| Fragrant Life |
Gary Marr's entry into the fragrance business was not as romantic as popular thought. In the 1970s, Marr, who was still a bassist in the band, was desperate for money and got a job mixing chemicals by chance. Born in relatively poor East London, Marr had never heard of the "perfumer" business before, but he discovered at work that he had a talent for remembering chemicals through smell. The perfume company he worked for became Hui Bole and provided him with the opportunity to train as a perfumer. Since then, he has realized that he is not fit to be a musician. "I'm on a tear," says Marr, 62, who says fragrance is the way to go.
Standing tall and dignified, Marr is now a master perfumer at Firmenich, one of the four leading companies in the fragrance industry. The fragrances developed by the company are sold around the world, but fragrances are not the whole of its industry. Perfumers like Marr are responsible for the design of daily necessities. This is a more complex and tedious task. "I think most of the fine perfumers would disagree," says Marr, "but I always thought fine perfumery was easier than my job. They just had to go for the perfect harmony and beauty of the scent, while home cleansing and body cleaning Care products have higher requirements for fragrances.” The fragrance of the detergent must “bloom” the moment it hits the water, and it must also dissipate immediately so that the food will not be contaminated with the smell of the detergent. Bleach can also have a scent, but it's a challenge for perfumers because its main ingredient, sodium hypochlorite, destroys most substances it comes in contact with.
The frequency of fragrance in our daily life is far beyond our imagination. Fragrances can be found in various cleaners, plant fertilizers, cosmetics, and even electronics such as iPhones. The aroma that pervades airplanes, department stores, hotels and taxis, the bitterness of roasted coffee beans in a coffee shop, the sweetness of popcorn in a movie theater… We smell artificial flavors on every occasion. The word "taste" depends on our sense of smell rather than taste. From this perspective, flavored foods can also be classified as flavor products. The fragrance industry generates nearly $30 billion in annual revenue, and Firmenich claims its products benefit more than half of the world's population on a daily basis.
| The love of peony is suitable for everyone |
In Marr's view, the world often misunderstands that the threshold for perfumers is high, and the sense of smell must be extremely sensitive. But in fact, sensitivity can be improved by training. The key to being a perfumer is having a normal, or at least popular, olfactory experience. "We have to know what scents our consumers like," Marr said. "It seems like I'm biasing myself, but my sense of smell is the bare minimum." The
human sense of smell is by far the most genetically diverse sense. system. No two people smell the same. Some people think that coriander has a soapy smell, and some people can't smell the sulfide odor. Some odors only affect groups with specific genes. The olfactory neurons in the same people also slowly evolved over a bimonthly cycle. Newborn neurons are not all the same. The number of neurons slowly diminishes over time, and the sense of smell deteriorates with age.
Even though Marr has a mainstream nose, he doesn't necessarily like the scents that consumers love. Instead, like most craftsmen, he sometimes has to design products he hates. Marr once concocted an industrial raspberry-scented air freshener. "It hurts so bad, it hurts my nose," Mal complained. But this freshener sells extremely well. People's likes and dislikes of smell are related to cultural background: Europeans are not interested in maple syrup, hate Concord grapes, and resist root beer, all of which are very popular in North America. People prefer the smells they know: Southern Europeans love lavender-flavored detergents, while Americans prefer products that are labeled lavender and actually smell like vanilla.
Like other industries, the fragrance industry is subject to consumer trends, but at the same time leads consumer fashion. The refreshing aroma is regarded by most Americans as the standard taste of laundry detergents, such as Tide laundry detergent. This aroma derived from synthetic aldehydes is not necessarily the same as any fragrance in nature, but it effectively masks the original pungent smell of the cleanser. Similarly, aloe vera products are often associated with labels such as soothing, green and lily of the valley. "It's code, it's synaesthesia," says one perfumer. "No one knows what aloe vera really tastes like, because aloe vera doesn't smell."
| Fragrance "Magic" |
Not long ago, I visited Marr's Firmenich lab near Princeton. He was testing the environmental friendliness of odors for several cleaners and detergents. He is often in charge of forty or fifty flavor R&D projects at the same time. Consumers view product aroma as an important reference for product quality and overall attractiveness, and product manufacturers are constantly adjusting product scents to meet market needs. When a manufacturer finds that the aroma of its product is not competitive, it will seek cooperation from a professional perfume company.
Of the many products that Marr was testing, one I called the "Magic" was particularly impressive. "The fragrance is amazing." Marr's tone was full of yearning, "It's a perfect blend of fruity, floral and woody." Such a perfume formula is worth millions.
