Future of Smell

Future of Smell Future of Smell helps brands design sensory experiences through research-backed custom fragrance design & smell-based technologies.

We provide insights and solutions for the design of custom scents and experiences for world-leading brands.

Mass gained momentum. Social got closer to the sale. Scent kept moving into products people already use every day. And s...
19/08/2026

Mass gained momentum. Social got closer to the sale. Scent kept moving into products people already use every day. And some of the most interesting innovation happened in delivery, not just in the juice itself.

The category feels broader now, but also less predictable. Growth is coming from more directions and that is changing what counts as a fragrance business.

Wildfire smoke has become a recurring part of summer across North America. Most of us think about the lungs first. Resea...
17/07/2026

Wildfire smoke has become a recurring part of summer across North America. Most of us think about the lungs first. Research suggests the effects may extend further.
Fine particles can reach deep into the lungs, enter circulation, and may influence attention and smell function.

Around 6,000 new perfumes launched in 2025, more than double the pre-2019 average, according to Le Monde. People have mo...
16/07/2026

Around 6,000 new perfumes launched in 2025, more than double the pre-2019 average, according to Le Monde. People have more scents to choose from, more samples to test, more discovery sets to move through, and more signals influencing what they want to wear.

LLMs can now translate visual and cultural inputs into direction: an image, a playlist, a mood board, a style reference, a place. As those signals connect to replenishment and application, fragrance can become a more responsive part of daily wear.

An intelligent fragrance wardrobe can learn what belongs, stay stocked in the background, and make scent feel ready for the day. The wand adds the magic touch 🪄

Scentgenie is a Future of Smell fragrance recommendation engine that translates image, music, mood, and other multimodal inputs into scent direction.

Scentgenie.ai

For beauty brands, fragrance can make the brand world tangible. For fragrance founders, the challenge is to build a bran...
13/07/2026

For beauty brands, fragrance can make the brand world tangible. For fragrance founders, the challenge is to build a brand strong enough that the fragrance feels inevitable.

Join me at The Fragrance Salon this Thursday 12pm ET to define the role of your fragrance, sharpen its positioning, and make it ready for the future of fragrance.

Comment SALON for the link.

12/07/2026

If you have a fragrance, a brand and a story you’re telling, I’m hosting an online event where I put it to the test with you live. This is for founders who want to know if their positioning is built for where fragrance is going.

This is session twenty two of the Fragrance Salon and it will be taking place on July 16th. Founders join to hear from one another, share ideas, and leave with clear actions to take next.
Spots are limited.

Comment SALON and I’ll send you the link.

What’s your favorite smell and where does it take you?
19/06/2026

What’s your favorite smell and where does it take you?

After seeing the number of fragrance launches, the pace of new brands, and the energy around events like Esxence, I keep...
11/06/2026

After seeing the number of fragrance launches, the pace of new brands, and the energy around events like Esxence, I keep thinking: What are people actually yearning for?

More products will keep coming, but fragrance is such a powerful medium because it touches something deeper. People are looking for connection. Meaning. Memory. Identity. Beauty. A feeling they can return to.
That requires intention.

A clear fragrance brand helps people understand what world they are entering, what emotion they are being invited into, and why the product matters in their lives.

The next salon session is for fragrance founders who want direct feedback on what is landing, what needs sharpening, and how to make the brand more distinct, more memorable, and more deeply understood.

Bring your brand, idea, site, deck, packaging, or current copy.

Fragrance Salon #21: Is Your Brand Clear Enough?
June 18
Comment SALON

What if fragrance became something you could generate in the moment, print as a wearable patch, and replace as your day ...
01/06/2026

What if fragrance became something you could generate in the moment, print as a wearable patch, and replace as your day changes?

A few months ago, student teams from different countries reached out to me for strategic input on their L’Oréal Brandstorm projects. Brandstorm is L’Oréal’s global innovation competition, where students develop new ideas for the future of beauty. As a former adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design, I advised teams on scent strategy, product concepts, and how to make fragrance ideas feel more relevant and future-facing.

One of the teams imagined L’Oréal AURA, an adaptive fragrance system built around a skin-scanning device, fragrance cartridges, and a wearable scent patch. The scan reads the user’s skin and context. The system recommends a personalized blend using existing L’Oréal Luxe fragrances. The cartridge device micro-mixes the selected proportions, then places the final blend into a controlled-release patch that can be worn on the body.

The patch format makes fragrance more modular, more precise and easier to change throughout the day. You could wear one scent in the morning, replace it for a specific moment, alter it before an evening event or choose a different scent when you do not want remnants of other fragrances on your clothing or skin.

Project by Ahmad Reva Dany Fawwaz , Muhammad Adnan Bayu Firdaus , and Pratisara Khansa Teges Palupi

Personalized, printed, wearable, replaceable fragrance turns scent into a product system built around daily rhythms and change.

Would you try it?

Fragrance is expanding in several directions at once: formats, online purchase, AI materials, and disclosure.What do you...
28/05/2026

Fragrance is expanding in several directions at once: formats, online purchase, AI materials, and disclosure.

What do you see?

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