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British Perfumery – A Fragrant History
Radical thinking
We’re entering a new age of perfumery that will have a radical impact on health and
wellbeing in the 21st century. Scentsory Design is a ‘science fashion’ vision originating from
research at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.
It offers an alternative way of experiencing fragrance and could be seen as a technological
evolution from modern perfumery.
Scent has the power to evoke emotion and change reality because olfactory substances
impact directly on the limbic system, the emotional centre in the brain. Smell affects us
deeply and immediately. Science suggests that each of us live in our own idiosyncratic smell-
sensory universe. Scent gives us a sense of the ‘feeling space’, our own personal space
which opens up many opportunities for sensations and expressions. Designers can therefore
enhance a person’s world by expanding the sensory repertoire of fashion.
The ‘science fashion’ vision builds on ‘The Wellness Collection’ research I presented in 1997
and on our perspective of fashion, lifestyle design and the history of British perfumery.
It investigates how technology is playing an important role in the future of fragrances,
introducing an ‘invisible’ computerised perfume microchip that can be integrated into
functional fashion. The result is a deeper, enhanced olfactory experience which empowers
people through the intermittent release of ‘scentsory bubbles of reality’.
The research is a very personal journey of two old family traditions, delving into the past
and future of printing, lifestyle and perfumery. The ‘science fashion’ vision draws on the
experiences of two 19th-century disciplines and family businesses from Bolton, which worked
Scentsory Design® –
a ‘Science Fashion’Vision in Perfumery
Jenny Tillotson, a Reader in Sensory Fashion at Central Saint Martins College
of Art and Design, explains the exciting new concept of Scentsory Design.
The Future of Perfumery
Right: In the future, ‘smart clothing’ could
release fragrances according to the mood of
the wearer.

2. British Perfumery – A Fragrant History
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closely together in the early years: pioneering printing
techniques (Tillotsons & Sons) and personal care,
lifestyle and wellbeing products (Lever Bros).
Inspired by science fiction
Scentsory Design unites the ancient art of perfumery,
wellbeing and fashion with the next generation of
innovative wellness technology. It is the creative
convergence of a number of disciplines in digital
olfaction and novel sensing techniques, existing at the
crossover of the developing knowledge and utilisation
of nanotechnology and ‘miniaturisation’, the emerging
field of ‘wearable technology’, printed electronics and
aromachology and how this affects the human brain
and senses.
The idea stems from the realms of science fiction
by projecting new connections between different
disciplines in science, art and pop culture. Inspired
by the ‘scent organ’ in Aldous Huxley’s visionary
novel Brave New World (1932), Scentsory Design acts
as an olfactory keyboard with the ability to select
from a full rainbow spectrum of ‘wellness’ scents
changing with emotion. By creating an electronic
scent tune that emulates musical notes, this makes
it possible to create a new concept in perfumery that
is tailored to fit mood and personal choice. In Star
Trek: The Next Generation, the military police sniffed
beneficial chemicals embedded in uniforms to change
their state of mind. Similarly, Scentsory Design
invents an ‘intelligent’ vehicle to emit scent from
mood-enhancing fashion items, i.e. ‘smart clothing’,
jewellery and fashion accessories.
Wearable technologies
To date, due to technological constraints, there has
been no suitable fragrance delivery system to enhance an
olfactory experience in wearable and mobile technologies.
Products currently on the market reach out to sight,
sound and touch senses to enrich a user’s experience. The
much anticipated ‘Google Glass’ – computerised eye glasses
controlled by voice, gesture and touch – was presented at Diane
von Furstenberg’s spring/summer 2013 catwalk show in New
York. Other technology giants expected to launch products in the
near future include Apple with an ‘iWatch’ and Samsung with ‘Galaxy’
wearable devices.
The aim of the research is to create ‘scentsory’ computerised fashion, fabrics and
jewellery. Worn on the body as an ‘emotional support system’, the purpose is to improve
health and wellness. Evidence from the Fragrance Foundation shows that women wish to
change their fragrance because of a change in mood. Scentsory Design addresses this need
via wearable technologies that store a spectrum of aromachology scents, triggered by mood
– depending on how the user is feeling. It explores interactive fragrance technology, i.e. scent
on demand, which goes beyond passive, microencapsulation techniques, incense and alcohol-
based perfume bottles. The goal is simple: to break the tradition of fragrance delivery that
might be perceived as poorly targeted, inefficient and often wasteful. The message focuses on
a greener image and improved health: ‘less is best’ is kinder to the skin, reducing exposure to
fragrance sensitivity either as an irritation or an allergic reaction.
The first product to be developed is eScent®,
a wearable, wireless scent device capable
of dispensing minute doses of fragrances
in response to a stimulus, for example a
biometric sensor or timer. Initially designed
for the wellbeing market, eScent is also
suitable for fine fragrances, haute couture
and fashion brands. Once fully miniaturised,
it will be integrated into sensory buttons,
accessories and jewellery, with the potential
to replace less controlled technologies (for
example, the traditional perfume bottle) and
reduce the need for solvents.
The Future of Perfumery
Above and below: Who needs bottles?
Perfume may one day be dispensed by
computerised jewellery.
