“Fragrance lies at the heart of conversation,” Karine Lebret, L’Oréal

Premium Beauty News - As a jury member, what is your global impression on the 400,000 proposals you received for L’Oréal Brandstorm 2026?

Karine Lebret - The fact that we made fragrance the central theme of L’Oréal Brandstorm 2026 brought to light an unprecedented trend. We observed massive, global enthusiasm, which confirmed fragrance lies more than ever at the heart of conversation, as it has emerged as a powerful driver of virality. This competition is designed for Gen Z, the real fragrance “native” generation. They know the codes perfectly well and speak the language of perfume with both expertise and maturity. More than any other generation, they have understood how essential fragrance is in our lives, which are guided by our most instinctive sense, smell.

This passion appeared especially strong in Asia. Young people turned out in large numbers for the competition there, which confirmed the region’s strong interest in the fragrance culture. This exceptional momentum actually culminated in a historic result, with four of the six global finalist teams coming from Asia.

Fascinatingly, the projects received also demonstrate that rituals and gestures historically confined to specific world regions have become global. We saw a wide range of fragrance and scented product concepts inspired from layering: this practice from the Middle East consists in superposing fragrances to create a unique trail. This responds to a quest for absolute personalization and olfactory performance, where the fragrance is freed from the traditional alcohol-based bottle to invent new avenues of expression.

These inventive projects reflect the spirit of the times and the desires of a specific age group. As a global market leader, L’Oréal’s Fragrance Design should constantly push the boundaries of innovation. To fuel this creative engine, it is fundamental to stay attuned to weak signals, give the future generation a chance to speak all around the world, and maintain an ongoing dialogue with them, because that is how you shape up the next industry talents.

Premium Beauty News - In these projects, does innovation come from new experiential approaches to fragrance, from the use of new technologies, or from poetic or artistic visions?

Karine Lebret - Innovation emerged from the convergence of all these dimensions. All six finalist projects designed fragrance as a medium of personal expression. We have definitively moved beyond the era of exclusive perfumes used as identity markers: we have entered one defined by modulation, fragrance wardrobes and personalization, whether for ourselves or for our homes.

When it comes to technique and concepts, innovation emerged through several major drivers. One of the teams used Artificial Intelligence to convey an individual memory through a tangible olfactory creation. Another one completely reimagined primary packaging to integrate customizable fragrance layering from the outset, while others reinvented the fragrance application ritual with new delivery systems like patches or skin tattoos. Lastly, in a few projects, including the winner, innovation lay at the very heart of the formulation.

Our unique portfolio comprises very different brand DNAs, so we could perfectly picture these innovations and adapt them to very different worlds.

Premium Beauty News - As a matter of fact, the winning project seems a rather low-tech one compared to the five other finalists.

Karine Lebret - The winner, “Capturé”, was imagined by the US team. It is a remarkable response to the young generation’s aspirations when it comes to nomadism, accessibility, layering, and modulation, depending on life stages and environmental responsibility. This concept perfectly resonates with our times’ expectations.

Behind its deliberately minimalist and understated design lies a beautifully poetic application ritual: a scented patch that melts delicately into the skin like a new kind of perfume concrete. While the application method impressed us with its potential for ultimate personalization, opening up promising avenues for the future of fragrances, Capturé’s composition is based on a true, invisible technological breakthrough that is much significant from an olfactory standpoint.

The projected scent composition of the patches incorporates natural extracts from so-called “silent” flowers, whose smell standard processes cannot capture. This line was crossed thanks to the Osmobloom™ technology, an ecoextraction process exclusive to L’Oréal, which required more than nine years of research in green sciences conducted by our partner Cosmo International Fragrances. It is an air-capture extraction process carried out without water, heat, or extraction solvents, and which captures the plant’s most volatile molecules without damaging it.

Here, technology steps aside to highlight a powerful message: revealing our own inexpressible facet. Just like silent flowers, inaccessible until now, the fragrance unveils an intense inner personality through a natural extract. This vision is in perfect affinity with the DNA of Prada, the brand the students applied their concept to.

Premium Beauty News - L’Oréal is a partner of Dataland, the first museum focused on Immersive Arts located in Los Angeles, California. What does this application ritual reveal?

Karine Lebret - It highlights a historic transformation: fragrance frees itself from its traditional bottle for good. Our relationship with olfaction changes exponentially. Fragrance is establishing itself as a key cultural element supporting the global shift in luxury: it is no longer a matter of merely creating products, but of designing memorable multisensorial experiences.

Dataland, the first AI museum in the world, offers an exclusive, immersive journey in which Refik Anadol’s algorithm-generated visual works meet sound and smell, which are custom-designed as an artistic experience to immerse visitors into the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

Through this initiative, we elevate fragrance to the same cultural level as Architecture and Visual Arts. To L’Oréal’s Luxe Division, this project perfectly embodies what we call Culture de l’Écart [Editor’s Note: theTwist Culture]. Our philosophy has always pushed us to dare to go where we are not expected and to challenge established conventions. Much more than a standard partnership, it is a real disruptive co-creation process.

To compose the twelve olfactory signatures of the Amazon rainforest, our Haute Parfumerie studio took the lead in fragrance creation, integrating fragrance innovations such as Osmobloom™ and headspace captures of rare plant species. Just like Refik Anadol transforms invisible data into visual arts, we transform the inaccessible into a creation that can be sensed, making smell the shortest way to pure emotion.

Premium Beauty News - How is the exhibition journey adapted to each individual visitor?

Karine Lebret - We designed the twelve fragrance stations of the journey in Dataland as immersive... and personal signatures. To achieve this, we needed to invent a system that could create real intimate olfactory cocoons. This is the role played by the personal, sensor-equipped diffusion necklace. The fragrances are triggered in sync with the AI-generated images and their soundscapes, so that visitors are no longer mere spectators from a distance, but physically step inside the artistic scene.

These olfactory signatures evoke a sense of remarkable clarity and narrative power, inviting the viewer on a journey without moving. For example, one discovers Petrichor Memoria, which recreates the scent of rain hitting the warm forest floor using the geosmin molecule, or Lost Flower, based on a headspace of the Amazonian Moonflower, a rare cactus flower that blooms only once a year for twelve hours, and which was captured during a dedicated scientific expedition.

These creations resonate differently, according to the person’s experiences and memories. In addition, thanks to the integrated sensors, the necklaces accurately adapt the scents delivery to the visitors’ pace and physical journey throughout the museum. For example, two people side by side will not enjoy the same olfactory experience. That is why we call these compositions Living Scents: they are organic, surprising, and moving.