How To Create A Signature Scent Or Custom Branded Fragrance (2023)

Let’s face it. Not everyone wants to smell like a movie star and some who may think they do, probably don’t.

The idea is to smell like the essence of your brand or business for whatever product or environmentitmay be that you want to add scent to. But how does one get started creating a signature fragrance or scent?

Aye, there is the fragrant rub, as one very eloquent Elizabethan bard used to say.According to Sue Phillips, founder and president of Scenterprises, “Customization is a growing trend among shoppers. People in general don’t want to smell like someone else. They want to smell like themselves.”

Every Ambient Scent Tells Their Own Story

All scents have their own tale to tell for any business environment.

The sense of smell works on a sub-conscious level. Aromas have the ability to connect with customers by creating an emotional connection, which in turn cultivates brand loyalty, inspires consumer spending and a whole host of other benefits to a companies bottom line, including improved brand recognition, extended customer linger time, increased sales and much more. Proper scent marketing provides a memorable shopping experience for consumers who follow any brand.

According to a recent article in Time Magazine, one New York consulting firm claimed that their expenditures on scent marketing ranged between $50 and $80 million last year, and that amount is expected to rise above $500 million over the course of the next decade.

A Nike study indicated they could increase the intent to purchase by 80% by the simple addition of a selected scent in their many stores. One petrol station with a modest mini-mart reported that the introduction of the aroma of coffee brewing helped to increases their sales by 300%!

Scents encourage customers to linger and shop more than they might otherwise. Eric Spangenberg, the dean of the College of Business at Washington State University, led the first scientific lab study proving this point. He also concluded that the proper scent strategically placed could heighten value perception.

How Does One Create A Personal Custom Scent?

Master these following concepts and you are certain to achieve satisfaction in the creation of your own customized fragrance.

• Educate yourself about scent

As is the case with most things, education is the key to understanding and success. Anyone seeking to create a signature scent must know what is involved behind the delicate art of fragrance creation and how to make a scent that is like no other in the world. Your scent will need to stand out among a myriad of others. Knowledge transforms the creator into a modern Merlin (or Merlina) and prevents the accidental result of a scent with a “hangover affect.”

In Philip’s own words: ”…something made with cheap ingredients, can cause unwanted headaches. You have to explore which aromas best suit your personality before mixing them together. There is more to floral, for example than just roses. You might not like the smell of a rose, but you could be captivated by a light gardenia.”

• Match Your Personality

Scenterprises suggests that you take an impromptu “Fragrance Personality Test.” If you can’t or don’t want to do that, visit a local perfume shop and smell, smell and smell some more, taking careful whiffs of what’s available and making notes about which scents fall into the main categories, which can be woody, fresh, floral and spicy.

Taking such a test will help determine which scent you like best. Results can be woody, fresh (think citrus and dewy grass), floral (most popular among women), and spicy oriental. As an alternative, you can visit a perfume shop and take slow, careful whiffs of scents that fall under each category on tester paper to help you determine which one suits you best.

• Understand and develop your own notes

Before you can experiment with scents, you must select the notes your personal scent will include. According once again to Phillips:

“Your fragrance should have three notes: a top, middle and base. Your top note is the first scent impression you have. It should be refreshing… The middle or “heart note” is what the top then transforms into after about 30 minutes. The base is what the fragrance finally evaporates into, lasting the longest.”

A few of the thousands of blended scents we’ve created

• Experiment

Once you have selected the notes you desire, it is time to initiate the experimental phase of developing a custom scent. Concentrate on exploring diverse essential oils, which are made with all natural ingredients, such as flowers, fruits or herbs. More expensive than standard fragrance oils which are already blended, essential oils never contain anything synthetic which could cause headaches and allergies.

• Add Alcohol

Once you select and combine essential oils, it’s time to add pharmaceutical-grade alcohol for spritzing. Remember the most important rule of thumb here is that the more alcohol added, the more diluted the final fragrance will be. Whether blending or adding alcohol, use droppers, which are not only neater, but also make it easier to determine how much of each ingredient you are adding. Use fragrance-grade alcohol only.

