Artificial intelligence can dream up almost anything. But can AI tackle the most difficult task of all: visualize the scent of a perfume? Fragrances are notoriously difficult to describe with words. What will an AI model do with the scant descriptions companies use to sell their fragrances online? I chose Chanel No 5 for this challenge. The results surprised everybody.
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One of the worldโs most iconic fragrances is Chanel No 5. When it came out in 1921, it revolutionized the very idea of perfume.
Until then fragrances naturally smelled of plants and flowers people knew in real life. Scents were representations of things you could seek out and physically touch, should you so desire.
The composition the perfumer Ernest Beaux created for Coco Chanel was different. For the first time in history, he used an overdose of novel molecules that were recently synthesized in the lab โ aldehydes. These substances smelled like nothing you could know from your day-to-day experience. They were clean, cold, transparent, hot, crystal-clear, metallic, fantastic, and surreal.
The era of abstract perfumes began. And even if todayโs Chanel No 5 smells nothing like the 1921 original due to all the changes and reformulations it underwent in its 100+ years, it remains an iconic fragrance creation. Even people who have never used it recognize its name. Thanks to Chanelโs successful marketing, it has become a truly global brand.
Over the years, Chanel ran numerous No 5 ad campaigns with globally famous icons like Marilyn Monroe, Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Gisele Bรผndchen, Marion Cotillard and, currently, Margot Robbie.
But what if we take away the star power and focus on the scent itself? What would the smell of the perfume look like, imagined by AI? Since there are a million ways to describe it, I took the words of the brand itself as the basis for the prompts fed to AI models. The description from Chanelโs official website, the very sentences the company uses to sell the perfume in its online shop.
And since Chanel No 5 today is not one perfume but a family of fragrances, I tasked AI with creating images for several of its members โ Eau de Parfum, Eau de Toilette, Parfum, and the exorbitantly priced Parfum Grand Extrait.
The results should not be taken too seriously, as this project is nothing but a fun pastime. However, some of the images surprised everybody in our team as pretty good illustrations of the scentsโ concepts. See for yourself and vote for your favorites in the comment section below!
Chanel No 5 Eau de Toilette
When describing its No 5 edt to prospective buyers on the website, Chanel doesnโt say much. Only that itโs the essence of femininity, a warm and bright fragrance with a magnificent floral accord. It then lists ylang-ylang, neroli, aldehydes, vanilla, vetiver and sandalwood as notes.
In order to stop the AI engine from generating countless boring antique-looking perfume bottles, I anonymized the prompt, stripping it of any references to Chanel, the name No 5, or the fact that we are talking about a perfume. Here are the results.
No 5 Eau de Parfum
Again, the brand does not say much when talking about No 5 edp. Chanelโs website laconically mentions that edp shares the floral aldehyde signature with its parfum relative, and then goes on to list just four main ingredients: rose de mai, jasmine, aldehydes and vanilla.
To avoid boring images of perfume bottles, Iโve modified the prompt to concentrate on a more abstract illustration of the prompt (without mentioning Chanel, No 5 or reference to perfume). Here is what Midjourney dreamed up.
No 5 Parfum
The most iconic concentration of the famous scent, No 5 Parfum is the bottle that needs no introduction.
Itโs telling that regardless of how hard I tried to discourage the AI model from spitting out images of perfume bottles and work on a more abstract level, it kept producing flacons of various shapes and sizes.
A possible explanation is that Chanelโs description of No 5 Parfum was used for training the model and now it recognizes the text as a perfume ad copy even when the words pointing to perfume, fragrance, the brand and No 5 are omitted from the prompt. Midjourney even added a โ5โ to one of the images all by itself. This perfume has become part of the common knowledge base of our civilization.
When describing it in its online shop, Chanel goes into slightly more detail than with the edt and edp versions. There is the image of a bouquet of abstract flowers, talk of a formula with no less than 80 ingredients, and the pyramid progression starting with ylang-ylang, neroli, May rose, and jasmine, going all the way to sandalwood, bourbon vetiver and vanilla in the base. Finally, the website explains that the fragrance has no single dominant note and feels differently depending on the wearer.
A prompt modified to leave out the brand and the perfume name returned these results:
No 5 Parfum Grand Extrait
The grand dame of all Number Fives, the most luxurious, exclusive and expensive version of the scent. Something for collectors and fans of Chanel with deep pockets.
With its staggering price, Grand Extrait lends itself for the ultimate over-the-top design experiments. At the time of the writing, Chanel was offering the 55 numbered and hand-engraved pieces of the Baccarat edition in a lambskin box.
As usual with No 5, the brand is being very minimalist when describing the scent. After reading the short paragraph, one might even conclude that the elaborate bottles of Parfum Grand Extrait contain nothing but the โregularโ Parfum concentration. Not being the target audience floating on gilded clouds of cash, I didnโt have the pleasure of smelling the Grand Extrait yet, but I do hope it contains a juice thatโs more remarkable than the โParfumโ which is available to the masses for mere 245GBP.
Either way, letโs see what Midjourney makes of the anonymized description of the scent (no mentions of the brand, the perfume name, or the fact that the prompt is referring to a fragrance).
Takeaways
What has this little experiment shown us?
First, Chanel is very skimpy with the description of its perfumes. It makes sense, as No 5 probably doesnโt need an introduction. And people who buy it probably already know what it smells like (maybe even from their mothers or grandmothers), or do it not for the scent but for the aura and the legend that surrounds it.
Second, Midjourney isnโt easily tricked. Even with no mention of words like scent, perfume, fragrance, or references to Chanel and No 5 it is able to decode that whatโs asked of it denotes a fragrance. Even my redacted and modified prompts predominantly female characters and flowers, in many cases even outright perfume bottles.
Third, there doesnโt appear to be a discernible theme pertaining to each version of the perfume. Itโs a bit of a pity, but not surprising โ Chanelโs descriptions of various No 5 products really donโt differ that much.
And finally, as different as the generated images appear, all of them are (surprisingly) beautiful. And could easily be used as poetic perfume visuals.
Leave a comment and tell me which images you liked most!
Perfume expert and founder of Niche Fragrance Discovery Agency Perfumestry, Yana, is an industry expert with years of experience in discovering and analyzing trends in the high-end fragrance market segment. She supports new brands in expanding their market presence and PR work. Yana shares her passion for olfactory culture at the weekly meetings of the Berlin Perfume Club, which she co-founded.
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