logo
Who Makes Laundry Smell Nice? Meet The Professional 'Noses'

Who Makes Laundry Smell Nice? Meet The Professional 'Noses'

In the laboratories of German fragrance and flavours giant Symrise, a citrus scent clings to the lab coats of trainees -- "noses" who are learning the art of making things smell good.
These busy heroes of the world of smells and aromas shape the connection millions of consumers have with everyday items.
While at high-end perfume labels, olfactory artists create scents for luxury body sprays, Symrise's experts work on everyday products that might range from mint-flavoured toothpaste to barbeque chips.
Smell, a powerful sense that can trigger emotions and memories, and aroma often decide which food or beverage, cleaning or personal hygiene product ends up in the shopping cart.
At Symrise's headquarters in Holzminden, a quiet town south of Hanover, each day at the company's in-house perfumery school begins the same way: sniffing out scents from dozens of tiny bottles while blindfolded.
"It's just like tuning a musical instrument before you play," said Alicia De Benito Cassado, a 32-year-old former professional pianist from Spain.
Her career switch into scent development was a natural step: she made her own perfumes as a teenager to match the poetry and music that she wrote.
"For me, not everything has to smell good," she said. "The horror of smell also helps us discover ourselves."
But commercial clients demand something different, De Benito Cassado added. "In the end, we need to create scents that are strong, beautiful, powerful -- and affordable."
Being a "nose" is a full-time job and comes with a three-year training programme.
The smell of a fabric softener can be composed of 80 compounds, far more than in a premium body perfume, and the best noses can make out over 1,000 different odours while blindfolded.
Being able to break down odours into their chemical components is key.
"As a kid, I just smelled jasmine or gardenia as flowers," he said. "Now, I recognise the chemicals: it's a blend of many elements."
Students weigh ingredients down to the milligramme, mix, smell, and start over, often by replicating existing smells to understand their structure and then innovate from there.
"When developing perfume, it is very important that several people smell it," said 56-year-old master perfumer Marc vom Ende, head of the school.
"We all perceive smell differently."
Pleasant smells cannot come at any cost, and the rules of the game change over time.
Lilial, a chemical once prized for its floral and sweet Lily-of-the-Valley notes, has been banned in the European Union since 2022 over fears it can cause skin irritation and damage the reproductive system.
Fragrances applied directly to the body have stricter regulations than detergents, said 27-year-old South African trainee Attiya Setai.
"We're more restricted in raw materials and must replace banned ingredients with new compliant ones," she said.
Tastes also vary across global markets, with Shangyun pointing to the example of Chinese shampoos that sell well with a young clientele there but would struggle in Europe.
"Something old-fashioned in one country can be new elsewhere," he said.
Cost also enters the equation. Symrise extracts aromatic compounds from wood resin, a by-product of the paper industry, in a move "that makes both economic and environmental sense", said vom Ende.
It is hard to be a nose.
About 500 perfumers work in the industry and 80 of them at Symrise, which has a workforce of 13,000. The company markets about 30,000 products to clients ranging from confectioners to pet food manufacturers and suncream makers.
Symrise's competitors include DSM-Firmenich, headquartered in both Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as Givaudan, another Swiss firm.
Artificial intelligence increasingly plays a role, with computer programmes predicting which fragrances will hit the mark.
Still, the machines cannot -- yet -- smell, even if they can understand speech and read text.
"We're supported by AI," vom Ende said. "But the nose has the final say". Vials containing dissolved raw materials used to develop perfume oil formulas in a mixing room at the Symrise company in Holzminden AFP Junior perfumer Shangyun Lyu with a smell strip AFP
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

China calls for global 'consensus' on AI regulation – DW – 07/26/2025
China calls for global 'consensus' on AI regulation – DW – 07/26/2025

DW

time2 hours ago

  • DW

China calls for global 'consensus' on AI regulation – DW – 07/26/2025

Chinese Premier Li Qiang warned that without a global consensus AI could become an "exclusive game" for a few countries and companies. It comes days after US President Donald Trump slashed AI regulations. Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Saturday urged the international community to build a global consensus on artificial intelligence (AI) governance, highlighting security risks amid the raging tech race between Beijing and Washington. Speaking at the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Li said it is prudent to look at "how to find a balance between development and security [which] urgently requires further consensus from the entire society." Li also announced the creation of a Chinese-led body to promote global AI cooperation and open-source development to keep AI from becoming "the preserve of a few countries and a few enterprises." The three-day WAIC event comes amid intensifying US-China competition in advanced AI technology. Just days before, US President Donald Trump announced the slashing of AI regulations to maintain the US' dominance in the field even as Washington continues to restrict exports of high-end chips to China, citing national security concerns. These restrictions are forcing Chinese companies to look for alternatives, with startup DeepSeek introducing an AI model in January that matched the performance of leading US systems, despite working on less advanced chips. Li, without naming the US, criticized monopolistic control and called for open access to AI technologies, warning of insufficient supply of AI chips and restrictions on talent exchange otherwise. "Only by adhering to openness, sharing and fairness in access to intelligence can more countries and groups benefit from (AI)," he said. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video At the WAIC opening ceremony, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video message that AI regulation would be "a defining test of international cooperation." More than 800 companies are participating in this year's WAIC, showcasing over 3,000 tech innovations. While Chinese firms like Huawei and Alibaba are the main entrants, international firms including US-based companies Tesla, Alphabet, and Amazon are also present.

