We kicked off our Air Max Day 2026 celebrations with something unique. We invited members of the size? community to a sensory experience at our Carnaby Street store, blending the spirit of Air Max with creativity and a touch of luxury. This year, our guests stepped into our very own Nike Air Lab to curate a scent for their Air Max collection or for themselves, guided by the fragrance experts at Yougi.
Did you know, humans can differentiate between around 1 trillion different smells? This is partly why scent is considered the most powerful of the senses, given its direct link to the brain, specifically the hippocampus and the amygdala, aka the memory and emotion centres. This is why our memories, experiences and associations, good or bad, can be triggered by a particular smell, like the box-fresh smell when you opened your first pair of Air Max.
After we took our seats on our ‘Neon’ stools, we took stock of over 30 essential oils, note cards and recipe suggestions before we were guided through perfumery and how scents work together. Here’s what we learnt…
Perfumes (or shoe sprays) are made up of top notes, middle notes and base notes. The top notes are the first thing you usually smell and are what pulls you in; they can be citrusy and sweet, but tend to evaporate after 1-2 hours, leaving room for deeper scents.
Middle notes consist of florals, herbs and spices; they provide the balance between the sweet top notes and the rich bases. Lasting around 3-5 hours, these notes create harmonious complexity and uniqueness.
Last but by no means least, the base notes tend to last around 6-8 hours. They possess a complex molecular structure that lingers on the skin for longer and have an irresistible richness that really is the gift that keeps on giving.
How did we create our scents? It’s all about science and personal preference. We chose our favourite smells and, drop by drop, we blended them until we had 10ml of something we were happy with (talk about trial and error). To finish, we mixed our 10ml of oil with pure alcohol and poured it all together in a bespoke Air Max spritz bottle – and voila! The alchemy was complete, and we had our own 50ml custom fragrance.
Stay tuned for more Air Max Day 2026 coverage over on our blog.