A beautiful fragrance can lift our mood, add the finishing touch to any outfit and transform the way we see ourselves. The joy our favourite scent brings can be felt emotionally, physically, and intuitively. Creating fragrance is an art, and in an era when authenticity and sustainability are valued more highly than ever, there’s change in the air around how these aromatic art forms are being created, captured and released into the world.
For over 60 years, L’Oréal Luxe brands have shaped the history of perfumery with unforgettable, iconic scents. Now the L’Oréal Groupe has joined forces with Cosmo International Fragrances in an industry-first partnership with a Green Sciences-based extraction process that radically and sustainably changes how luxury fragrances are created.
Osmobloom extraction
This groundbreaking technology is a waterless, low-energy, slow extraction process that reveals the exact smell of an ingredient while preserving its integrity, even ones that are impossible to extract today, such as silent flowers or fruits.
The technology is exclusive to L’Oréal, and these extraordinary extracts will be used only for L’Oréal Groupe’s luxury brands’ fragrances, making them even more unique.
We asked the executive team behind this groundbreaking technology for the rundown on why it’s an essential step for sustainability and how they believe it will change the future of fragrance.
Q: How does the scent extraction process work?
Barbara Lavernos, Deputy CEO in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology at L’Oréal Groupe.
A: The Osmobloom extraction process captures the flower’s fragrant molecules from the air with no heating, no cooling, no water consumption, or energy consumption (it works with a domestic plug).
As a result, the extract smells exactly like the flower in the field, the most authentic, natural scent. With this Green Sciences technology, we can produce unique extracts with the pure scent of plants in their natural environment, the grail for any perfumer.
Q. How has the market shifted in terms of sustainability?
Marie-Pia Schlumberger, Sustainability Director, L’Oréal Luxe.
We have seen an evolution in the last few years, with sustainability becoming a major expectation from consumers. According to a study by sustainability change agency Futerra, 88 per cent of people want brands to help them lead a sustainable lifestyle.
Luxury customers want sustainable products, but also as luxurious and desirable as always. That is why at L’Oréal Luxe we are reshaping the codes of luxury beauty, pairing sustainability and desirability. To address this, we innovate in various ways. For example, through refills to achieve the objective of reducing the resources used for our packaging.
Today, many of our fragrances are refillable, for example, La Vie est Belle by Lancôme, MYSLF by Yves Saint Laurent Beauty, and Paradoxe by Prada. The savings in material are substantial. In the case of Paradoxe by Prada, one 50ml bottle and a 100ml refill use 40 per cent less material (including 29 per cent of glass) than three 50ml bottles.
Q: Will this method change the way L’Oréal creates fragrances moving forward?
Karine Lebret, Global Vice-President Scent Science & Fragrance Design, L’Oréal Groupe.
Osmobloom paves the way to a new perfumery and will enrich the perfumer’s palette of ingredients with new extracts, even ones that are impossible to extract today such as silent flowers or fruits.
This technology is exclusive to L’Oréal, and these extraordinary extracts will be used only for L’Oréal Groupe’s luxury brands’ fragrances, making them even more unique. The first extract, a tuberose from Colombia, will be used in an exceptional new fragrance collection from Valentino Beauty.
Q: What makes an iconic fragrance?
A fragrance that tells a story, triggering an emotion that resonates with millions of women or men, standing the test of time. At L’Oréal, we place this quest for emotion at the heart of fragrance creation for all our luxury brands.
Secondly, I would say that the magic secret of a grand fragrance is a subtle balance between surprise and familiarity, between newness and reassurance. For example, La Vie Est Belle Lancôme is the first Iris Gourmand, there is an unexpected marriage between the refined floral powdery signature of an iris, and a gourmand accord.
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