Suppose you could bottle the aroma of any place that brought you joy, whether it a forest, a fruit market, or a napping newborn, and wear it again whenever you felt the need. In a world where certain scents could conjure up certain feelings or bring back certain memories, life would be much richer. Where a brain scanner at your local perfume boutique may help you find your signature fragrance. Except this isn’t some idealised version of beauty; it’s big business. From small, up-and-coming companies to multinational conglomerates, modern cosmetics companies are using cutting-edge scientific research to reinvent one of the oldest arts in the pursuit of making us feel as wonderful as we smell. The future of perfume is bright thanks to a new wave of “functional scents,” which promise to permanently alter the industry.
According to Fiona Harkin, the foresight editor of the internationally acclaimed trend predicting firm The Future Laboratory, “Functional scents are an emerging phenomenon, based on the premise that perfume may have psychological and physical impacts.” Businesses are investigating whether or not plants have other effects than smell, such as on core body temperature, blood pressure, and mental state.
Audrey Semeraro, founder of a line of high-end fragrances, has the numbers to back up her claim that aromas may significantly improve our mood. Semeraro, the daughter of a nuclear scientist, founded her fragrance brand Edeniste on the principle of “active wellbeing,” for which she recruited two top academic neuroscientists to determine, via EEG brain scanning, fMRI, biosensor, and saliva tests, which olfactory molecules and accords had the potential to stimulate the parts of the wearer’s brain associated with increased happiness, energy, dreaminess, wellbeing, relaxation, and seduction. It’s all happening before Aurelien Guichard and Jérôme di Marino, two venerable and highly respected “noses” of great scent, ever don their lab coats. s.
The resultant line is more contemporary Harrods than Tomorrow’s World, and it’s a big hit with shoppers. Each of the seven “Lifeboost Active Essences” eau de parfums has a proprietary mood-stabilizing accord and contains chemicals shown to enhance the brain’s relaxation, energy, and other systems.
The Nue Co, maker of the wildly popular Functional Fragrance that promises to “instantly alter the wearer’s mental state and ease the mind” with green cardamom, bergamot, and coriander, likewise draws on studies of the brain’s response to scent. There is undeniable evidence that it is having an impact. Retailers are struggling to maintain enough in stock.
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With the release of Edeniste’s first phase still so fresh in everyone’s minds, Semeraro is already hard at work on more moods and stronger emotions. She explains that “anything associated to love is tough from a scientific point of view” since there are so many distinct forms of love (including parental, romantic, platonic, and familial). Nonetheless, she is certain that Edeniste has figured it out, bottled it, and will be releasing very soon. Keep your pulse with you at all costs.
For example, computer scientist Geovana Rey runs a futuristic technology department at Givaudan, the largest fragrance manufacturer in the world. Rey uses massive amounts of neuroscientific data to help brands understand what consumers want, and then provides them with cutting-edge tools to help perfumers deliver on those desires. In his own words, “The data makes meaning of abstract notions,” Rey argues. Let’s imagine a customer requests that we create a scent that evokes the feeling of rain. In the past, when asked to create a scent for rain, perfumers would simply declare, “OK, here is how I believe rain smells…” And although their description may fit with the norms of their local environment, it could not make much sense to a customer in Sao Paulo. Artificial intelligence can now identify global commonalities and suggest which ingredients and notes the perfumer could use to turn the dream into a real fragrance with wider appeal thanks to the abundance of scientific studies on brain functionality and olfactory response, as well as feedback on colours, moods, and emotions such as happiness, from people all over the world. Givaudan’s Scent Trek technology can detect any aroma anywhere in the world and dissect it molecule by molecule, providing perfumers with an exact road map of how to re-create it. This is especially useful if consumers have associated a certain colour, emotion, or mood with a specific environment, such as a linen cupboard being associated with calm and wellbeing. Imagine Shazam for odours, but much better. .
As a result of technological advancements, we may now satisfy our need for the lighthearted and comical as well. During a recent candle collaboration with Michelin-starred chef Jean François Piège, for instance, Jo Malone London was able to install technology in the kitchen that captures every molecule of the exact moment that fragrant steamed rice reaches its peak fluffiness, becoming beautifully aromatic, comforting, and ambrosial. Celine Roux, v.p. of worldwide fragrance creation at Jo Malone Londo, adds, “The possibilities are endless.” For the first time, fruits, plants, and even a whole forest may be used as notes in perfume. s. It is possible to recreate almost any odour in order to stimulate a certain emotional response. Some of the most common ar
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Up until now, neurology and technology have been used mostly in the production phase, but this is starting to change. With the help of neurotech firm Emotiv Systems, L’Oréal presented YSL Beauty’s Scent- Sation at a Paris tech conference in June 2022. It’s an in-store experience that employs a headset to monitor clients’ reactions to various fragrance families and notes, and then an algorithm determines which YSL perfumes are most likely to appeal to each particular customer. Discovering new things is exciting, informative, and engaging, though not always successful. Preferences from the past are not always indicative of current or future romantic interests. Instance: despite my general aversion to flowery scents, my one true love is Chanel No5. It’s an aldehydic floral. Are we, as perfume consumers, depriving ourselves surprises and running the danger of familiarity breeding disdain if we stick to a single olfactory “type”? ?
Master perfumer Olivier Polge of Chanel, one of the few major fragrance firms to produce its portfolio in-house, has said, “I hate to assume that humans would fit in a box or that you can describe someone’s sensitivity using computer algorithms.” “Fantasies have to be allowed a place in the world.” Polge is all for cutting-edge tech like drones for analysing the productivity of crop farming, the manufacturing process, and other operational difficulties, but he has a hard time with algorithmic second-guessing when it comes to creating new things. He uses nearly entirely gut and expertise to come up with perfumes he thinks would be popular. Perfume is so subjective since it is created from the creator’s own experiences. A person’s sense of style, first impression, and emotions are all that matter. He explains that computers might be helpful if you need to produce ten scents in a month, but that taking your time with each one is what really results in poetry and emotion.
Perfumer H’s Lyn Harris, a renowned British perfumer, is even more sceptical. In contrast to Polge, she has a stunning but surprisingly traditional-looking apothecary-style bench room, lined with hundreds of ingredient oil bottles, and keeps all hi-tech outside of her creation lab. “Computers don’t have style, taste, flair,” Harris says to me. “Perfumery is an art,” she says, “and it cannot be replaced by an algorithm without losing its essence.”