"Magician" is the culmination of years of research. One summer night ten years ago, Marr was drinking a beer in an open-air café in the old Place Beaufort in Geneva. It is just a few steps away from Firmenich's headquarters. A gentleman passed Marr, and there was a fragrance wafting through him. “It was a very feminine scent,” he recalls, “but it was really beautiful and full of aroma.” Marr immediately sniffed out two main ingredients: beta-ionone with freesia and woody notes and bell Salicylate in the middle of orchid. In the process of configuring the "Magician", Marr added a third element to convey an ethereal and natural aura. "The combination of the three has created such a pure, fresh and fragrant atmosphere, which is particularly confusing. You don't need to find it in the crowd, it will hit your heart directly." Marr praised.
Firmenich's laundry testing lab is like a dream laundromat. White washing machines hummed into the white walls. Marr and colleague Milian Coria stand on either side of the white workbench. Coria handed him plastic boxes containing small white towels washed with different versions of "Magic" detergent. The two of them each took a towel, brought it close to the nose, smelled its fragrance and made an assessment. The first is the dry towel, and then the wet towel, the aroma is from light to strong, so as not to over-stimulate the olfactory nerve. Marr, who sniffed all the samples in turn, liked the "Sorcerer's 61" iteration, which had a heart-warming intensity, while Coria preferred "The Sorcerer's 60," because of its enticing spice. Marr thought it was possible to have both, so he went back to the office to adjust the ratio.
In the office overlooking the large Princeton Forest, Marr turned on the computer to call up the "Magician 61" formula, and began to search one by one in the chemical dosage list to construct a new "Magician 610" plan. Marr won't reveal any of the ingredients to me. Confidentiality is key in the fragrance industry, as we cannot predict the scent that a particular combination of ingredients will produce. Even within the company, colleagues cannot gain unauthorized access to each other's recipe information.
A week later, Marr and Coria began a series of tests on the new version of the Magician. They sniffed quietly for a while. "I really like the taste of one of the samples," Marr said cautiously. Coria was still tasting, and finally she stopped and pointed to a box of towels: "You like this too? I like it." Marl smiled. "Yes, it's the best, with a peppery aroma." "Fresh Clean and fruity, I can use it on everything, I want to smell it all the time!" Coria compliments. That is "Magician 610".
Marr looked at me: "I know exactly when I have a good fragrance, in that instant. This happens maybe once every two years - as long as the timing is right, it will be a big hit."
| The road to science and technology is long |
Perfume, like ordinary odors, lacks tools for precise measurement. If you want to confirm whether a scent is Damascus rose or French rose, even if the technology does exist to determine the chemical composition of the aroma, the most reliable and effective way is to ask a professional perfumer to judge. Chromatography-mass spectrometry has been used in the fragrance industry for decades, and initially perfumers feared that the technology would be able to measure the precise formulation of any fragrance and that industry secrets would no longer exist, but it has proven to be far less powerful.
Chromatography-mass spectrometry generally detects substances that we cannot smell. In a sense, our noses help us filter out most of the world's odors, sifting out what's meaningful to us. Hunter College biology professor Paul Feinstein cites bushfires as an example: "Fire produces a lot of odors, some of which come from wood. Smelling wood burning can be a good reminder, but if you smell the whole The smell of a scorched forest is an absolutely suffocating experience."
In 1991, new genetic techniques helped scientists pinpoint the location of human olfactory receptors. Since then, they have conceived of creating artificial noses using similar principles to measure smell. Surprisingly, there are not only a few types of olfactory receptors in humans, but as many as nearly 400. This makes the experiment almost impossible to operate. The craze has cooled, and the development of the artificial nose project has stalled. However, some progress has been made in this field in recent years. Firmenich has the largest receptor research program in the industry, but the specific development of its technology has not been disclosed due to the confidentiality regulations of the fragrance industry. Here's what I've seen outside the lab: Receptor samples are placed in small circular holes arranged in a grid to receive an odor, and if the odor activates a receptor in a particular hole, the hole fluoresces. The dots of fluorescent light form a unique dot-like pattern, as if the luminous piano keys play the wonderful chords of the scent.
Before the development of organic chemistry, perfumes were all made from natural materials. Musk is derived from the glands of male musk deer in the mountain forests of East and Central Asia, ambergris is derived from the secretions of sperm whales, a few drops of essence are extracted from hundreds of roses and jasmine... traditional spices such as these are still used in modern times Perfume, but since the second half of the 19th century, perfume has been greatly revolutionized by the advent of organic chemistry. Firmenich, like other perfume giants, started out with chemical preparations, and the research and development and sales of new fragrances are still its important business. Success in every detail of perfume making is the result of trial and error.