4 Practical Tips To Creating A Signature Ambient Scent

1) Collaborate to create the best, unique scent for your brand.

The first step in creating a signature scent for a brand concerns understanding business goals via a collaboration between the chosen scent manufacturer and the specific brand. While ambient scenting targets a specific retail space with a specific aroma, manufacturers develop scent branding, which is a highly sophisticated process that identifies a company’s signature scent with a particular brand. There is a science behind scent marketing. Any good scent manufacturer knows that the creation of a customized fragrance can make people more cozy and comfortable at hotels, shorten waiting time at banks and movie theaters and improve performance perception at gyms and fitness centers.

2) Identify specific types of fragrances that enhance your brand and mission

Choosing the right scent is an arduous task that involves careful research. Try to keep the process simple and focus on the feeling you want your customers to have when they enter your business environment. Some of these following examples might help.

For the Roosters Men’s Grooming Center in northern California, ambient scent marketing creates the atmosphere of an authentic barbershop. They use a scent warmer to diffuse the fragrance of their aftershave cologne throughout the shop.

Brett Bastello at Dannecker & Associates, a real estate agency located in San Diego, utilizes scent marketing to increase their sales. Thirty minutes before showing a property to a prospective buyer, an agent burns an ocean-scented candle to evoke the idea of living on the beach.

3) Custom toll blending and scent marketing

Custom toll blending, also known as custom mixing and toll manufacturing, is an increasingly common specialty service which permits a company with a unique formula to safely send materials to another trusted company for processing, production, packaging, and in some cases, final delivery. For a pre-arranged fee, custom toll blending allows companies to process modern chemicals and eschew the prohibitive cost of renting specialized equipment and resources. Some companies only require a small amount of chemicals to be blended to create their signature scent by the ounce or liter, while others require enormous blenders and other equipment to produce a finished product on a much larger scale.

4) The right ambient scent requires the right scent diffusing equipment

Whether the preferred environment is retail, travel, general business or sports oriented, the selected scent diffuser marks the finishing touch to an effective signature scent. The latest scent machines reflect the most advanced technology within the scenting industry. The phenomenon is called cold air diffusion. It utilizes great amounts of cold filtered air, which blend with air pressure. This results in a diffusion of the oils into a dry mist comprised of nano particles that is released into HVAC ducts. The scent is both consistent and subtle.

Scent diffusing equipment armed with cold air technology marks a significant improvement over previous scent diffusing methods employing heat and sometimes water as well. Essential oils are fragile and when heated, do not disperse well in large areas, such as showrooms and fitness centers. Scents dispersed in this manner are also not known to last too long because the molecules disappear as they come in contact with the cooling air.

OurAroma Beam represent the latest in state-of-the art diffuser systems. The Aroma Beam is is ideal for scent branding as it is designed for larger business environments and covers up to 50,000 cubic feet. Scent marketers from the retail, hoteland casino industries can create their own custom scents or select from a myriad of complex fragrances that have been proven to be highly effective for ambient scent marketing.

The Aroma Beam scent diffuser is blue-tooth operated and comes equipped with an “optional mounting bracket that allows for a targeted ‘beam’ of scent diffusion in any direction.”

Our Full Service, In-House Fragrance Creation Division

Air Scent offers cutting edge odor control solutions and has an outstanding reputation as a respected company that is always on top of the most advanced scent marketing technologies.

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we have serving customers from every corner of the world since 1946. We are one of the few fragrance manufacturers that can boast of a full service, in-house, fragrance creation division, which by its very existence demands seamless collaboration between all of the facets of scent production.

Our Master Perfumer, Roger Howell

In Conclusion

Fragrance is power and the proper scent in the proper business location opens wallets. Invest in a signature scent for your business and you will get your money back many times over.

Find a scent you can believe in that puts your own unique stamp on your brand and it is certain to lead down a lucrative and fragrant path. Our chief perfumers and scenting strategists have decades of experience with creating unique scents for some of the top brands in the marketplace. Get in touch with your senses and speak with our team today!

Final thoughts on fragrance:A good fragrance is really a powerful cocktail of memories and emotion. ~ Jeffrey Stepakoff