I Asked A Machine To Find My Signature Scent — & It Might’ve Nailed It

I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest AI enthusiast. Among writers like me, AI is sort of like the big bad (unspoken) wolf that threatens to rob us of our livelihoods. So when I was given the chance to create my own bespoke ‘dream scent’ with the help of AI robots, you’d best believe I approached the experience with a healthy dose of scepticism. But as someone who’s always struggled to find her signature scent, and who has a very personal relationship with fragrance through synesthesia (I can see what some perfumes smell like), I was also intrigued — and up for the challenge. 

Enter: Algorithmic Perfumery by EveryHuman, which allows users to create their unique fragrance with the help of AI. The brainchild of Anahita Mekanik — who had previously worked alongside perfumers at various fragrance brands — and ‘artist-technologist’ Frederick Duerinck, it’s self-described as “The first global AI-guided scent-making platform.” The duo’s driving motivation? To democratise the fragrance industry so anyone can become a creator. “Our mission is about creative agency,” Mekanik tells me. “We believe every human is a creator and should be able to create something that reflects them, especially something as intimate and historically exclusive as perfume,” adds Mekanik.

It might sound ironic, but despite being an AI brand, the team insist Algorithmic Perfumery was also developed to bring more of a personal touch to perfumery: “The platform is an enabler to create something truly personal and not something marketed to you,” Mekanik explains. “You borrow the algorithm and collaborate with it.”

The algorithm they speak of? It's one I now have firsthand experience with. The process starts with setting up an account with EveryHuman, followed by a series of (increasingly unexpected) questions designed to match you to scent combinations that are just right for you. These include multiple-choice prompts such as, ‘I answered these questions…’ with options like ‘to impersonate my favourite character,’ or ‘from the perspective of one of my multiple personalities’. Then there are more specific questions about the kind of scents you like (florals? Woody notes? Smoky scents?). You also rank yourself on a sliding scale for queries like, ‘Do you want your perfume to be more night or day?’ and ‘How would you describe yourself: analytical or intuitive?’ 

This part of the process felt, admittedly, like a strange fever dream, and I wondered what the relevance of which shapes I prefer or how emotionally stable I consider myself was to the creation of a perfume. But it also had me hooked: as someone who has a level of synesthesia, where one sense like smell automatically sparks a reaction in another (like sight or taste), I openly embrace the creative connection between smell, memory, emotion and personality. 

After completing my weird-yet-wonderful questionnaire, I waited for my three personalised scent vials to arrive in the post. Intrigued to see how well a computer programme could truly know what my nose liked, I was unsure what to expect when I pulled back the sleeve of my box. In true Goldilocks and the Three Bears style, when I smelt my scents, it turned out to be a case of too much, too little and just enough.

The first, a fruity, floral concoction blending clean white musk, spring-like apple blossom and neroli (a lightweight, citrusy floral), was just too strong for me. Both apple (or orange) blossom and neroli are two notes I actively dislike because they are very potent florals that can overwhelm other ingredients, so I wish there’d been space within the questionnaire to mention notes you want to avoid. The next, with rose, peach and again, more white musk, smelt old-fashioned to me and didn’t give me much. 

Luckily, my third creation, a woody, smoky elixir combining incense (1.6% perfume oil) and tobacco (16.7% perfume oil), was perfectly up my street. It smelt rich and seductive when sprayed onto the skin, but the powdery and soft, delicate blush notes added a touch of sweetness when it dried down on my skin. While it reminded me of certain scents I’d already owned and loved, there was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on about placing the smell of this, most likely because it was a completely bespoke creation — something that made up for it not coming in a fancy bottle.

I loved that the fragrance lingered on not only my skin, but in the air and on my clothes when I sprayed it, which meant the 5ml size (FYI, you can buy individual 30ml and 50ml bottles, too) lasted much longer. This one really felt like my own personal secret scent that smelt expensive, cool and, of course, unique. I couldn’t wait to wear it out and answer, “Oh, I created it myself,” to anyone asking where it was from. 

My favourite part of the process was the 20-minute follow-up one-to-one ‘scent coaching’, essentially a Zoom call, which all users have access to as part of the £45 experience that includes three creations. Speaking with a perfumer at the brand, you have the opportunity to tweak your fragrances in tune with your preferences and then receive your new options in the post several days afterwards. Alternatively, you can change certain concentrations yourself online if you’d prefer to skip the call. We decided the fruity, floral scent — labelled 01 — needed to lose the blossom and white musk, and integrate florals I preferred, whereas we agreed my favourite, 03, would benefit from being a little more powdery. The personal touch this added to the process was a surprise to me, as I always insisted that I’d hate anything touched by AI. 

This is one of the brand’s biggest selling points — and a key appeal of AI’s role in perfumery overall. Instead of taking away the intimacy and individuality of perfume making (by handing it over to a robot), it actually opens the doors for more: “More people want fragrances that feel personal; something beyond what they’ll find on a department store shelf,” says perfumer Gustavo Romero. “They want to smell like themselves, or like a specific moment in their lives. AI makes that kind of custom approach more accessible.”

AI perfumery brands — along with several industry insiders — also agree that this introduction can complement the work of top perfumers. Recent examples of this — in the mainstream, no less — include the creation of Prada’s Paradoxe Virtual Flower fragrance. Master perfumers Nadège Le Garlantezec, Shyamala Maisondieu and Antoine Maisondieu worked alongside AI as a ‘creative partner’ to develop their AI jasmine accord.

Thibaud Crivelli, founder and creative director at perfume brand Maison Crivelli, says that although he doesn’t use AI in his creative process, it allows perfumers the freedom to use it if needed: “The talent of the most renowned perfumers relies on the duality between science and artistry,” he tells me. “If AI becomes a technical tool supporting the creative process, it could complement the artistic approach of perfumers and not replace it.”

For Alex Wiltschko, founder and CEO of Generation by Osmo, a fragrance house backed by Olfactory Intelligence (OI), AI is democratising the fragrance industry for brands and creators of all sizes — and making it far more efficient. “It has streamlined fragrance creation, automating repetitive tasks, which allows perfumers to spend less time on manual toil and more time on crafting bespoke fragrances,” he tells me. The future, he says, is limitless: “There have only been 100,000 fragrances ever made because the traditional process is costly and time-consuming, but I want that number to be millions.”

The downside? The more manufactured ‘bespoke’ fragrances there are out there, the less individualistic — and appealing — they become. “Ironically, the more people crave something unique, the more they seem to value the human touch behind it,” believes Romero. The double-edged sword doesn’t stop there. Amanda Carr, a fragrance writer and trend forecaster, points out that there is real concern within the fragrance industry that while AI systems could improve efficiency, they may also result in job losses for the humans they are replacing. This ultimately could lead to a loss of personalised creativity, notes Crivelli.

I agree that the greatest tool for finding your signature scent is your nose, not a computer. But AI systems are now helping to put us on the right track, and to verbalise what we actually like. Whether the complexities of AI perfumery are of concern to you or not, one thing we can all agree on is that brands like EveryHuman — and their Algorithmic Perfumery system — are bringing something new to the table, which allows us to become the perfumers. These developments also serve as a reminder that within the world of beauty, technology continues to be at the heart of modern innovation — and it shows no signs of slowing down.