If you haven’t heard, we recently launched OLLY Mood + Skin, a personal care collection meant to turn your shower into a mood-enhancing self-care ritual.
The Goods Inside
- Why we went a step further and formulated Mood + Skin with neuro-signaling fragrances
- The scientific study that proved Mood + Skin delivers mood support
- What each scent does for your mood
Launching body care just made sense to us, considering any wellness routine is easier when it fits seamlessly into your busy day—like during your shower. Whether you have 5 minutes or 50, Mood + Skin makes the most out of that time with a feel-good shower routine that repairs skin and transforms your mood, because it’s formulated with clinically proven skincare ingredients and functional fragrances that don’t just smell good, but influence your mood.
Scents and Emotion
Scent is powerful. How often have we smelled something, only to feel a vivid reaction, however good or bad, from an otherwise innocuous fragrance?
This isn’t a coincidence but a feature of our anatomy, thanks to our brain. Smell has a direct impact on our emotions since our noses are hardwired to the limbic system, the part of the brain that—you guessed it—governs emotions, amongst other functions like memory and behavior.1 So when you catch a whiff of something, that signal exchange between your nose and your brain is instant, meaning your reaction to whatever you’re smelling is as well.
To make sure you’re actually getting that mood shift, we formulated our collection with neuro-signaling fragrances to help transform the vibe so you can feel calmer, brighter, renewed or revived.
A (Super Simplified) Overview of Neuro-Signaling Fragrances
What are neuro-signaling fragrances, exactly?
“Essentially, it’s a cutting-edge category of what we call ‘functional fragrances2’ ” said Mike Brennan, Head of Skin Cleansing, Research & Development (R&D) North America.
Now to be clear, technically, all fragrances can be perceived as neuro-signaling fragrances by definition of how your sense of smell works (cause your brain has to process it), so from here on out we’ll refer to our Mood + Skin scents as neuro-fragrances, as they were inspired by and proven with neuroscience.
To put it (super) simply, neuro-fragrances impact your limbic system, AKA the brain’s emotional center, to influence how you feel. Because that nose-to-brain exchange impacts that center directly, your brain releases neurotransmitters that can sway your mood and recall memories right as you smell something.
To put it (super) simply, neuro‑fragrances impact your limbic system, AKA the brain’s emotional center, to influence how you feel.
Mike and his team—which also includes perfumers—worked diligently on Mood + Skin from the ground up, overseeing formulations and designing scents so that people would not only enjoy the fragrances, but felt the mood shift each Mood + Skin product was supposed to deliver.
“All the fragrances were bespoke for OLLY and designed for a specific need state benefit,” he said.
And because they’re overachievers, they tapped the Sensory Perception & Neuroscience team at Unilever to prove that our Mood + Skin fragrances really do what they say.
“We want a specific desired effect with a specific fragrance... That’s why neuro-signaling is an important part of Mood + Skin, it plays a role in the bigger picture of delivering functional, holistic wellness.”
Mike Brennan, Head of Skin Cleansing, Research & Development
The Independent Study
But before we get into that, some more context about your brain.
Your brain emits patterns of electrical activity—called waves—that can be recorded and observed through electroencephalograms (EEG), which projects those charges as graphs or waves. After decades of research, we’ve come to understand that certain brain waves, or frequency bands, are associated with different mental states.3
It’s undeniably cool to be able to observe brain activity, but proving that Mood + Skin scents support a mood shift wasn’t as simple as putting an EEG headset on someone and watching a screen. This is where the Sensory Perception & Neuroscience team—led by Timo Giesbrecht—came in with their expertise.
The Sensory Perception & Neuroscience team designed a scientific study that would use EEG methods to measure and anchor emotional responses to the Mood + Skin scents the R&D team had developed. They also partnered with an unaffiliated research agency to finetune the study to be as objective as they could.
The study monitored 45 women, ages 18-35, in 3 different major U.S. cities over the course of 2 days as they smelled and reacted to Mood + Skin scents.
Each participant went through 2 sessions to test fragrances and concluded their final day with:
- A self-report questionnaire about the fragrances
- What they recalled about them
- How they felt when smelling them
Participants wore an Emotive EEG headset that uses wet electrodes (for better scalp coverage, if you were curious) throughout the study to capture baseline, brain wave activity, and any changes in frequency bands.
Sessions would start with each participant establishing baseline by sitting still for three minutes. They would then smell a Mood + Skin fragrance for two minutes, take one minute to reset by smelling nothing, and then move onto the next. All sessions ended with participants smelling “clean air.”
To avoid influencing people, fragrances were presented in a randomized order for each session and presented “blind” in plain, unmarked and unbranded glass jars.
The Results
Any scientific study starts with a hypothesis and ends with a conclusion based on findings—so to recap the team’s hard work, this is what they determined.
The EEG measurements, reinforced by the results of the participants’ self-reports, confirmed that OLLY Mood + Skin fragrances not only affect your mood, but help shift it towards the state each scent is supposed to make you feel.
“It was like the fragrances work almost exactly as their desired benefits should work.”
Jeremy Shen, Senior Manager, Sensory Perception & Neuroscience
“I was surprised at how neatly the two clusters of fragrances fit the brain activity we thought they would,” Timo said. “Which tells us that the [R&D] team did a really good job designing the fragrances.”
The Mood + Skin Fragrances
So now that we’ve gone into the science behind the Mood + Skin collection fragrances and their proven effect on your mood, here’s a simpler breakdown of what each of our scents do for your mood.
Calm Body Wash and Serum
The Scent: Comforting Eucalyptus Amber, with notes of Bergamot, Geranium, and Vetiver.
The Effect: Soothes and calms so you feel more grounded.
Renew Body Wash and Serum
The Scent: Relaxing Jasmine Bergamot, with notes of Apple, Rose, and Green Moss.
The Effect: Unwinds your mind so you can relax and drift off.
Bright Body Wash and Scrub
The Scent: Radiant Citrus Currant, with notes of Pear, Gardenia, and Sandalwood.
The Effect: Invigorates and uplifts so you feel brighter and awake.
Revive Body Wash and Scrub
The Scent: Refreshing Neroli Dew, with notes of Tuberose, Coconut, and Sandalwood.
The Effect: Rejuvenates your mood so you feel revitalized and fresh.
Conclusion
The Mood + Skin collection is body care that brings both skincare benefits and mood support. The expert formulation of both clinically proven skincare ingredients and neuro-fragrances delivers both the delight and the science you’ve come to know and expect from us.
References
1. Sullivan, R. M., Wilson, D. A., Ravel, N., & Mouly, A.-M. (2015). Olfactory Memory Networks: from Emotional Learning to Social Behaviors. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 9(36). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00036 - New Window
2. Scent with Purpose: The Rise of Functional Fragrances. (2025). Thglabs.com. https://www.thglabs.com/resources/blog/scent-with-purpose - New Window
3. Brain waves. (n.d.). Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience - Master the Mind. https://nin.nl/about-the-brain/brain-waves/ - New Window
The Goods Inside
- Why we went a step further and formulated Mood + Skin with neuro-signaling fragrances
- The scientific study that proved Mood + Skin delivers mood support
- What each scent does for your mood
