COSMOFACTORY

This transcript was automatically generated and manually edited.
Deanna: [00:00:00] This episode is about the science of fragrance. It's about water-based ODA Paron, about creating long lasting scent without alcohol. It's also about the limitations and opportunities that come with a new fragrance creation technology. Today on the Cosmo FactoryPodcast, I am joined by Perfumer Arnaud Winter and by fragrance chemist and account manager Pedro da Costa, both of whom work at Cosmo [00:01:00] International Fragrances.
Deanna: Welcome to the podcast.
Arnaud: Thank you,
Pedro: Deanna, for having us, and a pleasure to be with you today. Thank you, Deanna. Yes, as our notes, it's a pleasure of joining you today.
Deanna: Yeah. No, you're welcome. I'm, I'm very eager to learn from our conversation, so as I understand it, for about, uh, 650 years or more, fragrance has been made with alcohol. First off, will you just please tell me what the job of alcohol in fragrance is?
Pedro: So we in find fragrance Pedro here speaking the so from. From the purpose of fragrance, the purpose of alcohol is essentially be to be a carrier for a fragrance. So when you purchase a perfume or a fine fragrance at Macy's or at any store that you choose to purchase, uh, you'll be using it as, uh, you'll be spraying.
Pedro: Mostly it's like a fragrance combined with a little bit of water and a little bit of alcohol. So the alcohol acts as a carrier. We use the alcohol as a carrier because it's, uh, it's a volatile. Compound it evaporates quickly. So once you spray it on your skin, you will evaporate and you will get a [00:02:00] little bit of the residue, only of your fragrant portion to portion to it, giving you that experience.
Pedro: So historically, that has been what's been used in the industry to essentially give you that experience. Yeah. And
Arnaud: that the fact that, uh, uh, the distillation was, uh, invaded, created by, uh. Uh, people from, uh, Northern Africa and uh, and Arabia, and they were distilling, uh, fermented product to get the alcohol.
Arnaud: And that's how you mean more or less we get the alcohol and a lot of the spirit that we drink are produced. And, Yeah.
Arnaud: In the same way you mean some, uh, plant to extract it to get their fragrance. And, uh, that's where the link kind of, uh, was made between this distillation that was producing alcohol and also the extraction of, uh. Aromatic plants, uh, that were used after for perfumery.
Deanna: Mm-hmm. No, that makes sense. Thank you so much. And, and let's think then about why fragrance makers are now [00:03:00] working with water as an alternative to alcohol. Sometimes.
Pedro: Well water, uh, we are seeing this change in the market. It's mostly market driven and regulatory driven as well. Uh, alcohol, as I mentioned, is a volatile, a lot of consumers do not want anymore, that aspect of it. They don't want too many volatiles in their, in their products. Uh, we do have new regulations that will be coming into the future.
Pedro: Uh, being applied, which will limit how much volatile you can have in a product, and that will impact your performance. At the same time, water is not a volatile, it has is also like, you know, it's water is the essence of life. So it's something that is associated with naturality. It's part of us. Even as people, our bodies contain mostly water.
Pedro: It's an ingredient that everyone can associate, so it is only logical that we, the move could be towards water. And I know that comes with, its its own challenges for at first, and this is some of the techniques that we will be addressing, but that's essentially what we're moving water as a carrier. It's both a market and we're seeing [00:04:00] consumers from not only in the US but globally, having that attraction towards water as it's a cleaner, more environmentally friendly material to to use.
Pedro: Yeah. And also is
Arnaud: a question of reaction with the skin. You know, I call a tendency to dry up the skin. And, uh, that sometimes is a concern for some of our customer. And, uh, using water, you get, of course you reduce this drying, uh, effect of the alcohol by not having it present, but also you bring an hydration aspect to the product, which kind of brings an benefit to the, to the product.
Deanna: No, that's fantastic. And I, I think we'll, um, get to chat. More about that opportunity to, to bring more benefits into fragrance, um, in a, in a minute. Um, Pedro, when I introduced you, we heard, um, you know, account manager is, is your job title. And, and when we hear something like that, we often think, well, your focus is on sales.
Deanna: So of course you're going to share all sorts of, of the loveliness about, [00:05:00] about, um, this technology. Um, you're definitely foregrounding that aspect, but, but until now, um. I should say maybe until very recently, as I understand it, your role was quite technical and you were in fact, deeply involved with developing a water-based system for fragrance creation.
Deanna: Um, first of all, do I have that right?
