The Digital Future of Fragrance

In the just-published latest edition of The Scented Letter Magazine, we focus on The Future of Fragrance – a fascinating topic encompassing ingredient trends, design, technology and those people whose jobs bascially involve looking in to a crystal ball and working out what we’ll be wanting to smell like in the coming years.

One of the fragrance experts companies we’re regularly in touch with is CPL Aromas – a world-leading fragrance house whose focus is on innovation and creativity, forging the way fragrances smell with exclusive ingredients and fragrant design that eventually shapes what scents we choose to spray on our skin. In the Novel Ingredients feature, we explain several of their fascinating new notes – heading to your nose any day now! – but we’re also thrilled to share with you, here, the future predictions and insight of CPL UK’s Group Marketing Executive, Fomina Louis

”Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will.” Patrick Suskind in his 1985 novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Our digital world is soaked with moving pictures, words and sound. But scent, one of our most powerful senses from an emotional perspective, is often neglected by our online media. Whilst digital imagery uses just red, green and blue to create every other visible colour, it is considered far more complex to recreate a smell, since it doesn’t have the equivalent of “primary cartridges”. However, scent technology is making headway as the sense of smell seems to answer many of the demands of our present culture.

Enhancing uniqueness

Today we value sharing our personal experience with others around us, to claim our uniqueness. Often the consumer is presented with the possibility of ‘engineering’ individual moods for particular occasions or times of the day, in a similar way that a playlist would or making your own cup of coffee.

The answer to this in scent is a device made by the brand Cyrano. It is a scent speaker which uses a range of scent capsules to emit “playlists” of smells. Cyrano also allows users to create a mood melody and then send the combo to a friend through their app. The scent is paired with a video on the app so they travel through each scene: kind of like a scent-o-gram.

NOTA NOTA is another new concept of mixing perfume, a concept by which perfume becomes part of the user’s daily routine like coffee from a coffee machine, allowing the user to prepare and wear unique perfumes for every day, night, mood and event.

In terms of enhancing our experience, for theme park designers and filmmakers scent has long been another storytelling device, just like 3D or immersive audio. Amusement parks use scent projectors to evoke a sense that would otherwise be ignored. AR/VR developers are now investing in scent technologies. The advantage here is that to create a scent of “burning tyres” for a car racing video game, it’s not necessary to replicate every different note found in the odour of “burning tyres”, a heated rubber note along with smoky notes will be sufficient when the user sees a car racing in the VR headset at the same time the scent is released.

Subliminal Comfort

Over the last few decades, brands have used scent to give us something to associate them with, but also to make us feel at ease. We are always breathing; therefore, we are always smelling – but without us realising. The sense of smell is directly hardwired into our brain. We unconsciously use this information without awareness.

The brands doing it effectively are doing it without you realising. Take Nescafé, who have embedded the smell of ‘Nescafé coffee’ in their labels for decades, so you smell it off the shelf.

A similar tactic is also used by the London toyshop Hamleys, which pumps out the smell of piña colada during summer because it makes the parents linger longer. Smells can be distributed through a store as simply as with a fan, or via complete integration with an air-conditioning system. A lot of retail companies use this, and its purpose is to keep customers in the store, by creating this welcoming environment. And studies show that it works. It keeps people in the store longer, it helps people feel anchored in our personal space, making them feel comfortable with their shopping and in a lot of cases causing them to spend more money!

The Home & Nostalgia

Focusing on the sentimental values of individual customers is the new marketing mantra. Japanese device “Scentee Machina” is called the next generation smart room diffuser equipped with AI technology, allowing users to control the fragrance via smartphone. This diffuser can integrate with the users’ calendar to prepare the house when he or she comes home. The device has two parts; the top carries the fragrance oil and the base connects to the internet, meaning that the users can tailor the program and control it through their smartphones based on their personal preferences. And, as the world’s first olfactory alarm clock, SensorWake has the potential to revolutionise our morning experience by a smell of hot croissants or coffee rather than a loud beeping noise!

Recently at the creation site of IKEA, Sweden, Students from the Royal College of Art, London attended a 2-day workshop to find new ways to express scent in the different parts of the home. The group projected numerous ideas like framing memories by scent – using doorframes and window frames. “The swing of a door will create the smell” said the student “but it will also support the particular memory in the future when you remember entering the home”.

It’s clear that smell is always modulating our mood and experience and that product developers have ample technologies and techniques for leveraging the sense of smell. Some of those exist today, but even more exciting ones lay ahead!’

[This article first appeared in Forecast, the trend magazine published by CPL Aromas vol 16 / Autumn Winter 2018 2019.]

CPL Aromas ‘Citrus Fusion’ cocktail recipe

Those of you completing a ‘dry January’ may wish to look away now, but it’s that grey hinterland that always seems to follow Christmas and New Year’s celebrations (and well, we like to be frugal by clearing up the inevitable leftover booze stash).

CPL Aromas are a British fragrance creation company, the largest fragrance-only house in the world. You might not realise it, but look around your dressing table, bathroom and kitchen, and your cupboards are almost certain to be filled with products they’ve developed or invented.

