Perfumer & Flavorist

SIMPPAR transformed the heart of Grasse into an open-air celebration of perfumery ingredients, welcoming fragrance professionals from around the world to explore new naturals, captives and technological advances against the backdrop of the industry’s historic capital.

Editor's Notebook: The Flavor & Fragrance Ingredients Seen at SIMPPAR and FlavourTalk 2026

From unique citrus to woody notes and beyond, recent events featured ingredients for every occasion.

Webinar: Understanding GRAS, Navigating the Future of Food Ingredients

Webinar: Understanding GRAS, Navigating the Future of Food Ingredients

Webinar: Understanding GRAS, Navigating the Future of Food Ingredients - Join us for an engaging webinar on GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe), a critical framework for qualifying food ingredients in the USA.

Overall, this year’s Esxence signaled a category at a crossroads: expanding rapidly in scale and creativity, but increasingly challenged by oversaturation and the need to sustain meaning in an overcrowded fragrance landscape.

Esxence 2026: “Sensing the World” Signals a New Era of Scale, Storytelling, and Scent Saturation in Artistic Perfumery

Brands leaned heavily into immersive activation strategies to drive engagement.

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Consumers' proactive approach to health is unlocking vast market opportunities, but it comes with a dramatic twist for product formulators. For decades, flavor was an uncompromisable king; however, today's health-conscious public is opening the door to distinct sensory trade-offs.

The Sweet Compromise: How the Longevity Boom Is Rewriting the Rules of Flavor Development

The work identified molecular weight, size, shape and polarity as the dominant drivers separating weak from powerful odorants—findings that align with long-established mass-transport principles governing volatility, sorption and receptor access.

AI Takes on Odor Strength: New Study Maps the Molecular Drivers of Fragrance Impact

By combining capabilities in skin science, microbiome research and functional health ingredients, the division is designed to help customers create “inside-out” and holistic care solutions.

Inside-Out Care: Symrise Launches Division Linking Beauty, Wellness and Biotics

From Soil to Scent: Indesso’s Responsible Patchouli Journey

From Soil to Scent: Indesso’s Responsible Patchouli Journey

From Soil to Scent: Indesso’s Responsible Patchouli Journey

From Soil to Scent: Indesso’s Responsible Patchouli Journey

At Indesso, patchouli sourcing is guided by three pillars: traceability, environmental stewardship, and social empowerment. Together, these ensure that every drop delivers not only olfactory richness, but also integrity.

The new fragrance continues the momentum of the Cloud franchise, which launched in 2018 and quickly became a bestseller, earning Fragrance of the Year at the 2019 Fragrance Foundation Awards.

Ariana Grande Grows Cloud Franchise with New Cloud Aurora Fragrance

Following the success of Cloud Pink in 2023, Cloud has become Grande's top-selling fragrance line.

The first phase of the expansion includes an increase in warehousing capacity and operational efficiency, enabling faster customer response and future growth, per the company.

Edlong Invests $10M to Expand Dairy Taste Innovation Hub in Illinois

"This investment aligns with our mission to enrich the lives of those we touch through agility and technical solutions that solve challenges others simply cannot."

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Dihydro Anethole Adds Natural Body and Anise Complexity to Fruit Flavors

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Boost Citrus Profiles with Isobionics' Natural Valencene 75 & 80

Visiting Patina's booth at WPC. Founded by artist-perfumer Sean Raspet and engineer Laura Sisson, the company is building a machine-learning–driven platform called Sense1 that models how molecules interact with human olfactory receptors. Its goal is to replace today’s language-based system of describing smells (like “floral” or “woody”) with a biological “code of smell” that can precisely represent and predict scent at the molecular level.

Editor’s Note: What I Learned at the 2026 World Perfumery Congress

The industry is adapting amid a rise in tech, ingredient innovation and a market boom.

The system demonstrates how generative modeling can reconstruct complex, multi-ingredient taste signatures, including fast-food–style flavor profiles such as a Big Mac–like sensory signature, where layered notes from fat, salt, umami, acid, and aroma compounds are algorithmically approximated rather than manually reverse-engineered.

AI Flavor Platform Maps Taste Science ... and Recreates a Big Mac

AI can now operate at two levels simultaneously: decoding the sensory architecture of flavor and optimizing it toward higher predicted consumer “liking."

The Ulta rollout follows the company's official launch on Amazon earlier this year and builds on its successful expansion into more than 1,000 U.S. college campus stores, signaling a deliberate shift toward an omnichannel distribution strategy designed to reach younger consumers and drive incremental growth.

Why Bath & Body Works is Accelerating Omnichannel Distribution With Ulta Beauty Deal

The Ulta rollout follows the company's official launch on Amazon earlier this year.

'Iberchem made its first investment in China in 2002,' said José Balibrea, managing director of Iberchem and vice president of Croda's fragrances and flavors division. 'Today, China is our number one country by sales, and Asia is a key pillar of our F&F 2030 growth strategy.'

Iberchem Opens New Guangzhou Fragrance Innovation Center to Fuel Growth Across China and Asia

"Today, China is our number one country by sales, and Asia is a key pillar of our F&F 2030 growth strategy."

The new awards program recognizes exhibitors whose ingredient innovation, technological advancement and sustainability initiatives are helping shape the future of perfumery.

Mane, Givaudan and Pura Take Top Honors at Inaugural WPC Exhibitor Awards

From encapsulation tech to a unique co-extraction, winners brought newness to the fragrance industry event.

SIMPPAR 2026 served as a platform for new and notable fragrance materials.

SIMPPAR 2026: The Ingredients Shaping Fragrance’s Next Chapter

Fruity captives, next-generation musks, essential oil blends and more stole the show in the south of France.

Derived from the wood of Japanese cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa), Seikodo Ishida Co., Ltd.’s hinoki oil is a distinctive natural ingredient that combines a fresh coniferous character with warm woody depth and strong sustainability credentials.

From Sacred Cypress to Barrel-Aged Oak: Woody Ingredients Branch Out Across Flavor and Fragrance

From Japanese hinoki oil to elevated cedarwood, ingredients are bringing depth to flavors and fragrances.