China Urges Global Consensus On Balancing AI Development, Security
China Urges Global Consensus On Balancing AI Development, Security

Int'l Business Times

time4 hours ago

  • Int'l Business Times

China Urges Global Consensus On Balancing AI Development, Security

China's Premier Li Qiang warned Saturday that artificial intelligence development must be weighed against the security risks, saying global consensus was urgently needed even as the tech race between Beijing and Washington shows no sign of abating. His remarks came just days after US President Donald Trump unveiled an aggressive low-regulation strategy aimed at cementing US dominance in the fast-moving field, promising to "remove red tape and onerous regulation" that could hinder private sector AI development. Opening the World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Saturday, Li emphasised the need for governance and open-source development, announcing the establishment of a Chinese-led body for international AI cooperation. "The risks and challenges brought by artificial intelligence have drawn widespread attention... How to find a balance between development and security urgently requires further consensus from the entire society," the premier said. Li said China would "actively promote" the development of open-source AI, adding Beijing was willing to share advances with other countries, particularly developing ones. "If we engage in technological monopolies, controls and blockage, artificial intelligence will become the preserve of a few countries and a few enterprises," he said. "Only by adhering to openness, sharing and fairness in access to intelligence can more countries and groups benefit from (AI)." The premier highlighted "insufficient supply of computing power and chips" as a bottleneck. Washington has expanded its efforts in recent years to curb exports of state-of-the-art chips to China, concerned that these can be used to advance Beijing's military systems and erode US tech dominance. For its part, China has made AI a pillar of its plans for technological self-reliance, with the government pledging a raft of measures to boost the sector. In January, Chinese startup DeepSeek unveiled an AI model that performed as well as top US systems despite using less powerful chips. At a time when AI is being integrated across virtually all industries, its uses have raised major ethical questions, from the spread of misinformation to its impact on employment, or the potential loss of technological control. In a speech at WAIC on Saturday, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Geoffrey Hinton compared the situation to keeping "a very cute tiger cub as a pet". "To survive", he said, you need to ensure you can train it not to kill you when it grows up. In a video message played at the WAIC opening ceremony, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said AI governance would be "a defining test of international cooperation". The ceremony also saw the French president's AI envoy, Anne Bouverot, underscore the "an urgent need" for global action. At an AI summit in Paris in February, 58 countries including China, France and India -- as well as the European Union and African Union Commission -- called for enhanced coordination on AI governance. But the United States warned against "excessive regulation", and alongside the United Kingdom, refused to sign the summit's appeal for an "open", "inclusive" and "ethical" AI.

Delayed delivery: German postal services come under attack – DW – 07/25/2025
Delayed delivery: German postal services come under attack – DW – 07/25/2025

DW

time16 hours ago

  • DW

Delayed delivery: German postal services come under attack – DW – 07/25/2025

German consumer complaints about DHL and Deutsche Post reached record highs in the first half of 2025. Letters and parcels are getting damaged, delayed, delivered to the wrong address or just disappear. The German Federal Network Agency received almost 23,000 complaints in the first half of this year — that's up 13% on the same time last year, which was also a record. Almost 90% of complaints relate to market leader Deutsche Post / DHL. Up to 2022, people in Germany were largely happy with their mail service, but then jobs were cut, prices raised and complaints began piling up. Damaged parcels, mail delivered to the wrong house — or not at all — and disastrous delays have been sending the country's blood pressure soaring. "For months on end here, it was drip, drip, drip. First, there would be something, then nothing at all. And then something would arrive and then nothing again. It really wasn't good," Patrick Gröne told German public broadcaster . He had ordered for some live ladybug larvae to fight the aphid problem blighting his house plants. But four weeks later when the much-awaited package finally arrived, the larvae were all dead. He got a replacement batch — eventually. Again, none of the larvae were alive. Another case that has been widely reported in the German media involves an eighty-two-year-old woman who tried in vain to get an ultra-fast delivery to a North Sea island where she was vacationing. Instead of getting the mobile phone that she had forgotten at home the next day, it finally turned up six working days later. Germany's service sector union and communication workers' union DPVKOM are blaming the difficulties on ongoing restructuring and waves of layoffs. And those are not expected to end any time soon. In March, Deutsche Post announced that it would be cutting another 8,000 jobs by the end of the year to save a billion euros ($1.17 bn). Last year, turnover rose to €84.2 billion, but operating profits sank to €5.9 billion. DHL delivery workers are often so pressed for time that they tend to leave parcels for an entire apartment block with neighbors living on ground or first-floor flats. The company is keen to play down the problem. It says the number of complaints is small in relation to the volume of letters and parcels transported by Deutsche Post and DHL: Over twelve billion letters and 1.8 billion parcels in 2024. "In a company with 187,000 employees and around 50 million items processed per day, mistakes can never be completely ruled out," a spokesperson told public broadcaster . Nevertheless, the company is keen to stress that it is constantly working to improve quality. But as well as the complaints lodged with the infrastructure watchdog, BNetzA, Deutsche Post itself logged some 420,000 last year. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Deutsche Post blames this year's specific woes on recent heatwaves — which required workloads to be cut — and union walkouts about job cuts. Moreover, it said not all customers are aware of recent changes in the postal laws. These mean that the company can now take up to three working days to deliver letters. Up to January 1, 2025, they were still obliged to deliver 80 percent by the next working day. So maybe it's all about expectations? Certainly, if things go on like this, Germany's Deutsche Post and DHL are set to have a record year of the worst kind, beating out 2024's total of 44,406 complaints. While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter, Berlin Briefing.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store