The Future of Scent: a story of Primordial Reconnection
Image courtesy of Spur Magazine
Thought this week
“Information is to be collected. Insight is to be connected. ”
The following article was originally published in the November issue of SPUR magazine in my Tomorrow column.
Our sense of smell has been an intriguing modality and primordial part of being human, since the beginning of time. The olfactory system helps us determine what to eat, influences taste, it shapes memory formation and warns us of danger, all the way to who we mate with. According to the Karolinska Institutet, the ability to detect and react to odours is a precondition of our and other mammals' survival. From an evolutionary standpoint, Sarah Ives in What the Anthropology of Smell Reveals About Humanity credits our species’ adaptability to how “as ancient humans spread across the planet, they encountered myriad new stenches and aromas, and their olfactory systems adapted.”
It’s impossible to ignore our evolutionary history when exploring the future of perfume. When decoding how individuals and businesses will relate to scent going forward, a breeding ground for highly humanised and enriching experiences takes shape. In a beautiful world which can also feel unstable, scent centres us and is a metaphor for people’s desire to belong, connect and regenerate.
To understand our obsession with scent building and multi-sensory experiences, we can’t bypass the COVID-19 pandemic. Losing the sense of smell (also known as Anosmia), has a profound impact on our psychological make-up, with feelings of isolation a common symptom. We experienced intense moments of solitude during lockdowns, shut off from the smells of the world, whilst millions of people lost their sense of smell due. Scent rejoicing became an obsession, which revealed our deepest evolutionary needs and inner animality.
Our ancient ancestors relied on smell to build ‘smell maps’ of their surroundings and remember where they’d travelled. New research suggests we can smell perhaps a trillion different odours. “You can think of the original brain as being a sense of smell plus a sense of navigation plus a sense of memory” according to Sandeep Robert Datta, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Harvard’s 2024 report The Connections Between Smell, Memory, and Health shares our sense of smell is deeply tied to our cognitive, emotional and our memory centres. Our well-being and centeredness as Homo Sapiens are deeply dependent on olfaction.
At the heart of the future of scent engineering is a story of Primordial Reconnection. Human olfaction is a time machine and an emotion commander. It transports us to another place, time, or mood within milliseconds. In her paper ‘The scent of life. The exquisite complexity of the sense of smell in animals and humans’ Andrea Rinaldi explains our lives are “dominated by the visual sense, but often smells trigger much deeper emotional responses.”
For centuries, humans have harnessed the evocative power of scent and some ancient cultures, base their lives around smell. The Onge of Andaman Islands believe scent embodies personality and spirituality and organize their calendar by flower scents, naming seasons based on "aroma-forces." The language of the Seri of Sonora in Mexico is infused with many olfactory metaphors for emotions, but as their local wildlife dwindles and urbanisation increases, these words have been disappearing. This points to the interdependence between smells, heritage and culture.
Chinese brand TimingBox’s Search for Mêdog Citrus series revisits the use of indigenous citrus in ancient China before lemons and oranges gained prominence. There is however a future where we preserve and reconnect to lost natural heritage and extinct species. US-based Arcea’s consumer-facing brand Future Society combined biotechnology and genome sequencing to recreate the scents of six extinct flowers from the Harvard University Herbarium. Its Scent Surrection fragrances offer a solution for scarce or endangered fragrance botanicals, as well as the opportunity for us to create new memories of vanished species.
There is now a bid to raise the bar for creating enchantment and wellbeing, with brands and consumers’ shared appetite for multisensory and primal experiences. The idea of ‘scent emotioneering’ is not new, and the perfume industry is built around this, with perfumers developing fragrances to illicit emotional attachments, in an age where it is increasingly difficult to stand out in a crowded market.
Senior foresight consultant Helen Job shares “Olfaction is our most primal sense for sure, I also feel there are other reasons for an explosion of scent-based experiences including the loss of sense of smell during Covid, a growing need to feel at one with nature and the greater need for sensory self-soothing in a permacrisis. We have seen examples from brands creating alchemic fragrances based on your personal memories to nightclubs using scent as a deterrent against brawls.”
It turns out you can also smell music, giving rise to a perception termed smound. In the UK ØTHERS fuses neuro-scenting, sound, breathwork and philosophy to manage reactivity and build emotional resilience. It pairs its scents with a library of meditative sounds on its app, including playlists based on emotional states such as imposter syndrome and a narrative series that tackles themes including death literacy.
According to Job “Sensorials will be incorporated in daily life. I am excited to explore the more intangible senses such as a sense of belonging, of safety and of course love." Developed in partnership with IFF, Vyrao's Sun Rae harnesses mood mapping, neuroscience, and AI to scientifically validate its ability to increase self-confidence by 67% and happiness by 25%. In a sign of the times, Perfumery Sholayidé centres itself on sacredness and self-love, with scents designed as a meditative aid to encourage self-empowerment.
Scent has become an antidote for a society recovering from trauma, often exhausted, or fearful our world could change overnight again. Transcending the challenges, scent is about much more. It is about healing and thriving, attaining joy and awe, with the promise of bringing cherished memories back to life.
Today’s scenting products have become a highly intentional compass to reconnect our primordial selves with our modern lives. Their mission, more than ever, is to help us feel anchored, reassured and always reminded of the beautiful poetry in being human.
By Geraldine Wharry
