Eau de Climate Change

Fragrance innovation has always been inspired by exploring new ways to capture the essence of nature, but the industry is now rising to the occasion to protect itself. ‘Climate change is impacting the fragrance industry rather holistically,’ Bethany Paris Ramsay, founder of beauty brand Honey B and co-founder of The Beauty Brief, tells LS:N Global. She highlights that the most notable impact is on raw materials. 

As planet Earth experiences more heat waves and droughts on a global level, Ramsay says, ‘the harvests are diminished, and when ingredients become more scarce, prices naturally rise due to the shortage and continued demand’. Any minor environmental change can also alter how ingredients smell or how strong the scent is when incorporated into a fragrance profile. Preserving nature for fragrance brands is, therefore, an act of survival.

Numerous brands now focus on preserving and recreating the unique experiences of endangered natural environments in response to human-driven extinction. These innovations aim to capture and fossilise specific spatial experiences of Mother Nature, allowing people to connect with and appreciate the beauty of these vanishing eco-systems.

Since scents are the shortcuts to particular memories, perfumes are using that olfactory superpower to increase the level of awareness about the damage done by human beings to our natural resources, turning fragrance innovations into niche conservation specimens with the help of technology. ‘I view these innovations as tributes,’ says Ramsay. ‘We can’t bring it back, but we can honour it – which is absolutely an act of activism by the industry.’

O Boticário

In February 2024, Brazilian cosmetics company O Boticário, in collaboration with creative agency AlmapBBDO, recreated the unpolluted scent of Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay. Supported by the Boticário Group Foundation for Nature Protection (FGB), this initiative highlights the importance of proper waste management to preserve natural environments and their original scent.

The fragrance, named Extinto, was developed without extracting raw materials from the bay. Using headspace technology, perfumers captured aromatic molecules from well-conserved areas and recreated these natural accords. 

Beyond the fragrance campaign, O Boticário has launched initiatives to tackle improper waste disposal in Guanabara Bay, and has increased efforts to promote recycling and packaging re-use. To raise awareness globally, future fragrances will draw inspiration from endangered natural landscapes in Calabria, Madagascar, New Delhi and East Arnhem.

Le Labo

Le Labo’s Baie 19 is a distinctive fragrance designed to evoke the magical smell of petrichor, the scent of earth after rain. Unlike typical floral or aquatic perfumes, Baie 19 encapsulates the sensation of a landscape freshly washed by rain. Petrichor is a complex phenomenon resulting from the interaction of ozone, negative ions and plant oils released when it rains after long dry periods.

Baie 19 combines notes of juniper berry, patchouli and green leaves with fresh, luminous rain notes. Celebrated as ‘not a perfume that smells like nothing, but a perfume that smells like nothing else’, Baie 19 is designed to ‘invite you to experience the beauty and mystery of nature, and to celebrate its magic’.

Future Society

Future Society, an innovative perfume brand created by leading beauty biotech firm Arcaea and founded by MIT-trained scientist Jasmina Aganovic, is breaking new ground by using DNA sequencing to recreate the scents of extinct flowers to offer a time travel experience through smell. 

Building on the concept of limitless nature, Aganovic told Forbes she ‘wanted to see if we could have the stories of these flowers live on in a way that was much more accessible to people’. 

Each fragrance tells a unique story. Invisible Woods is inspired by wendlandia angustifolia of the western mountains of India, extinct since 1917, while Grassland Opera is based on orbexilum stipulatum, which vanished in 1812. The bottles, featuring 100% recyclable caps resembling fossilised stones, emphasise sustainability.

Although climate activism sometimes relies on negative imagery, such as photographs of dead wildlife, to promote sustainable and eco-friendly behaviours and trigger a sense of urgency, inspiring a love for nature proves far more effective in changing behaviour. By tapping into the emotional connection that nature evokes, perfumers are not only celebrating its beauty but also becoming activists through experiences of bottled wonder.

Research by UC Berkeley and UC Irvine in 2015 found that awe-inspiring experiences, such as witnessing the grandeur of nature, make people more generous and inclined to ethical behaviour. Since the sense of awe reduces self-centredness and fosters a sense of connection to something larger than oneself, it leads to more pro-social actions, potentially strengthening people’s commitment to nature. 

For the perfume sector, an opportunity exists to explore climate activism through awe by making the fossilisation of nature more sustainable and accessible using AI. The technology offers more efficient ways to replicate fragrances than traditional methods. It could help create more affordable and sustainable versions of existing perfumes or replicate smells in danger of being lost (source: New Scientist). 

‘I absolutely think these innovations will impact consumers due to the sentimentality that is so intrinsic with fragrance,’ says Bethany Paris Ramsay. But she suggests that merely generating the same molecules won’t be enough to reproduce identical fragrances. Although the sustainability, affordability and accessibility of new perfume innovations are exciting, Ramsay says perfumers should proceed with caution: ‘There will always be a market for the craftsmanship and artistry of the traditional.’