To the Max: Multisensory Moments
Culture & Chemistry | September 2026
Scentmaxxing or smellmaxxing focuses on “olfactory enhancement and attractiveness” and is taking social media by storm. From body mists to laundry care, younger consumers are curating a personal fragrance identity through layering multiple scented products across applications.
“Scent is no longer one bottle. It’s a system. Consumers are moving from a single-spray habit toward context, routines, layering and personal scent management.”
In the same research, 10% of 18,688 survey respondents believe scent is “a whole process,” and 9.5% layer scents to create a unique signature scent.
Scentmaxxing highlights how fragrance is moving beyond perfume to become an immersive, everyday expression of identity.
Trend:
Laundry Luxe: Perfumer-Style Laundry
Laundry is no longer boring. Through scent, laundry fragrances are creating personalized sensory experiences. According to Cosmopolitan magazine, fragrance has moved beyond perfume, and scent is a full lifestyle category that extends from your body to your home, laundry, car, and everyday essentials. A recent example is Tallow + Ash’s Laundry Elixirs designed for layering. There are six fragrance families: Aquatic, Citrus, Floral, Fruit, Oud, and Vanilla.
“Fragrance has become the most expressive dimension of modern laundry care. Scents have evolved into perfumer-style compositions designed to live on fabric.”
Fragrance is ranked as the #1 factor in detergent choice for 65% of buyers, according to WifiTalents. As fragrance becomes central to laundry care, scent is turning everyday routines into personalized lifestyle experiences.
Fragrance Ingredient Spotlight:
VIONIL™ (10% in DIPROPYLENE GLYCOL) (BRI# 640DPG)
Green and herbal fragrances are gaining momentum, with PerfumeDirect.com data reported by Forbes showing 66% growth over the past year as fresh notes like cucumber and violet leaf lead the olfactive direction. Bedoukian’s VIONIL™ (10% in DIPROPYLENE GLYCOL) (BRI# 640DPG) is a long-lasting fragrance ingredient featuring powerful green cucumber and violet leaf with orris notes. This ingredient is excellent in laundry detergent and fabric softener. It also performs well in shampoo, antiperspirant, dish detergent, and candles.
Although VIONIL™ is typically used at trace levels to 0.5%, Bedoukian’s “Alluring Acacia” accord demonstrates how it delivers significant olfactive impact at just 0.29%.
“VIONIL™ adds violet leaf, cucumber, and orris notes to our Alluring Acacia accord, creating a more powerful, rich, and exotic fragrance, which can be used as a sub-base for laundry and household applications.”
– Maha Ali, Applications Lab Director
Fresh and luxurious, Bedoukian’s high-impact fragrance ingredients offer strong performance, formulation versatility, and consistent quality.
Request a Sample of VIONIL™ (BRI# 640DPG)
Please ensure this product meets the regulatory requirements in your region.
Trend:
Feelable Flavor: Novel Sensory Experiences
Texture is becoming increasingly important and is beginning to rival flavor, according to Trendincite LLC. Oral care and mints are no strangers to cooling sensations. However, consumers’ desire for novel sensory experiences is expanding beyond oral care and mints into candy and beverages. Brands are experimenting. For example, Amos Refreshing Iced Coffee Mints are hard candies described as a “precision-balanced menthol infusion meets real caffeine.” Non-alcoholic spirits brand Arkay Beverages uses capsaicin in its formulas to mimic the “burn” of traditional alcohol.
“Today’s consumers are hungry for food and beverage experiences that are far more complex – and immersive. These cravings have given way to an influx of products offering cooling, warming, tingling, and numbing sensations, which are known as trigeminal effects.”
As texture and trigeminal sensations become key drivers of product discovery, feelable flavor is transforming taste into a more immersive, memorable consumer experience.
Flavor Ingredient Spotlight:
SPILANTHOL (BRI# 255)
Bedoukian’s SPILANTHOL (BRI# 255) is a special flavor ingredient that provides a trigeminal tingling with a cooling sensation. Because of this unique tingling effect, SPILANTHOL is great for novelty confections like chewing gum, gummies and hard candies. It can also be used in beverages such as flavored waters, juices, sports drinks, and teas to add a “zing” to spicy and savory flavors.
SPILANTHOL occurs naturally in the Jambu plant (Paracress or Acmella oleracea), a low-growing tropical herb famous for the tingly, numbing sensation it produces when chewed.
Bedoukian delivers high-impact specialty molecules that help flavorists and perfumers create multisensory products that will satisfy consumer cravings.
Request a Sample of SPILANTHOL (BRI# 255)
Please ensure this product meets the regulatory requirements in your region.
Bedoukian News:
Global Distributor Summit Brings Partners to Bedoukian HQ in Danbury
“Hosting our distributor partners is a pleasure, and face-to-face time settles questions that can take months over email. These are the people closest to our customers in their own markets. Their insight is what directs where and how we invest in new technology and capability.”
– Robert Sobel, PhD, Chief Executive Officer
Bedoukian hosted distributor partners at the Danbury headquarters for five days of business review, market planning, and product demonstration. The Applications Lab ran eight smelling and tasting presentations covering high-impact BRI materials in more than 50 applications. Partners were able to tour the manufacturing plant, observe recent capacity expansions, and get their questions answered by our technical teams.
Feedback gathered during the week directly influences product promotion plans and informs where we direct our investment in new technologies and innovations.
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