The Estée Lauder Companies
Le Labo batch code checker
Le Labo is unusual: every bottle carries two dates. The hand-written label applied in the lab records the day your bottle was decanted and personalised, while the moulded or stamped code on the base is the standard Estée Lauder production code from the factory that made the juice. People checking a Le Labo bottle are usually looking at the wrong one of the two.
Where Le Labo prints the code
On the base of the bottle. Note that Le Labo also hand-writes a compounding date on the front label at the point of sale — that date and the batch code are different things, and the hand-written one is the more useful of the two. Plenty of owners report finding no readable code on the glass at all; if that is you, the label has already told you what you came here to learn.
What the characters mean
Three characters: a product-line character, then the month (1–9, then A, B, C for October–December), then the last digit of the year.
Worked example
B51
reads as May 2021
Le Labo batch code questions
Why does my Le Labo bottle have two different dates?
The hand-written date on the front label is the day the bottle was filled and labelled for you in a Le Labo lab or counter. The code on the base is the production batch of the fragrance concentrate itself, stamped at the factory that made it. The label date is always later than the batch code, sometimes by many months, and that gap is completely normal.
Does Le Labo use the Estée Lauder batch code format?
Yes. Le Labo has been part of The Estée Lauder Companies since 2014, and its bottles carry the same three-character line/month/year code used across the group. That is why a Le Labo code looks structurally identical to a Tom Ford or Jo Malone one.
Should I worry if my Santal 33 batch code is a few years old?
Not particularly. Santal 33 is a sandalwood, cedar and musk composition with very little top-note citrus to lose, so it is far more stable in the bottle than a fresh or aquatic scent. Storage matters much more than age — a two-year-old bottle kept in a dark drawer will outperform a six-month-old one left on a sunny shelf.
Same scheme, other houses
These brands sit under The Estée Lauder Companies and stamp their bottles the same way, so if you can read one you can read them all.
Try it before you commit
Checking a batch code is usually a way of asking whether a bottle is worth the money. A Le Labo decant answers that on your own skin, poured from a bottle whose source we log — no marketplace gamble, no full-bottle regret.