Kyugum Hwang’s Scent Palette means bespoke fragrances are easier than ever

We’re all familiar with the utter confusion that can entail when choosing a fragrance: whether it be a small boutique or a vast beauty hall, it becomes hard to differentiate bottles, let alone base notes. But Royal College of Art design graduate Kyugum Hwang has invented a way of differentiating something that often has few visual cues.

The Scent Palette works with the premise of the fragrance wheel: a way of mapping fragrance families in a neat diagram, divided into floral, oriental, woody and fresh. Unfortunately visual aids of this kind are often absent in retail, so Hwang has devised a way of using the diagram to create your own bespoke fragrance and more easily memorise the scent.

“Scent palette aims to make the experience for creating personalised perfume more emotionally intuitive by embracing the value of colour and shape as a method of communication”, says Hwang, who is interested in increasing user engagement in her work. Top, Middle and Base notes are placed on their own circles, with a bottle segment for each to differentiate note and colour to show scent. So when a scent from each circle is selected a complete perfume is formed, with a bottle to match.      

People are getting used to personalised products, and perfume should be no different. Niche fragrance brand Commodity, known for their unorthodox list of scents, devised a slightly different approach to letting customers concoct their own unique scent.