Perfume Vault MNL was born from a gifted Chanel bottle and an unceasing passion for scent.
Justin Sabijon received his first bottle as a gift in 2022. It was reorienting — one bottle that makes you start noticing fragrance the way you never did before: what's in it, why it works, what else is out there. The curiosity compounded. The collection grew. The monthly spend climbed. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, Justin started looking beyond the international brands into what the local perfumery scene was like.
What he found surprised him. Pinoy artisan creators were producing distinct, intentional work deeply rooted in local ingredients – and there was barely a proper stage for them.
That became Perfume Vault MNL’s mission. What began in late 2023 as a quiet hobby — curating Middle Eastern fragrances, decanting pieces from a personal collection — grew into something with a clear purpose: a hub for Filipino artisan perfume to be seen and celebrated.
Smells Like Home
"Filipino perfumes distinguish themselves through the use of unique raw materials not commonly found in commercial designer brands," Justin explains — local patchouli, ingredients native to Philippine geography, references drawn from everyday Filipino life that no international house would think to include. The names on PVM's shelves say it plainly: Dangwa Flower Market by Parfums Astraux. Desert Algorithm by New\DNA Laboratories. Vodka Lime and Rum Cola by YSVEN.
These are scents that feel specifically Filipino — not in a postcard sense, but in the way something familiar and overlooked suddenly becomes worth paying attention to. "The creativity and passion of local perfumers offer immense, untapped potential," Justin says, a genuine observation about a category that the rest of the world hasn't caught up to yet.
PVM currently carries four artisan houses — Ysven, Parfums Astraux, New\DNA Laboratories, and Domus Emeterius — with more joining as the community grows. Every bottle is sourced directly from the perfumers, handpicked by Justin, and placed in a physical space that's intentionally small and intimate.
Owning the Checkout
For most small retailers in the Philippines, the starting point is familiar: list on Marketplace, set up an eCommerce store, or build a following on TikTok Shop and Instagram. The infrastructure is ready-made, the audience already there, and the barrier to entry low.
Though the marketplace route is an easier entrypoint – built-in traffic, established trust – the platform fees compound. Besides, for a business operating on intentional margins with a small, growing catalog, every percentage point lost to marketplace taxes is margin that could have stayed in the business or been passed back to the artisan partners PVM is built to support.
While Justin understood the logic, he believed that PVM needed a space of its own – a point of view, an intentional curation.
All this led Justin to pursue building his own website. One with its own checkout was the cleaner path.
Justin learned about PayMongo through a brand partner he was already working with. Upon learning about the accessible Shopify integration, the choice became clearer than ever.
"PayMongo is easy to use and provides a convenient, low-cost solution," Justin says. Most transactions today run through QR code payments, both at the physical shop and online. For a solo operator, this is exactly what he needed for his infrastructure — a system that he could trust to run even without constant attention.
Justin is candid about not having fully explored the dashboard's reporting and analytics features, time and bandwidth are finite when you're running everything yourself, but knowing that the tools are readily available gives him confidence in expanding his operations when the time comes.
The Larger Vision
Justin's goal for PVM in the next five years isn't just a bigger shop: it's a destination.
The problem he keeps coming back to is one every fragrance lover knows: you can't fully buy a perfume without smelling it. Online, you're working from notes and descriptions and other people's reviews — which is fine for a bottle you've worn before, but a real gamble for something new. Most local perfumers can't afford their own storefronts, which means their work often stays invisible to customers who don't already know to look for them.
PVM wants to be the space that changes that — a physical space where multiple Filipino artisan brands live together, where customers can come in, take their time, and leave with something they know they love. Then eventually in international markets beginning with Asia, where strong perfume cultures and a genuine appetite for niche fragrance make them natural entry points for something as specific and well-crafted as what Filipino artisan houses are producing.
"Money will follow if the business is conducted legally and with purpose," Justin says.
He operates on three principles: collaboration, treating failure as information, and starting small. PVM may operate within a humble compound, but its sights are already set on an international reach.
Empowering the Pinoy Artisan
Perfume Vault MNL is a business built around a specific, counterintuitive idea: that going direct — owning the customer relationship, building a real channel, forgoing the easy route of marketplace platforms — would create more long-term value.
PayMongo is part of making that idea concrete. A reliable checkout on a self-owned website means Justin keeps more from each transaction and maintains full visibility into his revenue. Aside from that, he has access to data that can be used for supply-chain management, reports to partners, and accounting purposes.
For a solo founder, having these kinds of resources available eliminates a heavy amount of administrative work. By utilizing PayMongo in his operations, he saves his bandwidth for the more demanding tasks of being a business owner. While operations are young, the intent is clear — and the infrastructure underneath it is built to enable Justin’s mission for a long time yet.
Today, PVM and PayMongo continue to work toward a shared goal: making sure that the Filipino innovator receives the support it deserves.
Perfume Vault MNL is a PayMongo merchant based in San Pedro, Laguna, championing Filipino artisan perfumery through a curated physical and online shop. Visit them at perfumevaultmnl.com or follow @perfumevaultmnl.