Everything. The Ultimate Fragrance Combination by Lernert & Sander (video)

Everything is a combination perfume by Lernert & Sander consisting of all fragrances launched in 2012.

Over the last year Lernert & Sander collected almost 1400 samples of newly launched fragrances. By mixing the content of all of these bottles, they created 1.5 liter of Everything. This unique perfume comes in a specially designed and hand blown bottle, an enlargement of a classic sample bottle.

From March 1st to 9th, the bottle will be showcased at Colette, 213 Rue St-Honoré in Paris. 
Visitors will have the rare chance to try it.

Belgium Chocolate Flavored Stamps

No, really. In Belgium, they are releasing a set of stamps when licked taste like chocolate.

"The five new stamps have chocolate in all its forms: granules, pralines, chocolate spread, lumps or sticks. Tony Le Duc photographer gourmet and Kathleen Miller, a graphic artist, was responsible for the design of stamps and sheet.

Taste chocolate was incorporated in the gummed stamps in the form of essential oils, cocoa so it releases when the licks.The stamps are also a chocolate aroma, which rises from the ink to which a flavoring has been added. This is not the first time a postage stamp is issued fragrant, but this scent is now combined with taste, absolute premiere."

The stamps will be issued on March 25th. 

(via bpost)

Scratch & Sniff Garden Magazine Cover!

Who didn't love scratch & sniff stickers as a kid! Root beer and cherry were always a fave, and butter popcorn being really weird and kind of gross. Scratch & sniff is growing up with us now – in the form of magazine covers. What do you think this smells like?

Lavendar! Yes! "Immediate Media‘s monthly gardening magazine, Gardeners’ World, features an innovative scented lavender cover for its June issue to promote a garden aroma theme as part of its Springtime push for extra sales...An A5 bound-in insert card is also provided, with three scents produced by Antidote; tomato leaf, sweet violet and a mystery scent for the reader to guess." 

via PSFK

Sephora Sensorium...a truly unique 4D experience!

Last night, a couple of us headed out on a Toniq Trek and had the pleasure of experiencing the Sephora Sensorium. It is truly a unique multi-sensorial 4D interactive experience. I don't want to give away too much because it is something that needs to be experienced and not told! If you are in NY, Go! Go! Go! You will really appreciate the set, setting, and interactive experience that Sephora and Firmenich have created.

 You enter the exhibit by walking through an interactive living timeline of the history of perfume and a deconstruction of perfumology.

(This pic is courtesy of Sephora Sensorium via #ssensorium)

Then you enter a deprivation chamber that makes you appreciate and realize the importance of smell. 

Then it's experiencing and smelling "Life at First Scent".

Then you explore scents by emotions: playful, polished, casual and addictive (aka fun, confidence, comfort, addiction).

And lastly, you hone in your senses and see what your beak can tell. In the fragrance bar, you are asked to take a blind scent test of 24 fragrances arranged by the 4 core emotions. It was an interesting test to see how scents influence and evoke certain moods, emotions and reactions. There were a lot of aaaahs, hmmm? and eeews!

The experience is open until November 27th. For more information go to: Sephora Sensorium 

Sensomics...chocolate smells like sweat and raw beef fat?

As design and brand strategists, we have to immerse ourselves in the products we work with, quite often for us it's a food or beverage client. Immersing ourselves in the brand, the industry, competitors,  the consumers, etc is just one part. At Toniq we deconstruct the project at hand utilizing all of our senses, sight, touch, taste, sound, smell and also emotion. 

So I was fascinated to read this article in Scientific America  on "The Sweet Smell of Chocolate: Sweat, Cabbage and Beef: The new discipline of "sensomics" is helping to find ways to make chocolate even tastier".

Sensomics is the "study of individual aroma and flavor molecules "sensomics," which sifts through the countless potential aroma compounds for those molecules of particular importance to human taste and smell." as defined by  Peter Schieberle, a food chemist at Munich Technical University and director of the German Research Center for Food Chemistry. 

It's amazing that chocolate can smell like so many different things to different people, including smelling like "cooked cabbage to human sweat to raw beef fat." Just in time for post-halloween chocolate indulging...I'll be putting my sense molecules to the test: taste, exhale and whiff. Hopefully, what I taste will be sweet, warm and decadent, and not too sweaty, the fat will come after. 

Check out the article here: SA Sensomics