Fab Lab Invent-A-Scent Perfume Kit - Review & Giveaway

If like me, you're looking for a fun activity to keep the kids busy on a rainy day - AKA the school summer holidays - then I can thoroughly recommend the Fab Lab Invent-a-Scent Perfume set from Interplay.

Not only did it capture my daughters imagination for a good few hours, but we also managed to sneak in a bit of stealth learning which is always a bonus when there's 6 weeks off school stretching ahead of us.

I really liked the packaging and appearance of this set. Not too overtly pink, it shows a young girl in a white coat on the box, any efforts to encourage more young girls into science is a great thing in my opinion.

Inside the box, you'll find a selection of pipettes, a pair of rubber laboratory gloves, 5 different scents, gift bottles, self-adhesive labels, tester strips and an activity guide and instructions.

The booklet was full of interesting facts - Ruby was delighted to hear about the ancient art of perfume blending and that perfume bottles have been discovered by archaeologists thought to be over 4,000 years old in Cyprus - this piqued her interest since we're off on holiday to Cyprus soon.

We read the safety instructions and information about allergens before starting on the kit.

Ruby learnt about blending different scents to make perfume, she learnt about base notes, top notes and heart notes and we talked about the perfume I wear and how it smells after different lengths of time.

There's a helpful sheet inside the booklet where you can jot down your perfume blends, useful to refer back to if you want to make up more of a particular favourite.

We had a maths lesson discussing proportions and ratios, and I found this easiest to explain it like a cake recipe which you scale up to make more, or mixing a paint colour.

Once she'd blended her first perfume, we spent a while, eyes closed smelling it and thinking about what it reminded her of and how she could best describe it. Her first blend consisted of musk base note and pink flowers and green top notes. This she said reminded her of forests and waterfalls in Wales and she named and labelled her bottle 'Woodland Waterfall'.  She came up with some great adjectives for her other perfumes and named some 'Tropical Island', 'English Country Garden', 'Fruity Fantasy' and 'Luxurious Lemon Tart'.

We had a lovely afternoon playing with scents and coming up with individual perfumes.  After mixing them on the tray, you can transfer your blend with the pipette into a gift bottle and label it up ready to give to friends.  Ruby preferred to make small amounts, experimenting with different ratios, so she'd have preferred to have more bottles included in the kit, and also some spare labels - there's only 4 for the 4 bottles so no room for errors with your writing.

I also noted that the scents were very foamy, making lots of bubbles which at times made it difficult to get back into the bottle.  This may have been partly due to inexperienced use of the pipette, but they were prone to foaming, even after I explained about suction and vacuums and how pipettes worked.

There's lots of discussion in the booklet about matching fragrances to different personalities but Ruby was less interested in this part of the kit, preferring to mix her own and experiment. 

Overall. we though this was a lovely set with good quality ingredients.  The scents were all long lasting and highly fragranced and Ruby loved using the little strips to test her perfumes (there were plenty of these included).  More gift bottles (of smaller sizes) and labels would have been useful and perhaps the plastic insert which is used as your blending palate could have been a little sturdier.  This set is aimed at age 8+ and Ruby is 7.  She struggled a little with the concept of scaling up for large quantities, and I also noted I had to help remove the plastic stoppers to open the bottles, but these quite rightly have to be tight to prevent any spillage in transit.  We spent a good few hours with this kit and there's plenty left to use it again and make up more perfumes.

So from this one activity, we had a little bit of History, lots of Science, plenty of Maths and some English and vocabulary practise - her teachers will be pleased!

The set retails at £12.99 which I think is good value for money and would make a great gift.

If you'd like to win one of these kits for yourself, simple complete the rafflecopter below.

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UK entrants over the age of 18 only. 

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Please allow 14 days for delivery.

I received this kit for the purpose of this review, all images and opinions are my own.  The prize will be fulfilled by Interplay.