Pedro: Yes you do.
Pedro: Yes.
Deanna: Okay, awesome. And so my question, next question for you is, how did you invent an alternative fragrance technology? What was the process? What kind of steps did you go through?
Pedro: Uh, we worked at number one. We worked as a, it wasn't individual innovation. It's a team here at Cosmo. We are very big in our teamwork, so we collaborate. We have a center of innovation in South France and we collaborate a a lot from. With that, with our innovation team. So at first we, our first approach was, as we mentioned earlier, looked at the problem water.
Pedro: Uh, a lot of raw materials that are used in fragrance are not necessarily water friendly. They are more ible or soluble in ethanol. So we, we, there has always been that compatibility issue that [00:06:00] water and oil, and this is something that everyone's why and oil don't mix. So first we looked at that as a problem.
Pedro: Now a lot of people looked at that and tried to, okay, let's now move to water. Because of that, we looked at as more of a, as a challenge. So we saw that there was that problem and say, okay, how can we. Resolve that. Now, solubilization has been done in the past by, it's not a new technique, it's not a new science solubilizer, but we saw was the limitations of what is currently in the market.
Pedro: A lot of current solubilization systems either are very limited to the materials, they can do it, or to the percentage. You cannot get a lot of fragrance. Others, such as techniques such as like emulsification and uh, manual emotions, micro emotions, they do not give you that pleasant. Clear system. It's more of an opaque, uh, cloudy kind of evolution like field on your foot.
Pedro: So
Pedro: we looked at That
Deanna: just clarify, when, when you say there are limitations, you, you're suggesting that, um, certain systems don't allow for maybe a, a breadth of olfactory families to be [00:07:00] included in the fragrance or there was another sort of limita, oh, you said like percent, so not as intense perhaps of a fragrance.
Deanna: Is that
Pedro: Correct, correct. So two of the issues, the problems that we noticed were the on intensity and on essentially the effective direction. A lot of it was limitations on those directions with our technology, which, uh, which was aia, which is our water solubilization system. We try to tackle those challenges, uh, into not only increase the, um, the percentage and intensity in the final product.
Pedro: So we wanted to make sure we could really achieve high load. Uh, we also wanted to make sure that we could direct into all of effective families and RNA can speak a little bit to, on more of the effective direction.
Arnaud: Yes, that was really the challenge So yes, in terms of, uh, raw materials and formulation, there is some limitations that we have tried, uh, of course to break the boundaries and to get more options to have a wider pallet for the perfumer to work.
Arnaud: Uh, it's still [00:08:00] a pro, a pro process where you need to, uh, study. It's not something, we have some rules that we have set up with raw material. We have an extensive. Uh, protocol for testing raw materials in the aquatic seal system. Uh, and we're using, uh, intelligent art, artificial intelligence to help us also in this process.
Arnaud: Uh, which means that with the result we get, we can extend, uh, the, and kind of pre seen, uh, the behavior of certain molecule depending on their structure according to the data that we have gathered with. Uh, molecules and products and extract from the same, uh, fa family. So, uh, it's a system where we have a wide range of node that we can use, especially, for example, woody node, musk node that are really known for not being permissible.
Arnaud: Citrus, uh, note also are very limiting, uh, [00:09:00] when you work with conventional system. We can improve it, we can, uh, know for which, which family, which molecule is gonna be, is the best one as the best behavior for the concentration concentration we're trying to achieve. So that's gonna really help the perfumer to develop formula which are adapted to the aquatic system, which mean if you are working with a sandal wood note, I mean, we have a lot of information about all the al wood, uh, molecules that we can use.
Arnaud: And there's a lot of them, and we can choose. Uh, really is the best one for the best result. I mean, it allow us to increase a lot of consortium of fragrance that we use, but it's always a sum, which means that you can use one molecule, which from would node that's gonna be much, uh, of a good performance.
Arnaud: But depending on what else is in the formula, I mean, it's really a total, the so doesn't come from one raw material or the behavior of one molecule in a certain [00:10:00] percentage. It's really the sum, sum of. All the ingredient of the formula that really decides, uh, how is, how the products gonna behave with aia.
Arnaud: And that's what also.
Arnaud: Intelligence, artificial intelligence help us to foresee, I mean, the perfumer has, uh, tools that helps him to create the, the most effective way. Or you still need to check and work on, uh, uh, with Pedro in the lab and, uh, to try your formula and see how it flows. And I would behave over time because it's not only the immediate solubility, which is important, that's important.
