Givaudan targets stress with neuroscience-led fragrance tech
Key takeaways
- Givaudan’s HarmoniScentz helps perfumers create scents that may ease acute stress.
- The company’s OrbiScanz wearable device tracks how the body reacts to stress in real time.
- Other fragrance houses, like Eurofragance and dsm-firmenich, are also using neuroscience to back mood claims.
Givaudan has launched HarmoniScentz, a fragrance design technology for perfumers to create neuroscience-backed scents that target acute stress. The innovation combines neuroscience, physiological measurement, and AI, and comes amid elevated global stress levels.
The Swiss ingredients company says HarmoniScentz gives perfumers practical design guidelines for formulations across Fine Fragrance, Personal Care, Air Care, and Fabric Care, while still allowing creative freedom.
Givaudan cites Gallup research that found 39% of people globally say they experienced stress for a large part of the previous day.
The supplier explains that scent signals reach the brain regions involved with emotion, memory, and body regulation, giving fragrance a unique way to help shape how consumers respond to stressful moments.
“Neuroscience has been at the heart of Givaudan’s research into fragrance and well-being for many years, helping us deepen our understanding of how scent can influence emotions, moods and behavior,” says Jeremy Compton, global head of science and technology, Fragrances at Givaudan.
“Over five years, our teams have combined physiological and psychological research with fragrance expertise, testing a broad range of fragrances with more than 300 participants to translate this scientific understanding into meaningful guidance for fragrance creation.”
The company says consumer research across the US, UK, Japan, Brazil, and India has shown that fragrance plays a growing role in stress management, particularly among millennials and Gen Z.
Measuring stress
According to Simon Ellwood, head of health and well-being, Fragrance & Beauty at Givaudan, stress is hard to study because it can develop in seconds.
To test and measure the body’s stress response, Givaudan developed OrbiScanz, a proprietary wearable biometric device. It works by capturing multiple physiological signals simultaneously during validated acute stress protocols.
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Givaudan’s HarmoniScentz helps perfumers create fragrances designed to ease acute stress.The technology then produces data in real time, which researchers combine with psychological measurements and advanced modeling to show how fragrance can positively mitigate acute stress.
“OrbiScanz gives our research teams a multidimensional view of physiological responses as they happen. Combining these signals with psychological data and advanced modeling allows us to uncover patterns that would otherwise be difficult to identify and translate them into insights that our perfumers can use,” says Ellwood.
Neuroscents rise
Givaudan’s launch adds to a growing push among fragrance houses to back mood claims with neuroscience.
The company previously told us that 76% of Gen Z consider support for emotional and mental health an influential factor when choosing beauty products, and 93% of American body care users are interested in mood-enhancing formulations.
Earlier this year, Eurofragance released its Get in the Mood collection. The collection works with the company’s EuroMotion technology, which activates nerves connected to the brain’s emotional processing centers. Can Baykus, marketing manager at Eurofragance Türkiye, told Personal Care Insights that the technology marked “a new step in connecting fragrance with neuroscience.”
dsm-firmenich is also working in the same space through its EmotiOn program. The program combines neuroscience, behavioral science, data, AI, and consumer research to create scents that evoke specific emotions.
