Sensorium Delights at Firmenich

Firmenich invited press to its New York City offices to participate in Sensorium, a concept introduced by Firmenich to “reconnect the consumer to the dream” of fragrance, and to reflect and stimulate thinking about fragrance and flavors in different ways. According to Debra Butler, Firmenich’s vice president of creative marketing, “Sensorium is dedicated to the nature of fragrance,” and has been introducing a variety of olfactive themes since its inception. Within the past six weeks, Sensorium has attracted 400 clients who have sampled the newest interpretations of fragrance materials in a variety of contexts.

The current edition of Sensorium—Olfactive Design ’07–’08, In Praise of Materials—introduced a variety of fragrant blends designed with a contemporary emphasis on commitment. The Golden Sculpture, the first of Sensorium’s thematic stations, emphasized intensity, spirituality and light through the Sculpted Spirit fragrance (an Oriental structure with notes of honey, caramel and rum) and Sacred Fire, which blended oud wood and incense. The journey continued through the Multicolored Labyrinth, offering Fertile Earth—a damp, earthy, mossy blend said to activate surges of dopamine and suggest a natural beauty that is powerful, sensual and almost dangerous. Easy as ABC introduced a world of simple fragrant pleasures, capturing the immediacy of a moment. A New Breath featured fragrance and flavor sensations based on deconstruction and reconstruction—including a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in miniaturized form, and a creamsicle bon bon—and a new way of sampling fragrances; lavender and eucalyptus in an oxygen dispersing blend, for example.

Finally, Mysterious Fragments revealed the perfume laboratory as the center for the study of emotions. It stressed the ancient components of perfumery, including incense and traditional jasmine reworked in new ways. Butler noted Lacquered Jasmine—a new interpretation designed for men, utilizing jasmine, leather and rose—as well as Firewater, a chypre construction with watery incense accords.
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