LONDON — “Don’t get so emotional” isn’t a phrase in the Charlotte Tilbury playbook.
Instead, the celebrity makeup artist and entrepreneur is preparing to stir up all sorts of emotions, vibrations, actions and reactions with a new collection of six scents developed with IFF’s proprietary technology.
The collection of neuroscents is the culmination of Tilbury’s long-held desire to create mood-enhancing fragrances to empower customers in the same way that she believes good makeup or skin care can.
The introduction is a big one for Charlotte Tilbury, which launched in 2013 and is aiming to become a 1 billion-euro makeup, skin care and fragrance business.
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The company said that entering the fragrance category will supercharge its ambitions to become “a tri-axis powerhouse.” It has no doubt benefited from the know-how at its parent Puig, which has built a portfolio of niche fragrance brands including Penhaligon’s, L’Artisan Parfumeur, Dries Van Noten and Byredo, not to mention the larger Carolina Herrera, Paco Rabanne and Jean Paul Gaultier beauty businesses.
Charlotte Tilbury is already the number-one prestige combined makeup brand in the U.K., and a money-spinner for Puig, which on April 8 revealed plans to seek a public listing in Spain.
The new scents — dubbed Love Frequency, More Sex, Cosmic Power, Magic Energy, Calm Bliss and Joyphoria — are the fruits of her own historical research; a childhood spent inhaling the perfumed air of Ibiza, and proprietary technology from IFF, which has been at the forefront of research into the impact of scent on the brain.
“I was brought up in a very rich world of fragrance,” said the mile-a-minute talker in an interview. “In the hippy markets of Ibiza, there were people returning from the East, and from all around the world, with scents and aromatherapy oils. There was incense in the churches and my father, an artist, always had incense burning.
“My parents understood the power of aromatherapy and aromacology, and I always knew that scents could work on hormones, that they could calm people down. Having mixed oils and worn my own scents for 30 years, I also knew how you could time travel with scent, and that it could open and unlock things,” continued Tilbury, who is president, chairman, chief creative officer and founder of her namesake company.
Tilbury admitted it was a moment of joy — and relief — when she began working with IFF, which has proven the link between scent and state of mind — and created bespoke molecules to conjure moods.
“It was like my prayers had been answered,” she said.
The Power of Neuroscents
Neuroscents are a fast-evolving, niche category of functional fragrances created with an olfactive note, or notes, to elicit emotional responses that are neurologically proven using a combination of brainwave mapping and consumer surveys.
They’ve been gaining steam since the pandemic with anxious, housebound consumers eager to explore mood-boosting scents for mind and home. Neuroscents are also part of a wider wellness trend that is moving toward healing and the metaphysical realm of crystals, astrology, numerology and cartomancy.
Millennials and Gen Z, in particular, have shown an interest in these functional fragrances. While older generations may have experimented with hallucinogenic drugs and stimulants, many younger consumers are eager to explore the mood-boosting effects brought on by fragrance.
Céline Manetta, Ph.D., senior consumer science manager at IFF, has described neuroscents as “aromatherapy 2.0. Today, we are reopening all these doors and territories.”
She said IFF has been researching “the invisible power of ingredients” for more than 40 years through its Science of Wellness program and worked closely with Tilbury to realize her ambition of unlocking emotions through fragrance.
IFF measures the emotional power of certain ingredients by looking at the responses they elicit across groups of people. The company then uses a proprietary tool called the IFF Scentcube, which analyzes the data using AI technology.
The 5 billion data points it has gathered so far give perfumers innovative ingredient combinations that are known to enhance specific emotions. Scentcube, Manetta said, “creates a specific palette of ingredients so they can compose with it.”
She added that for Tilbury’s new collection, IFF tested a host of ingredients “to understand which part of the conscious, and unconscious, was activated when smelling. Each part was linked to a specific emotion.”
Although these are not the first neuroscents to hit the beauty counter, they are innovative in their scale and ambition.
Anne Flipo, master perfumer at IFF, said it is “unique” to have a collection of six fragrances created from a combination of scientific research, AI and consumer studies, aimed at “awakening specific emotions.”
Tilbury and IFF believe their research has resulted in powerful formulations. According to user trial data, the vast majority of people using the six fragrances had “enhanced” feelings due to the specially made molecules used.
Research Results
Of the six fragrances, the ones with the highest responses were Magic Energy, Calm Bliss and Joyphoria.
Some 98 percent of people spritzing on Magic Energy, a blend of palo santo (a traditional remedy derived from a wild tree native to South America), bergamot oil and cypress ultimate agreed the scent “boosted and enhanced” their energy levels during a weeklong trial.
Calm Bliss, which includes lavandin oil, fresh bergamot oil, white musks, orange flower absolute and tonka bean, enhanced feelings of calm among 92 percent of users over a similar time period.
Joyphoria, which includes neroli oil, a coconut water accord and petitgrain oil, enhanced feelings of happiness among 91 percent of its test audience.
While the fragrances may be the result of myriad laboratory tests, there is nothing clinical about them, Flipo said.
“We wanted something that would tell a story beyond science. Of course, it had to smell amazing — so each of these fragrances is very instinctive and really tell a story of love, seduction and serenity,” she said.