Top left: Research into the printing firm
Tillotsons & Sons helped to inspire Jenny
Tillotson’s vision.
Left: Could ‘scentsory bubbles’ be the future
of perfumery?

3. British Perfumery – A Fragrant History
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As a digital sensory storage unit,
eScent strives to be the ‘MP3 player of
the fragrance industry’, by changing
the experience of scent to an intimate
sensation and communication of
identity. It provides a high-tech, highly
personal delivery system that offers
unique opportunities for fragrance
placement. In the fragrance industry,
the three key pressures currently
stifling the creative perfumery brief
are increasing raw material prices,
decreasing fragrance briefing costs and
restrictive legislation and regulations.
All of these focus on the need for
fragrance ingredients with high odour
value, which can be used at low dosage
levels, to give a powerful fragrance
contribution. An answer for this
dilemma can be targeted delivery if the
direction of the fragrance is ‘pulsed’
and precisely steered towards the direction of the nostrils (from a brooch, necklace, collar or
earrings), to release minimum quantity for maximum effect.
Programmed and activated by the user alone, eScent has the capacity to emit a spectrum
of fragrances in a controllable manner. Although eScent might be considered a ‘disruptive
technology’, the benefits could outweigh traditional (large droplet) delivery systems. As the
‘new bottle’ in modern-day perfumery, the outcome is the same: to sell a range of perfumes
but dispensed on the nano-scale in short, sharp bursts. The focus is now on an intimate,
localised and non-invasive ‘scent bubble’ that shrouds the user’s space in a personable mist.
The ability to layer different perfumes when and where we want (depending on context or
mood) enhances ‘personalisation’. For further convenience of size, eScent will evolve into
printed electronic ‘scent cells’ (flexible microchips) that slot inside designer pendants and
clothing and extend to mobile phones, tablets and gaming.
If combined with self-monitoring biometric sensors that measure how the user is feeling
(for example, galvanic skin response, heart rate, accelerometers), fashion enhances mood
by dispensing soothing scents to reduce stress or stimulating scents to boost energy levels.
Similarly, relaxing scents fight tiredness, analgesic scents relieve pain, reminiscence scents
recall memory, or scents help people to communicate their feelings towards one another.
Starting a revolution
The work of Scentsory Design could lead to revolutionary devices in terms of dosage and
precisely metered fragrance delivery and release which could replace the unmetered
technologies of the past. Building on breakthrough research in olfaction by Axel and Buck,
who received a Nobel Prize in 2004, once the theory of odour has been established (perhaps
within the next ten years), it may be possible to synthesise an expanded scent rainbow as a
‘scents-on-a-chip’. When that happens, eScent could potentially transform the ways in which
we use, apply and layer fragrance, experience scent and enjoy the positive effects of scent
in enhancing our personal wellbeing. John Ayres, of Pandora Ltd, supports the philosophy
behind eScent and believes we may look back to the early years of the 21st century and
wonder why people sprayed alcoholic solutions of fragrance ingredients onto their skin.
It may be the younger technology-driven generation, with an interest in wellbeing techno-
fashion and sustainability, who will first embrace these futuristic ideas more readily.
Scentsory Design opens up exciting opportunities for a new wearable platform that triggers
and fine-tunes the senses. With technology as the enabler, a ‘science fashion’ vision can
lead to sustainable wellness and health. By fusing biology with technology, we create a
biotechnological solution, a new trend in 21st-century ‘data sensing’. Although a futuristic
concept, it is potentially possible for diagnostic fashion to mimic a dog’s sense of smell
and detect early stage cancer (and other diseases) via electronic nose sensors embedded
in clothes.
A current extension of eScent investigates the ‘oneiric’ dimension of scent by altering reality
and going beyond our senses to reach a day-dream state of being. eScent extends the power
of fragrance (‘Live Scent’), which is intensified by our emotions, triggering an improved
wellness and heightened sense of reality, where feelings of bliss arise.
Above: ‘Wearable technology’, such as
these brooches, may be the way forward for
fragrance dispensing in the future.
The Future of Perfumery
Jenny Tillotson is a Reader in Sensory Fashion at Central Saint
Martins College of Art and Design and Wellbeing Platform Leader
at the Textile Futures Research Centre (at the University of the
Arts London). She is also a Visiting Scholar in the Institute of
Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of the Royal
Society of the Arts, Associate of the British Society of Perfumery
and a Winston Churchill Fellow in 2013.
With more than 15 years of experience working in wearable
technologies and smell, her interests originally stemmed from
offering emotional support to people living with HIV/AIDS and
mental health illnesses.
She gained her BA in Fashion Communication and Promotion from
Central Saint Martins and a PhD in Printed Textiles from the Royal
College of Art. She has exhibited internationally, published in science and design journals, consulted for NIKE and Unilever, and
worked on creative fragrance projects with international flavour and fragrance companies and design projects with Philips, The
North Face and Adeline André haute couture.
Jenny has won numerous awards and fellowships, including a FiFi® nomination award for breakthrough progress in the
fragrance industry. Prior to her academic work, she was a stylist in the fashion and music industry and a sensory designer for
Charmed Technology Inc (a MIT Media Lab spin-off company).