We recently had the pleasure of spending a day getting a behind-the-scenes look at their cutting-edge Research & Development centre in Northamptonshire – an experience that kind of blew our minds as to the posibilities for the future of fragrance, so look out for our special feature in the forthcoming issue of our magazine, The Scented Letter!

In anticipation, we’re rather thrilled to be allowed to present CPL Aromas exclusive Citrus Fusion Cocktail recipe…

It’s rare that any fragrance house releases a formula – so hotly sought-after are these compositions – and most especially for a unique and closely-guarded ingredient such as the AromaFusion range, specially formulated to remain unreproducible by rivals.

CPL Aromas say: ‘When one of our perfumers blends a fragrance, they can call upon much more than natural and synthetic ingredients, they also have unique access to AromaFusion – an exclusive range of ‘captive’ ingredients that is only available to our clients. Their formulation remains a closely guarded secret. And their value is protected and enhanced.’

To celebrate the company’s re-branding programme, CPL Aromas commissioned a mixologist from Searcy’s at The Gherkin to create a unique cocktail inspired by their Citrus Fusion unique material. So why not enjoy shaking up a scent to sniff (and then drink!) in your own kitchen…?

Ingredients

Campari – 25ml

Green chartreuse – 1 teaspoon

Lime juice – 20 ml

Passion fruit syrup – 20 ml

Cranberry Juice – 25 ml

Lemonade – a splash

Glass – Martini

Garnish – Flower

Method
Shake the top five ingredients with ice; strain into a martini glass and top with a splash of good quality lemonade. Finish with a garnish of a fresh flower [CPL Aromas chose violas to complement their purple branding].

With all manner of fragrance-inspired cocktail bars popping up, small-batch distillers using traditional scent ingredients to infuse their gins and liqueurs and even restaurants with perfume-influenced menus – we think the trend for fragrance to be experienced in taste as well smell is set to rise and rise in 2018. And we’ll raise a glass to that…

Written by Suzy Nightingale

Swiss watchmakers Franck Muller add perfumes to their luxury portfolio…

Globally renowned for their fine time pieces, Swiss watch-makers have long been considered the best in the world, with the house of Franck Muller now complementing their luxurious wares with an exquisitely made collection of fine fragrances…
Frannk Muller are famous for their ‘bold designs, creativity, originality and expertise to produce exclusive timepieces characterised by complicated movementscommissioned the UK fragrance house CPL Aromas to create the perfumes, working with leading perfumers, Beverley Bane (for those of you who attended our Perfume Society Patchouli-mania event, Beverley was the perfumer who spoke so engagingly about her work there!) Julie Pluchet and Dominique Preyssas.
Beverley says: ‘The intricacies of watch making match the art of creating a fragrance. Perfumery creativity is about precision, balance and using the best quality materials available to produce exquisite fragrances. Franck Muller is dedicated to finding the best materials and the best craftsmen to create watches that push the boundaries in beauty and technology.
Fragrances are complex and precise creating a whole that is beautifully balanced, rounded and full of character. Each fragrance like a Franck Muller watch tells a story- from the best Italian citrus oils in the top note through to heart notes of hand-picked floral absolutes and finally exotic resins priceless and precious woods.
CPL’s Aromafusion technology links beautiful classic perfumery materials with modern cutting edge technology pushing the boundaries of perfumery, much like a Franck Muller timepiece.’

Encompassing five eau de parfums, each fragrance in the collection was inspired by a famous Franck Muller watch design, the bottles themselves following the Cintrée Curvex shape that is the brand’s trademark elegant silhouette. What’s more, fusing the finest raw materials with CPL Aromas’ unique and exclusive Aromafusion™ captive ingredients means that ‘…the fragrances can never be copied.’
Color Dreams – The wonderfully bright pastel colours of the lively dial inspired the perfumer to create a kaleidoscope of celestial notes evoking the East.
Crazy Hours – The watch breaks all the rules of watchmaking – to reinterpret the way to look at time which inspired the perfumer to create an intense contrast of crispy citrus and a sensual wood accord to provide an unexpected sophistication.
Double Mystery – This exuberant watch replaces the hands with jewels concealing time in luxury with distinguished elegance, which inspired the perfumer to create hidden richness and splendour using the most luxurious ingredients.
Aeternitas – Is the most complicated watch in the world, and will keep time for 999 years. This inspired the perfumer to create a long-lasting and very complex perfume.
Conquistador – The dark masculine character of this watch inspired the creation of an extremely sensual perfume with unorthodox authority.
CPL Aromas say: ‘When master watch-makers meet master perfumers, both accustomed to working with complexity and precision, combined with beauty and fascination, the outcome was bound to be interesting…’
Vartan Sirmakes, co-founder and CEO Franck Muller Group, commented: ‘I am delighted to be launching the Franck Muller perfume, bringing together two masters of their respective fields, the union of the most creative worlds of Haute Horlogerie and Haute Parfumerie. A fitting partnership which also marks the 25th anniversary of unending development, craftsmanship and innovation, and truly represents the identity of Franck Muller.’
Frank Muller Parfums £170 for 75ml eau de parfum
Available at Jovoy Mayfair and now, Fortnum & Mason
Written by Suzy Nightingale