Barcelona Olfaction Week Held With More Than 2000 International Participants
Barcelona has hosted the Barcelona Olfaction Week (BOW) from June 29 to July 4, with the participation of 2,000 professionals from 16 countries. The event, initially planned as a series of face-to-face activities that should have been held in May, has been carried out mostly online. Even so, it has fulfilled its mission of promoting the world of perfumery, olfactory science and the culture of beauty and its special historical interrelation with Barcelona, the region of Maresme and the Mediterranean coast.
Perfumery workshops, virtual events on digital technology for retail in the beauty sector, the presentation of studies on sensoriality, workshops on logistics or regulation in perfumery, keynote presentations and a round table with experts in synesthesia sensorial and pairing of perfume with areas such as music, art or gastronomy have been organised over the week.. The II Olfaction Science Congress (Barcelona Olfaction Congress) stands out for its high international participation.
Furthermore, thanks to the historical collaboration of the Beauty Cluster Barcelona with Ainea Perfums and the Teià City Council, the awards ceremony of the III International Perfumery Contest (Mouillette d'Argent) has been held in person, with strict safety and health measures. This delivery takes place, since 2018, within the framework of the Maridatge dels Sentits at Teià. A total of 65 perfume creatives from 15 countries have entered the contest in this edition, of which 39 have managed to overcome the international limitations derived from the pandemic and send their 48 creations to the jury in charge of evaluating them. The perfumes each year must be around a specific note, with pepper being the protagonist in 2019. The jury award winning perfumer, chaired by the master perfumer D. Rosendo Mateu, has been Pepper & Pear by Julia Rodríguez Pastor. The perfume chosen by the general public, who have been able to smell the perfumes in different cultural spaces in Teià or shops in Barcelona such as Las Topettes or Isidro Cosmetics Shop, has been Agartha by Sandra Lucas Haro. The jury was made up of master perfumers, sommeliers, creatives, artists and specialised media such as Beautyprof.
The president of the jury also announced during the gala the olfactory note of the 2021 edition of the contest : the violet.
In addition, within the framework of the BOW, prizes were awarded to students from different design and art centers who, within the “Creative Talent and Company” program of the Generalitat's Department of Education. The students have designed the best packaging for the winning perfumes of the contest and three other challenges launched by the organisation of the Maridatge dels Sentits.
Also, within the framework of the BOW, the II NASEVO International Prize for plastic artists was presented, promoted by the Ernesto Ventós Foundation and which, in this edition, had an enormously emotional character due to the death in early 2020 of the master perfumer and art collector Mr. Ernesto Ventós.
According to Ivan Borrego, manager of the Beauty Cluster: “Barcelona Olfaction Week has allowed the perfumery sector to project itself, even in complex times in which we have been forced to reinvent ourselves. The BOW was born naturally, as the great 'party' of the perfume industry, of creativity and innovation in beauty. We are convinced that we have only just begun a journey full of opportunities to project the universe of perfume, the sensorial, floral and olfactory tradition of the Mediterranean and - why not - the capacity of a clearly exporting industry with roots in Barcelona. We hope to count on the collaboration of the entire perfumery industry in 2021 in an event in which no lover of perfume can miss. ”
Irene Gisbert, founder of Ainea Perfums and one of the promoters of the BOW highlights that: ‘One more year we promote creativity and the participation of the great fragrance houses but also of young people so that they fall in love with perfumery. Through the contest around 40 creatives from around the world have created a fragrance for this event. Also, students from different educational centers have imagined and designed products for our sector, exploiting its full creative potential and discovering, in many cases for the first time, the world of perfume. ”
In the 2020 edition, the BOW has been sponsored by Eurofragance, Iberchem, Lluch Essence, Cosmo Fragrances, Quadpack Group and Rafesa. Collaborating entities of the event have been: International Perfume Foundation (France), Cosmetic Valley (France), Global Cosmetics Cluster (International), AMAF - Mediterranean Fragrance Association, AEFAA - Spanish Association of Food Fragrances and Aromas (Spain) and SEQC - Spanish Society of Cosmetic Chemists. Has been media partners of BOW: Ventas de Perfumería y Cosmética, Perfumer&Flavorist and NEZ. The BOW has counted with the additional Support of 200 companies associated with the Beauty Cluster that have allowed the event to be promoted nationally and internationally.
ABOUT THE BEAUTY CLUSTER BARCELONA
The Beauty Cluster Barcelona is a transversal private cluster of the beauty sector made up of 200 Spanish companies from the entire value chain. Established in 2014, the association works to boost the sector's competitiveness through innovation, internationalisation, networking and training. It has its own B2B marketplace. It holds the international quality accreditation in Gold Label cluster management, the highest recognition in this field. She is the founder of the first international network of cosmetic clusters (Global Cosmetics Cluster) and the first business training entity in the beauty industry: Beauty Business School.
