How to package a scent

STRAIGHT TO THE SOUL

While art rarely allows itself to be easily defined, it often involves provoking the senses. And there is no stronger direct link to our core, than the sense of smell.

There is a physical explanation for this: smell is the only one of our senses that bypasses the thalamus – our body’s information relay station. Everything else we experience is processed there beforebeing sent to the brain for interpretation, but smell goes straight to the soul. That’s why smells can trigger such powerful and immediate sensations; memories, lust, heartache.

No wonder it is such a tempting arena for the artist wishing to create an impact.

THE ASCENT OF A SCENT

Andrea Maack never intended to become a fragrance brand. That part of her journey started at an early art exhibition, and took on a life of its own. She had made pencil drawings that were perforated to enable visitors to literally take a piece of the artwork home with them, complete with a specifically designed fragrance: a perfume strip. She called it “Smart”, from combining the words smell + art. It was very well received.

The idea grew on her, and a unique room fragrance was created for her next unveiling. Before long, people were enquiring where they could purchase her fragrances – and the perfume houses started asking for distribution rights. But by that time, Andrea Maack was already thinking of e-commerce as an alternative to regular channels.

Over the next few months, all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place – except for that of packaging.

Traditional solutions were unthinkable for many reasons, primarily in terms of sustainability but also because it was important to keep the premium feeling both the fragrance and the lava-black chamfered glass bottle attempted to create.

Something light, strong, sustainable and seductive was called for. But who could make such a thing?

THE ART OF SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

Not one for compromises, Andrea kept looking and benchmarking, determined to find the perfect match. But as if finding a packaging provider that had the technical skills to create a solution was not hard enough, it proved more difficult still to find one that shared Andrea’s passion and conviction in terms of sustainability and quality feel.

After a long day at the packaging fair, she found herself back at the hotel, going through all the samples she had collected from would be providers. One of them stood out from the others, both in terms of carton quality and effects: Billerud CrownBoard.

Together with designer friend Tobias Alvbäck, Andrea created an outline of the new packaging and challenged Billerud with extending her brand properties to the packaging. Starting with the secondary, the project soon developed to encompass also the e-commerce transportation packages.