L’Oréal Group
When olfactory expertise becomes a common skill
Smell engages an intimate perception. Yet in industry, it must become a shared ability: sufficiently structured to be trained, evaluated, and mobilized with the same rigor in laboratories and factories that are far apart from each other.
L’Oréal Group wanted to build two levels of training for olfactory control. The first was intended to help identify any possible olfactory impairment and train employees in the control of raw materials and formulas. The second was intended to qualify profiles capable of detecting minor contaminations.
Cinquième Sens has designed the architecture of two custom-made Olfactoriums covering the olfactory families and several types of exercises: recognition, triangular tests, concentration gradients, identification of non-conformities and detection of contaminations.
The mission requested several versions, prototypes and successive validations. It also included the preparation of samples and raw materials, a user guide, guarantees, safety data sheets, and a command process adapted to future international deployment.
The prototypes have been validated and shipped. The project envisaged use in about fifty global entities. This scale does not change the nature of the gesture, the feeling, but it requires it to be based on a common vocabulary, thresholds, and protocols.
Cinquième Sens Institute makes measurable what should never become mechanical: the subtlety of human perception. The method does not replace sensitivity; it gives it a framework to become a reliable professional skill.