Arnaud: That also how us through our time. Uh, how stable is the aqua system over time? And that's something which is. Uh, really widely tested before we show our creation to, to our customer. Yeah.
Pedro: And that's to highlight our notes pointing before. So it's like when we create a technology or any form of it, we don't, it's, we are now looking at it like an isolated area.
Pedro: We work, as I mentioned, as a team because we [00:11:00] know that it's a, it's the big picture that we're trying to, to convey to our customers and to anybody who's interested in this. So we are looking at the whole approach to it. We're thinking of final product when we develop. Not only this technology, but any fragrance in general.
Pedro: Our approaches are that aspect of how is this gonna behave in the final product? It will give like that beautiful experience that the customer wants, and that's essentially what we look for.
Deanna: Yeah. And, and what about those sort of classical details that aren't actually the scent itself? Things like, you know, you mentioned the dry down is probably different because of how quickly alcohol evaporates in contrast to water or the longevity of fragrance. How, how does water change these sorts of details?
Pedro: So, so far that was actually one of the more exciting discovers that we, when we were the, during the development process, and it was super exciting. 'cause we did, that was one of the tests that we tried, that we did early on in the process as well. So we took the same fragrance. Com fragrance component, and we ran in the standard ethanol VOC hydro lock [00:12:00] solution, which is like your fine fragrance that you see in the market.
Pedro: And then we did the water version, which would be like the same loads of fragrance. And then we did some OAC evaluation testing in here. And we found that in certain cases, the water version, when we were using AQUA here, it performed just as good, if not sometimes better. Than our, so we were quite amazed by this because we were seeing that the performance both on skin and on lus over long periods of time could sometimes be even better than your standard, uh, alcohol.
Pedro: Of course, you know, this can be, as our notes said, because every fragrance is kind of a unique creation of its own. Uh, we, we, we would like to, we can test them individually, so we don't wanna make it generalized, but so far, the more we're testing, the more we're seeing, we're seeing this pattern like reoccur where.
Deanna: And, and just so make sure I'm paying attention here. When you're talking about the performance of a fragrance, it has to do with longevity, it has to do with skin feel. What are the, what are the details that you're noticing?[00:13:00]
Arnaud: Yes. What we'll notice is really, uh, the biggest difference would say we would be in the LA first 10 minutes. I mean, because of course the alcohol and the dynamic of the. You have a velocity of preparation, which is much higher with the alcohol, and that's something that we can kind of compensate with the formulation.
Arnaud: But I mean, that's, that's a fact. But it's very, very, very short, uh, period of time compared to the life of fragrance or the usage of a fragrance. Uh, it's true that, uh, what we see more is, uh, an increase of long-lasting, and that's also the fact that the evaporation rate of water is lower and not as dynamic as the al alcohol, which means.
Arnaud: That, uh, the molecules stay longer so you have more longlasting, you still have diffusion because I mean this difference within the next 10 minutes. Yes, we see it with the alcohol not being present in the alcoholics here, but you, I mean, it's does set something that balances [00:14:00] itself out. Uh, pretty quick and we have a nice experience of the fragrance when people are wearing it.
Arnaud: Also, uh, being with water, uh, we see that and we feel that there is a better reaction with the skin. Correct. So yeah, it's kind of a bound with the hydrating effect of the water, uh, bound that's, uh, create itself between the fragrance and the skin. And the skin and the fragrance stays on skin longer. Than with alcohol.
Arnaud: I mean, that's something which is, uh, pretty much what we see with almost over our formulation and we feel it's an added benefits for, for our customer.
Pedro: Yeah. And it's an added as, it's an added bonus when you, when you're trying this new experience, because it is. From a product development, a new experience of sorts, you have now a product that's fully water based and it's just giving you that insight and like as you mentioned, because the water, you know, compatibility, which your skin is a lot better, we're feeling that it just blends.
Pedro: You get a better blend and performance wise on skin, like, you know, you [00:15:00] get some of those hydrating effects versus, uh, alcohol dehydrates your skin. So that is actually sometimes a complaint that when people are sprained, they notice, you know, if you ever rub alcohol or a frame, sometimes it feels a little dry, it doesn't feel as nice with water.
Pedro: You feel like you get more of this mood hydrating effect.
Arnaud: Yeah, and also I think it's education of the customer. Okay. It's not exactly the same product. Uh, there is, uh, a lot of similarities in terms of performance, but it's not exactly the same. But I think if you really communicate to your customer, to your final customer that the product is in order, they kind of assume and feel it's gonna be a little bit different.
