O Boticário uses technology to recreate the smells of polluted natural areas

Brazilian cosmetics company O Boticário is a global project focused on integrating research and development with environmental, social and governance (ESG) and raising awareness for the protection of threatened natural areas around the world. has been launched.

The initiative, named Extinto (Extinct in Portuguese), was launched on Monday (22nd) and was created by advertising agency AlmapBBDO to alert the public about the importance of environmental conservation and solid waste management. It is an object.

The project involves the creation of a fragrance that is not intended to be sold commercially and features the original scent of Guanabara Bay, a marine bay on the coast of Rio de Janeiro that suffers from environmental degradation due to pollution and improper disposal of waste. Designed to reproduce.

According to the Brazilian Association of Public Cleaning and Special Waste Companies (Abrelpe), only 4% of all trash disposed of every day in Brazil is recycled. Guanabara Bay, one of the world’s largest, receives 98 tons of waste every day, according to the trade association.

“From tourism to species conservation, Guanabara [Bay] This biodiversity has an extremely valuable relevance for Brazil, where several animal species suffer from pollution caused by improper waste disposal,” said Biodiversity Economics Manager at the Grupo Boticario Foundation. says Andre Ferretti.

Technology to protect odors

Developed over six months, the Extinto fragrance was created without extracting any raw materials from the protected area of ​​Guanabara Bay. O Boticário’s perfumers visited the region and used headspace technology to capture aroma molecules. This technology is used to capture and analyze odor molecules in the air, and works similar to how the human nose detects smells. It involves measuring volatile compounds (substances with high vapor pressure that evaporate easily at room temperature) around flowers, herbs, or plants.

The scent is then released from the sample and trapped under a glass dome. This means there is no need to remove the sample, so scents are captured in an environmentally friendly and cost-effective manner.

The compounds are analyzed using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry software to obtain a chemical breakdown of the sample’s aroma, which can then be recreated in the laboratory. Headspace technology has evolved since the 1980s and is widely used in the perfume industry to preserve and study the scents of rare or endangered plants and the environment.

This process identified the original odor of Rio de Janeiro Bay. Due to environmental damage, the smell is no longer found outside the conservation area. The result is a scent that embodies the freshness of the water and the greenness of the local forest.

“Headspace will continue to be the primary technology used in this project. Headspace has been used by Boticario for many years in several brand launches and is now being adopted to raise public awareness. ” said Marcela de Masi, branding and communications director at O ​​Boticario. , about how technology was adopted for the Extinto initiative.

The project will now be expanded to different locations around the world using the same approach of not extracting any raw materials from the environment. The roadmap for the coming months includes future plans inspired by places around the world under threat from pollution, including Europe’s Calabria, Africa’s Madagascar, India’s New Delhi and Oceania’s Canberra. Includes fragrance releases.

The Extinto project follows other initiatives that combine a focus on sustainability and technology. OBoticário claims that 75% of his products are sustainable (such as the use of recycled plastic in packaging).

Last year, the company partnered with Google to address a lack of data on beauty product packaging recycling in Brazil, using its Maps feature to direct users to nearby recycling points. As a result of this cooperation, around 3,500 new recycling points have been added across Brazil, a number he plans to double in the coming months.

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