Abstract:

This paper shows how consumer research links the fragrance developer with the consumer in a manner which produces both databases for understanding consumers, and consumer-driven direction for fragrance development. The approach follows procedures developed by the authors over the past twenty years, and used successfully in different product categories to show consumer preferences, and to guide ongoing development. These procedures involve fragrance development and testing in-market products to create a database, fragrance sensory segmentation, modelling, optimisation, and reverse engineering.