When it comes to the $54.42 billion global fragrance market, AI has been a chief source of innovation, from acting as personal assistants to perfumers at large manufacturers to completely reinventing how ingredients are made.
InsightAce Analytic reports that the global AI beauty and cosmetics market size will hit $13.34 billion in 2030, with a CAGR of 19.7% from 2021 to 2030. According to Statista, in 2023, 56% of 3,000 surveyed consumers repurchased from a retailer offering online personalization—a personal strong suit of AI creation.
Liquid Sound blends customization with synesthesia, channeling sounds into scents through an AI-powered platform. The start-up is the brainchild of visual artist Danilo Lauria, Privé Label Managing Director; K Luxury Fragrances Partner Gunu Kapoor; and Ulan Software CEO, Karol Andruszków.
Uniting their expertise, Liquid Sound was born with Lauria as CEO, helming visual and creative, Kapoor as the brand’s resident perfume expert, in charge of product, and Andruszków as CMO, leading the technology and AI underlying the project. “It's a really good team and we're having fun. That’s the key to success,” Lauria enthuses to BeautyMatter.
Lauria and Kapoor first collaborated in 2021 on L’Eau de Distance, a digitally powered scent created to capture the scent of cryptocurrency, which was sold on the Hic et Nunc platform as a limited edition of 10 NFTs with each buyer also receiving a bottle of the fragrance.
From this creative partnership, the concept for Liquid Sound developed. Undoubtedly there are parallels between scent and sound, down to the language used to describe them, like notes and accords. But both are also highly evocative, nonvisual mediums (excluding instruments and perfume packaging, of course).
Liquid Sound’s AI technology is broken down into five key stages: noise elimination (filtering out irrelevant sound data), sound analysis (detecting patterns and evaluating the key notes), note-to-scent conversion (pairing each musical note with a corresponding scent), statistical analysis (calculating the distribution of notes and their associated scents that are then compiled into scent notes suitable for a perfume composition), and finalization (the algorithm generates a detailed report with top middle and base chords). The algorithm then offers up the formula and concentration, which is then mixed, packaged in a customized bottle, and sent off to the customer within two to three days.
“The high amplitude corresponds to a higher concentration of scent molecules resulting in a more intense fragrance. Low amplitude corresponds to a lower concentration of scent molecules, resulting in subtler fragments. High frequencies it associates with bright, fresh, and invigorating scents like citrus or lime. Lower frequencies are deeper, warmer, and woody notes like sandalwood or amber,” Lauria explains.
When a customer visits the Liquid Sound website, they can record a sound for up to a minute (with room to expand to three minutes in the future). Due to the difficulty of obtaining music rights, the platform is currently not accepting songs. Customers are then given a breakdown of the music essence (or four different muscle notes) plus top, middle, and base fragrance notes. They can then customize the bottle and cap in three different finishes, plus name their fragrance.
The founding trio completed the project from concept to execution within a year, all self-funded. There have been some surprises along the way. “A nice sound doesn't necessarily translate into a nice smell; maybe a horrible sound will smell really good. That's the fun thing about this project. We already did 50 sound tests. When we find a really good sound, we keep it and do different collections,” Lauria explains.
Three sounds in particular captured their attention, resulting in the debut Soundscape Collection: Namibian Breeze, a woody green scent with notes of bergamot, cypress, orris root absolute, and vetiver; Noise Pollution, an earthy, smoky ode to NYC with black pepper, birch tar, labdanum, and patchouli; and Shibuya Crossing, an amber vanilla scent with pink pepper and saffron. All three (and future scents) will be available through the brand’s online store. They debuted at the company’s recent soft launch in NYC. “We did the soft launch to test if this project might be successful or not. It was really good, people had so many questions. We decided this is a really good project and we want to keep moving forward,” Lauria adds.
While the custom e-shop is yet to kick into full operational mode, Kapoor reveals that the company will charge $150 to $200 for a 50 ml bottle of fragrance. Formulas will be eau de toilette or eau de parfum, depending on the concentration determined by the algorithm. “We want everyone to have a try at this in the beginning so we’ll have sample sizes as well,” he adds.
The brand is launching to the US and European markets but also has its expansion eye on Asia, with the potential to apply its technology to video formats. These expansions will take place on a DTC basis, with no current plans to expand into brick-and-mortar. For its first year of operations, Liquid Sound is projecting a revenue of $2.5 to $2.9 million. The team is also looking to sonification, or turning video or photo into sound. “The idea would be you take a selfie, and you can create a perfume based on your face, the sound of your face,” Lauria explains.
The CEO is eager to see the reception of Liquid Sound unfold, with expansion for cross-industry applications in the future. “Experimenting gives you more ideas. We want to see now when we start selling the fragrances, what's people’s input? What do they want to test, what sounds do they want to bring. We're now thinking about doing partnerships with [music] talent, and in the future maybe partner with music labels. Maybe a band wants to launch their new song on the perfume, where you need to get the bottle to listen to the song,” Lauria muses. “If you give tools that are a different way of playing around with something, you can obtain really magical things. I want to see what people do with these tools.” For now, it’s all about letting the scent and sound enthusiasts interpret their auditory surroundings in new olfactory ways—and all the fragrances that come with it.
