies access to Shaw’s work. The Frames line includes 23 fragrances that aim to capture snapshots of everyday life, often through a "lens-based perspective." One popular example, After Rain Earth, recalls the fresh, earthy aroma of a landscape following rain, eliciting personal memories for many customers.
Another subseries, 852, draws explicitly from Hong Kong’s street life. Features include Concrete, which combines metallic, jasmine rice, and sandalwood incense notes, and Roasted Chestnuts, inspired by winter street hawker snacks. Orchid, also part of this range, recalls the scent of white jade orchid bulbs traditionally sold by elderly vendors on city streets.
In addition to Frames, Floriography offers the Flow collection, which presents more intricate, theatrical scent compositions resembling cinematic scenes. Shaw describes Flow as a platform to push creative boundaries and develop more layered fragrances such as Tatami, with multiple earth and floral notes, and Sweet Koji, inspired by a fermentation class, blending sake, citrus, and floral elements.
The bottles accompanying these collections are also distinctive. Shaw designed them with a unique umbrella-like shape that conveys the fluidity of scent transitions, eschewing the typical flat base in favor of a more dynamic form that required a year to perfect.
Despite the challenges of operating an independent perfume house in Hong Kong—where consumers often prefer established European or American brands—Shaw has found success through innovation and collaboration. Recent projects include a scent inspired by paddy fields for Taiwan’s Rice Heaven Tianzhong Marathon and a Valentine’s Day perfume themed around blue cheese and apples for Hong Kong pizzeria Jacomax. Both limited-edition runs sold out quickly.
Operating largely as a solo endeavour, Shaw notes the isolation common in Hong Kong’s limited perfumery community. However, collaborating with partners from diverse fields has helped her expand the scope of her work beyond simple fragrance sales to what she describes as "recording day-to-day experiences" through scent.