How Can AI, Brain Science Help Create Fragrances?

Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers
Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers
TT
20

How Can AI, Brain Science Help Create Fragrances?

Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers
Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers

Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers, according to a report by The Guardian.

Making perfume is an art that can be traced back to ancient Greece but now modern-day perfumiers are beginning to look beyond their noses to develop the scents most likely to appeal to us. They are, instead, turning to AI.

Perfumes can now be designed to trigger emotional responses using ingredients known as neuroscents – odors shown by biometric measures to arouse different positive feelings such as calm, euphoria or sleepiness. Hugo Ferreira, a researcher at the Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering in Lisbon, is mapping brain activity and response to perfumes to build a database of neuroscents.

He says the sense of smell is fascinating. “With sight and hearing, you can imagine the face of a loved one or favorite tune. It’s hard to imagine a smell even though it can provoke a torrent of emotions and memories.”

Ferreira says this is due to the structure of the olfactory system. Messages from scent receptors are sent via the olfactory bulb to different brain areas that control everything from memory or thirst to stress reactions.

“Olfaction is the most diverse sense with many different receptors. It’s estimated that there are about 400 different olfactory receptor gene families. Among other things these various connections may explain how we can ‘smell fear’, or the smell of victory,” he added.

Many beauty brands have invested in neuroscent research and technology, as the possibilities of creating fragrances proven to make consumers feel good are obviously big. L’Oréal has partnered with neurotechnology company Emotiv to create a scent choice “experience”.

During 2023, shoppers at certain Yves Saint Laurent stores worldwide have used a headset to create an electroencephalogram – EEG – to discover which scents appealed to them. Results so far show that 95% of customers who used the headset found the right perfume.

Fashion and fragrance business Puig says it took 45 million brain readings from men aged 18-35 to finesse the cologne Phantom by Paco Rabanne, adding lavender and lemon to the formula as a result of its research.

Givenchy Irresistible eau de parfum – the latest iteration of the Very Irresistible range that has been a bestseller for 20 years – includes a rose extract dubbed “anti-morose”, chosen after biometric research.



Vietnam Scraps Two-Child Limit as Birth Rate Declines 

A grandfather talks to his grandchild inside a kindergarten in Hanoi on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A grandfather talks to his grandchild inside a kindergarten in Hanoi on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
TT
20

Vietnam Scraps Two-Child Limit as Birth Rate Declines 

A grandfather talks to his grandchild inside a kindergarten in Hanoi on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A grandfather talks to his grandchild inside a kindergarten in Hanoi on June 4, 2025. (AFP)

Vietnam's communist government has scrapped its long-standing policy of limiting families to two children, state media said Wednesday, as the country battles to reverse a declining birth rate.

The country banned couples from having more than two children in 1988, but a family's size is now a decision for each individual couple, Vietnam News Agency said.

The country has experienced historically low birth rates in the last three years. The total fertility rate dropped to 1.91 children per woman in 2024, below replacement level, the ministry of health said this year.

Birth rates have fallen from 2.11 children per woman in 2021, to 2.01 in 2022 and 1.96 in 2023.

This trend is most pronounced in urbanized, economically developed regions, especially in big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as the cost of living rises.

Tran Minh Huong, a 22-year-old office worker, told AFP that the government regulation mattered little to her as she had no plans to have children.

"Even though I am an Asian, with social norms that say women need to get married and have kids, it's too costly to raise a child."

Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, speaking at a conference earlier this year, warned it was increasingly difficult to encourage families to have more children, despite policy adjustments and public campaigns.

She emphasized that the declining birth rate poses challenges to long-term socio-economic development, including an aging population and workforce shortages.

She urged society to shift its mindset from focusing solely on family planning to a broader perspective of population and development.

Vietnam is also grappling with sex imbalances due to a historic preference for boys. On Tuesday the ministry of health proposed tripling the current fine to $3,800 "to curb fetal gender selection", according to state media.

It is forbidden to inform parents of the sex of their baby before birth in Vietnam, as well as to perform an abortion for sex-selection reasons, with penalties imposed on clinics who break the law.

The sex ratio at birth, though improved, remains skewed at 112 boys for every 100 girls.

Hoang Thi Oanh, 45, has three children but received fewer benefits after the birth of her youngest, due to the two-child policy.

"It's good that at last the authorities removed this ban," she said, but added that "raising more than two kids nowadays is too hard and costly."

"Only brave couples and those better-off would do so. I think the authorities will even have to give bonuses to encourage people to have more than two children."

Vietnam's neighbor China ended its own strict "one-child policy", imposed in the 1980s due to fears of overpopulation, in 2016 and in 2021 permitted couples to have three children.

But as in many countries, the soaring cost of living has proved a drag on birth rates and the moves have failed to reverse China's demographic decline -- its population fell for the third year in a row in 2024.