If you’re looking for a really special holiday gift for someone and you live in the L.A. area, may I suggest a custom perfume? According to a recent article in the L.A. Times, making a custom scent for yourself “offers the experience of creating something tailored to your favorite notes and a chance to focus on the intimate details of who you are as a person.” In other words, not only will the finished product smell amazing, it will also make a statement about the very fiber of your being! Pretty awesome. (Of course, this also means that if you are thinking of giving one of these custom perfumes as a gift, you’ll probably want to bring the person along with you for the creation process!) There are a number of different perfumers in Los Angeles who will create personalized scents, each with their own aesthetic - and price range. Smell Bent has a playful, cheeky vibe, with custom perfumes starting at $200 for a quarter ounce, although you can buy one of their pre-mixed scents starting at just $20. Strange Invisible Perfumes, on the other hand, is impossibly swanky and luxe…with the price tag to match: A custom blending session and a quarter ounce of your signature scent will set you back a cool $6,000! To my mind, the best bang for your buck can probably be found at Memoire Liquide,  where a quarter ounce of custom perfume starts at a reasonable $45. (Also, I love the gorgeous fancy/antique-looking packaging!) At these prices, custom perfumes are unlikely to take off as last-minute “impulse buys,” but for the true perfume connoisseur, I can’t think of a better gift.