At Firmenich's headquarters in Geneva, chemists synthesize hundreds of new chemicals each year, but on average only three or four make it through the layers of sifting to become part of a new fragrance. Each new fragrance is a painstaking work that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perfumer François Ballestra, who oversees the screening, needs to smell all the samples and record how he feels. "Just smell it," he said. "I have no shortcuts."
Olfactory receptor technology will simplify this screening process. Odors of the same tone can activate specific receptors, which means researchers can find among hundreds of chemicals that activates a target odorant receptor. This greatly improves work efficiency. Firmenich is already using this technology in the screening process.
Disgusting odors may also be associated with specific olfactory receptors, and 'stink' has recently been the subject of research at Firmenich. The company, in partnership with the Gates Foundation, has devoted significant resources to studying the smell of human waste. In some areas without a sewer system, open defecation can easily lead to illness. Even if a toilet is installed, it will be left unused because it smells bad. The Gates Foundation hopes to find a solution to this problem. Studies have shown that certain chemicals can block specific receptors, occupying their binding sites so that other volatile molecules cannot activate them. A blocker has its own odor, so it activates other receptors, but it also inhibits or eliminates "smell." This means that certain aromatic substances can not only cover the odor in the toilet, but even block the odor from spreading at the source.
Firmenich researchers identified the major chemical constituents of foul odors and tracked down specific odorant receptors, which they then tested with blockers. Surprisingly, there are hundreds of chemicals that can successfully block odors. Research director Ben Smith said: "A major discovery by our team in recent years has shown that receptor blockade is as common as receptor activation." Perfumers often encounter an ingredient that mysteriously "fades" after the addition of an ingredient. ", obviously this is also caused by receptor blockade.
Firmenich has successfully selected several lily-of-the-valley fragrances from the many blockers and designed a fragrance. Tests have shown that the fragrance effectively masks odors and maintains a fresh, floral scent for a long time. Bill Gates announced the results on his blog: "I smell the future of sanitation, and it's delicious."
| Experience or Theory? |
At the heart of perfumery is deduction. Perfumers imagine the smells of new fragrances and, based on their knowledge of known scents, compose draft recipes. In other words, the perfumer first found the ideal answer, and then reversed the production steps. Although there are hidden concerns, the perfume industry has gradually adopted this modulation logic.
Today, artificial intelligence has made significant strides in fragrance research and development. In 2020, Firmenich launched an AI-assisted fragrance development tool for renowned brand Calvin Klein. A few months later, with the help of Microsoft, Firmenich demonstrated what it called "the world's first scent developed by artificial intelligence" - a roast beef flavor for plant-based meat substitutes. News reports praised it as delicious.
Certain aromatic substances can not only cover the odor in the toilet, but even block the odor from spreading at the source.
Like human perfumers, the core problem that AI algorithms need to overcome is the unpredictability of scents. Likewise, it also relies on odor-related chemical data to complete the system's calculations. Due to the complexity of olfactory receptors, many data are still blank. But artificial noses could help fill in the data gaps. In theory, the AI stacks up by screening the desired chemicals to ensure that the mixture will produce the scent it needs to activate. Odile Perlisier, head of research and development at Firmenich, told me that this would change the traditional model of experiential creation and make fragrance making more predictable. "Because you can start with a blank sheet of paper, say to the computer, 'I want it to smell like this,' and then refine your recipe with the help of artificial intelligence," he said.
Naturally, moving toward a theoretical outlook for the industry Perfumers began to feel uneasy that "artificial intelligence completely replaces humans", but many people in the industry firmly believe that artificial intelligence can never replace traditional perfumers. “The purpose of artificial intelligence development is to help perfumers focus on creation,” says Perlisier. “If you don’t have a human involved, you get nothing but meaningless mixtures.” Master perfumer Francis Kurjian Comments: "You tell the machine that you like blue, red and pink, but it will never make a Mondrian for you!" Renowned perfumer Jean Carles lost his sense of smell in his later years, but he did not Depressed, on the contrary, he opened up a new way of configuring perfume, a pioneer in the theorizing of perfume making. In his view, perfume is always an art, and the basic qualities of a good perfumer cannot be taught. "It's like the passion for life, the joy of creation, and the love of one's mission cannot be taught," he said.
Marr disagreed. He expects artificial intelligence to inject new vitality into this field. "There's still a mystique about perfume, and it's not just for the layman," he says, working with an old perfumer who lost his sense of smell in his early years. Loss of smell does not affect the work of the elderly. When Marr is busy, he occasionally brews perfume directly from experience, skipping the repeated sniffing step. Decades of blending experience have helped him intuitively grasp odor patterns and be able to use patterns to predict new scents. He sees no reason why AI can't do this. Like Carles in his later years, the AI can't smell, but it doesn't need a sense of smell. One day, it will know all the flavors of the world.
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