Ivy and the Wolf

Ivy and the Wolf is a plant shop and cafe on Westow Hill that runs perfume workshops, and the setting is the point. Two and a half to three hours among the greenery on Crystal Palace's main parade, a welcome drink in hand, sampling over twenty-five ingredients before you design a formula and blend a 10ml perfume to take home.

The pricing is the standout: £70 solo, or £110 for two. Almost everything else on this list charges per head, so a pair here costs less than one place at most central London sessions. That makes it the obvious pick for a couple, a birthday, or two friends who want an afternoon rather than a masterclass.

What you are buying is an afternoon and a guided blend rather than a masterclass, though the teaching is better credentialled than the plant-shop setting suggests: the tutor has completed a certified perfumery course, and the workshop blends with perfumer's-grade materials throughout rather than craft-kit oils. The business is a botanical shop that expanded into workshops - terrarium-making sits alongside perfume on the same page - so if you specifically want a tutor with Grasse training and a niche line of their own behind them, Exaltatum is the alternative at roughly double. If you want to spend three enjoyable hours in south London and come away with something you made and will actually wear, this is very well judged.

South London is also genuinely underserved for this - almost every other option clusters in zone 1 or the west - so for anyone below the river it is the local answer as well as a good one. 16+, with the usual allergy disclosure.