ScentFest SF is the first consumer fragrance festival on the West Coast: three days built for anyone who loves scent, from lifelong collectors to the simply curious. It takes place June 26 to 28, 2026 at the Gateway Pavilion at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, founded by Sebastian Jara, creator of The Perfume Guy on YouTube.
Here is what a day at ScentFest SF looks like.
DISCOVER THE BRANDS
More than 110 fragrance houses from around the world fill the festival floor, from established names to independent perfumers you will not find in any department store. Meet the founders and perfumers behind the bottles, hear how each scent was made, and buy on the spot. Nearly all exhibitors sell their fragrances on-site, so the scent you fall for is one you can take home that day.
SMELL HISTORY WITH THE OSMOTHEQUE
The Osmotheque, the world's largest fragrance archive, is traveling from Versailles, France to the United States for the first time, bringing 25 fragrances that span nearly 4,000 years of perfume history. The journey begins with Kyphi, the sacred scent of ancient Egypt, and runs through a perfume reconstructed from a recipe recorded by Pliny the Elder, the cologne Napoleon wore, and the original 1921 formula of Chanel No. 5 as Ernest Beaux first composed it. Among the rarest are Coty's Chypre from 1917, the perfume that named an entire fragrance family, and Jacques Fath's Iris Gris from 1947, a lost masterpiece collectors treat as a holy grail. Most of these scents are no longer made and survive almost nowhere else on earth, so for most visitors this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to smell them.
MAKE A FRAGRANCE OF YOUR OWN
At the Algorithmic Perfumery station from EveryHuman, you answer a few questions and an AI composes a personal fragrance that is blended, bottled, and labeled for you on-site. A custom 5ml bottle is $25. Part experiment, part souvenir, and entirely yours.
GO DEEPER AT SCENT SESSIONS
All weekend, the Scent Sessions program brings talks and panels on the art, craft, and culture of perfumery, a chance to hear directly from the people shaping how the world smells.
The timing is no accident. ScentFest SF caps a remarkable week for fragrance in Northern California, following the World Perfumery Congress in Monterey and the Business of Beauty Global Forum in Napa Valley. It is the one part of that week built for the public.
PLAN YOUR VISIT
ScentFest SF is open to all attendees from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Friday June 26, Saturday June 27, and Sunday June 28, 2026, at the Gateway Pavilion at Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. General admission is $49 for a single day or $139 for a three-day weekend pass. Tickets and the full schedule are at
https://www.ScentFestSF.com.
Whether you come for the Osmotheque, the brands, or the simple joy of discovering something new, ScentFest SF is three days made for following your curiosity.