Tilbury layered her own research, history — and experience — into the six formulations.
She looked across thousands of years of history to see how humans have used fragrance “for spiritual, emotional and medicinal purposes, and I was very specific about the ingredients I wanted to use: the palo santo for Magic Energy; the amber and sandalwood for More Sex, and the frankincense for Cosmic Power,” she said.
Tilbury has been down the fragrance road before.
In 2016, pre-Puig, she launched Scent of a Dream, based on a mix she created when she was 13 years old. She approached it with her signature gusto and long-held belief that fragrance had the power to alter a person’s mood, and open portals to the past and the future.
What she didn’t have was the science to back it up.
“I think I was frustrated back then because I wanted to prove that you could elicit certain feelings” with scent, she said.
Before launching that juice, she assembled neuroscientists and perfumers in a room. She said they chatted, but told her it wasn’t possible to make a fragrance that connected scent with mood. Tilbury said that when IFF told her they could do it, “it was honestly the best moment of my life.”
The new fragrance collection has therapeutic and metaphysical dimensions, too.
Different Bottles
Each fragrance comes in a flask cut in a crystal shape in a different color with therapeutic powers. The fragrances have numbers derived from numerology and their own historic symbols. Each fragrance also comes with mantra cards so that customers can bolster their intentions with visualization and positive thinking.
Joyphoria’s bottle is rose gold, meant to reflect its promise of sunshine and summery happiness even in the dark days of January. Love Frequency is soft pink, and meant to evoke the “rush of first love” and the power of “all-encompassing love,” according to Tilbury.
Calm Bliss, which Tilbury spritzes on her pillow at night, has a “milky innocence, and helps to calm the nervous system,” and comes in an aqua blue bottle, like the sea. Magic Energy’s is forest green, with a smell that’s meant to be grounding and energizing.
Tilbury argues that More Sex, which comes in a burgundy bottle, enhances “natural magnetism and seductive energy,” while Cosmic Power is “a forcefield of confidence,” in a purple bottle.
She describes the fragrances as unisex and ageless and wants her customers to layer them throughout the day, depending on their needs.
She also suggests creating a “scent aura,” by spraying a halo above the head, and applying to pulse points after showering when the pores are open and better able to absorb the juice.
There is more tech to come.
Tilbury has added a dedicated fragrance pillar to the brand’s app, which is called Easy Beauty for You. The app already offers shade-matching using AI and light technology; tutorials; celebrity favorites; news, and well-being guides.
The fragrance pillar will feature a personalized fragrance profiler that helps customers choose what’s right for them and match makeup looks to fragrances.
The app will also offer a first-to-market scent mapping tool that allows the user to “see” how ingredients in a fragrance gradually change in prominence over the course of its 18-hour trail.
Of the app, Tilbury said she loves “morphing myself into an algorithm” and living in the pockets of her customers. She said the app makes her products “easy-to-choose and easy-to-use” for her millions of customers around the world, all of whom she addresses as “darling!”
The fragrances will be released on April 30 on special order through the app, and then from May 2 at Charlotte Tilbury Beauty Wonderland stand-alone stores and counters, the brand’s e-commerce site and in the rest of the world.
The price of a 100-ml bottle is $150, while the 10-ml travel spray costs $25. The discovery set box of six 1.5-ml bottles cost $30.
The company, which is officially part of Puig’s IPO process, declined to offer or confirm any sales projections for this story.
However, according to independent research by WWD, it is thought that first year retail sales could reach at least 50 million pounds.
The launch of fragrance is the crucial third axis to this brand, which has been gaining momentum across all markets and plumping up growth at Puig.
In 2022, makeup was the fastest-growing division for Puig, and in 2023 it was skin care. The Charlotte Tilbury brand was a “key driver” behind growth in both years.
Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream is the number-one face cream in the U.K. prestige skin care market, while the brand as a whole is the number-one prestige combined makeup brand in the U.K., according to Circana.
Charlotte Tilbury closed 2023 as the number-four premium makeup brand in the U.S., although it has limited distribution compared to its competitors, according to the company.
Having launched in 2013, Charlotte Tilbury was acquired by Puig in 2020 in a deal valued at 1.2 billion pounds. BDT Capital Partners also took a stake, with multiple strategic buyers, including the Estée Lauder Cos., said to have been interested in acquiring the business.
As reported, Puig intends to float on the Spanish Stock Exchanges in a bid to raise 2.5 billion euros to finance further and future investments (including in Tilbury’s business); solidify its corporate structure, and future-proof the family-run business.
In the midst of it all, Tilbury is juggling product, retail development and design; the fragrance launch, and her private, red carpet clients (she was working at the Oscars last month).
She said it’s a joy. Plus, she now has six new scents to spritz on when she needs to rev up, or wind down.
“I’m a redhead, I have a lot of energy, and am so passionate about what I do. And I think the high of winning, and the high of gratitude is the most unbelievable feeling. I also have an incredible dream team, and I think when you do innovate, and disrupt and break records, it is the most powerful, energizing feeling. We’re all energetic, frequency beings — and I just get high off my own supply,” she said.