L’Oréal and EMOTIV developed Scent-sation, an interactive shopping experience that matches products based on your emotional responses.
Customers answer a series of questions about their preferences from textiles to environments, then don an EMOTIV Insight EEG headset. Customers test different scent accords, such as “floral” or “woody.” At the same time, sophisticated algorithms translate their brainwaves into real-time performance metrics like focus, stimulation and stress levels. Scent-sation recommends three of Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) luxury fragrances based on each person’s biometric reactions.
Scent-sation debuted at the 2021 Dubai Expo at the YSL Tech Innovation Lab. Attendees were able to try the interactive shopping experience for themselves in a stylish setting. After the successful display, they installed Scent-sation in select Yves Saint Laurent flagship stores worldwide. L’Oréal presented its innovative approach to neuromarketing at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2024, for which Scent-sation received a prestigious Innovation Award.
“Through this immersive system, we were able to get 95% of people the right fragrance personalized to their needs and desires, which is enormously higher than without this technology,” Stephan Bezy, International General Manager at Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, said of the partnership with EMOTIV. “It’s a huge first step in this category. Once we know which scents make people feel happy, energized, or other emotions, we can customize fragrances even more – the potential is boundless.”