Arnaud: It's not a disadvantage. Yeah.
Deanna: Mm-hmm. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. And you know, you're suggesting, um, that water, you know, might add a hydration. Element, and we're seeing all sorts of creativity in terms of multifunctional products. Lately, I think I saw something this week about a fragrance made with SPF, or maybe it was just a really [00:16:00] fancy smelling SPF that they're doing a marketing spin on.
Deanna: But I'm wondering if there are other sorts of product formats and benefits as you're, you're suggesting with the hydration element that maybe, maybe this opens up different possibilities for fragrance products. Are you, are you seeing that or dreaming it up?
Pedro: Oh,
Arnaud: think we see it and we already have some application. Uh, you should take everything that might have alcohol, might have a drying, uh, adverse effect. Uh, the application of the application for Equa example for air spray. I mean, when you want to fragrance your hair, and that's something which is more and more we see more and more on the market.
Arnaud: Uh, kind of not a new, new product, but something that, uh, sector has been growing pretty, pretty intensively. Uh, you have a much milder, uh, product, something which is more gentle. I mean, uh, hair. I mean, you always feel that you have to protect your hair from pollution, from, from the environment, uh, and using alcohol to to, [00:17:00] to spray.
Arnaud: A fragrance on your hair might have this dry effect that, I mean, customer don't want. So with Aqua here, you have product which is much more gentle, and that would be one of the applications that, uh, uh, we already promote with, uh, some of our customers. Yeah.
Pedro: That that, and I'll add also a lot of body miss.
Pedro: We're seeing a lot of recent increase in body, miss, like across the market and the, to our notes point, when you're thinking body miss, sometimes when you do alcohol on people's fridge, you're like, I don't want that dehydrating effect or that nasty effect on my face or my skin or when I go full scale. So with that, with a water based uh system, you're able to do more of the cleaner and it will be.
Pedro: I feel like a consumer would appreciate more like a Bo ery whole approach that is more water based versus alcohol based.
Arnaud: Yeah. Kind
Pedro: of a refreshing experience. Yeah, exactly.
Deanna: Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. So I think I have two questions. I'm gonna squish together. I'm not sure if they go together. Um, but you know, as you were [00:18:00] talking about sort of the inherent difference, right, of a water-based fragrance and an alcohol-based fragrance, um, my brain wants to know, is the consumer going to feel like it's actually wetter?
Deanna: Right. When they spritz a, a fine fragrance or a body mis on, is it now somehow more likely to be like, dripping down the person, or, or is it, um, you know, is it, is that more the, um, you know, a, a detail that's solved by the applicator and the fineness of a mis or.
Pedro: Yeah, no, the applicator is a big, uh, is a big, that would be very slow. It's the same thing with, uh, any ethanol or liquid. Like when you spray it, if your pump is correct or, and your applicator is correct, you'll get that missed spray so you won't feel like you're dripping, like oil drips or water in your skin.
Pedro: So it would be the same concept. You're, so your packaging is definitely important when developing the, the product and really give you that full missed experience.
Pedro: Yeah.
Deanna: I'm, I'm giggling here behind the scenes because I think maybe if I were making a fun fragrance, it would be dripping down. 'cause I don't know all these details, but, or [00:19:00] know what were you going to share?
Arnaud: Yeah. It's also that, you mean the system, the delivery system are not the same? Yeah. I mean, the pump that you're using for aqua and the pump they're using with alcohol are not the same. You have worked with some supplier, uh, to make sure we could source, uh, a product, uh, from pump system or delivery systems that could really handle the water.
Arnaud: And give us a mist. I mean, when you work with a traditional, uh, alcohol, let's say your alcoholic pump, I mean, you get, you might get this kind of droopiness or, I mean, the pump might not function as well as with alcohol. So I mean, when you work on those kind of product, yes, definitely. We are using a specific pump and supplier developed because of the demanding increased demand in those, uh.
Arnaud: So it's application that those kind of pump and delivery system are available? Yes.
Deanna: No, and I, I love that. Pedro, you had [00:20:00] mentioned earlier the importance of collaboration within the company itself as you were developing, um, this technology. But you know, what you're speaking to now, Arna is very much, you know, supply chain collaboration, right? Everyone gets to collaborate with their partners to really innovate, and that's, you know, that's what we've heard from a number of guests on the podcast.
