Fragrance Inspired by Pantone’s Colour of the Year
Published 21 January 2025
Dutch ingredients company DSM-Firmenich has partnered with global colour system Pantone to create a fragrance inspired by Mocha Mousse – the latter’s Colour of the Year for 2025. The collaboration enables translating emotional, multisensory taste experiences into fragrance via a warm and nurturing gourmand impression, evoking comfort and indulgence.
“Underpinned by our desire for everyday pleasures, Mocha Mousse expresses a level of thoughtful indulgence,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of Pantone Color Institute. “Sophisticated and lush, yet at the same time an unpretentious classic [...] Mocha Mousse extends our perceptions of the browns from being humble and grounded to embrace aspirational and luxe.”
The scent embodies an intense yet velvety sensuality where luxurious comfort meets seduction. It includes notes of coffee bean, chocolate, salted peanut, vanilla and dark woods that capture the rich and creamy qualities of Mocha Mousse. Leather and saffron also feature, fusing opulence and earthiness with an instant craving for sweet treats.
Beyond this fragrance, DSM-Firmenich developed seven additional Mocha Mousse-inspired fragrances across various formats, such as candles, body wash, fabric conditioner and hair mist.
As explored in Fragrance Projections 25-27, new fragrance narratives are coming through with a particular focus on neo-gourmand scents, offering a softer, more sophisticated and complex take on ‘edible’, delicious confectionery-inspired fragrances that especially resonate with Gen Zers.
Colour-driven fragrances are also emerging and elevating the perfume market, appealing to consumers desiring more sensory fragrance experiences. See our Spring/Summer 2026 Beauty Direction Quirk, where we highlight playful perfume brands, such as UK-based Bleu Nour, which translates colours into scents, inspired by its founder’s rare condition of synaesthesia (experiencing multiple senses simultaneously, or having one sense trigger an unusual response in another; for example, seeing colours as an olfactory response).