Deanna: Yeah. No, I, I love your sharing that. Um, the other question I wanted to ask before we, uh, wrap up is about intensity. You had suggested that the percentage of, um, fragrance ingredients or, or molecules that can, um, be included in a fragrance might differ a bit with water and alcohol or, or maybe not anymore.
Deanna: Maybe you figured it all out. But can you help us think about, um, like, you know, can you make a fine fragrance that's comparable with water at this point?
Arnaud: Yes, we can. Yeah, I think we can. I mean, uh,
Deanna: And help me know why.
Arnaud: yeah. Uh, because of, uh, the way we work and we have tested extensive, uh, raw materials. Uh, [00:21:00] there is, I will not say it's not a hundred percent, but pretty close to that. There's sometimes a couple of things, uh, that, uh, might still present a challenge. Uh, what happens sometime also that we have lower percentage of products that we can put for, for certain notes, but, uh, we can, what we're doing when we formulate, we formulate more with.
Arnaud: Uh, molecule, which have a very high intensity, which means that we need to use less,
Deanna: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Arnaud: uh, 10% of, uh, certain, let's say woody node. Uh, we are gonna be looking at raw material, which have a similar type of, uh, node, but which much more impact, which means that we would've to use less. So the formulation is different.
Arnaud: I think the final rendition is pretty close. I mean, to be honest, I mean, I mean, if you [00:22:00] take one fragrance in alcohol and you try to put it directly in water, uh, there is a chance it's not gonna work. Even with the aqua system, which means that you're gonna have to adapt your formulation, but that's our job as perfumer, to make sure that you maintain the integrity, the affective integrity of the fragrance through our knowledge of different, uh, ingredient to be able to deliver a similar experience.
Arnaud: But the formula is gonna be different. You cannot expect to take one formula in alcohol and translate it directly in aqua, I mean a perfumer or work. That needs to be involved and technical work, and we work with, uh, with payroll and, and the team to, to work on that, that we ma we are gonna have to adjust, uh, the formula to make sure that we can work in a aqua here, the percentage, which is, uh, desired by our customer, but effectively we can, let's say we can do the same thing.
Arnaud: I mean that that's.
Pedro: Your final [00:23:00] experience will be mm-hmm. Similar or if not identical to yours. Um, but it, yes, it does take a lot of work. And we are also, the important aspect is to, as Arnold mentioned before, we are constantly learning toward development process. So whenever we're trying to custom, we learn from every project, everything.
Pedro: Mm-hmm. And the more we learn, the more we can like, improve our ability to, to, to develop these fragrances. Not only Foria, but in systems in general. Like we think right now. With our technology, we have like, I like the analogy, we had a tiny table before we, it's like the foldable table. We've opened it up now to a bigger niche and we keep developing.
Pedro: We haven't, we looked at, we're looking at this technology and the potential and we're like, okay, we're right here at this large table, but next year we wanna be like even bigger table, even bigger, developed more, more affective families. Maybe some of the molecules that we find now challenging. Maybe a year from now we, as we continue to evolve in the ware technology, we'll be able to then and we will be able to achieve even the A better [00:24:00] that.
Pedro: So it's a constant developing process and we keep improving as we move, as we move along. But experimental fact, experience wise, I believe right now we are able to give a full, find the fine fragrance experience in water if you desire.
Deanna: No, that's fantastic. You know, uh, recently on the Cosmo Factory Podcast, I've, I've actually gotten to speak with several fragrance specialists and I'll just mention some of the companies in case listeners want to scroll back through the archive and find them. Um, but I got to. Speak with, um, a company called Arabian ud, uh, with Bella Vita, um, some specialists from ate, um, and now of course here today, um, with Cosmo International, learning about your water-based technology, um, which I believe you've been calling Aqua Elixir throughout our.
Deanna: Conversation, that's your trade name. But really there is so much product innovation and strategy development happening in the fragrance category right now. I am, I'm learning so much. It's very exciting. Um, but for now, I'd just like to say Arna and Pedro, thank you both for making time to speak with me about the art and the science [00:25:00] of Send.
Deanna: Um, and for joining me today on the Cosmo Factory Podcast.
Arnaud: Thank you so much. Pleasure. And, uh, I mean it was, uh, our pleasure with, to share a little bit about Cosmo, about a. And the future of, uh, fragrances and water.
Pedro: Yeah. Pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much for having us. We're looking very much forward to the discussion and we loved sitting down and talking about that.
Pedro: We're both very passionate about, about
Pedro: this.
Deanna: Yeah. No, clearly. You're welcome.