Mercedes-Benz Presents the Air-Balance Package– Can a Car Be as Personal as Your Favorite Perfume?

What do you think when you say the word “luxury?” As special as this word can be for most people, one must agree that it is usually associated with all things that elevate our life to a higher state of comfort, elegance, social status or wellness. Cars are often included ... Being so, what could ever be more luxurious than riding a Mercedes-Benz S-Class vehicle? Well, riding this car while breathing purified fragranced air could be an exceeding experience. And what if you could personalise this fragranced air by making it match your own perfume? Is that possible? It is now.

Marc vom Ende, Brian Pera from I Smell Therefore I am, Helder Suffenplan of Scentury, Barbara Herman of Yesterday Perfume and Miguel Matos of Fragrantica

Fragrance market expert Bodo Kubartz, Barbara Herman and Miguel Matos

Last week there was a special  presentation of the Mercedes-Benz revolutionary fragrance technology called Air-Balance Package. This is a luxury gadget that comes as an extra option when buying an S-Class Mercedes car, but it will expand to other lines and even, in the future, to the Smart range. The Air-Balance Package is basically a glass flacon full of a special perfume that you set into a machine that is located in the glove compartment. It is connected to the airflow tubes so the scent can be delivered inside the car through the ventilation system. There are four high-quality fragrances to choose from, designed to suit your personal preferences and mood. The intensity of the fragrance can be adjusted in three stages and the quality of the air can also be enhanced by ionizing the oxygen and filtering the outside air.

This is all very exciting news and the design of this device is surely glamorous, but for me the most interesting is the innovation of personalizing the interior of the car with your own fragrance. Let's say you are the kind of person that sticks to a perfume and you are recognized everywhere by the way you smell. If you have a signature fragrance, wouldn't you want to extend that personal statement to your car? Make it your own in a way that even with your eyes closed you know it's your space, your personality, an extension of yourself? Well, now that is possible, because you can fill the flacon of the Air-Balance package with your personal signature perfume and change it whenever you desire.

Henderson Suffenplan, Barbara Herman, Miguel Matos, Bodo Kubartz and Sabine Engelhardt

The presentation which took place in  Berlin, the German capital had a team of experts that conceived this novelty, and among them was Sabine Engelhardt, who works as a Futurologist at Daimler AG and the person who came up with this idea. A very intelligent and kind woman with a wonderful sense of humour, Sabine has a way of presenting herself and speaking about her concerns that engaged all af us at the Mercedes-Benz meeting. Sabine is a passionate reseacher on the subject of scent and culture and she knows that scent is an intrinsic part of an individual expression of luxury. 17 years ago she was trying to convince the designers at Mercedes-Benz that scent could be a part of the design concept of their high-end, state of the art cars. “If we want to have a scent in the car and we are a luxury brand, so what is the most luxurious thing of them all regarding scent? While trying to answer this question we thought about two things: whatever it was going to be, it had to be liquid and it had to have a glass flacon. This device is only scented air that is brought to you by the ventilation system: quite a simple concept. We have an air flow that goes over the perfume and takes the molecules with it until it reaches you. But I asked myself, is this possible? What happens to the perfume if there is a constant flow of air above it? What about the temperature? Can I use any fragrance? We were having these discussions over the years,” explained the futurologist.

Martin Bremer, Senior Manager Design, Trim and Colour

The idea that Sabine started to work on was immediately accepted among the designers and engineers of the car manufacturer. “I was supportive since the beginning,” says Martin Bremer, Senior Manager Design, Trim and Colour. “The sensual experience becomes more and more obvious with this technology.” But in terms of engineering and even fragrance conception, there were a lot of factors to develop, like mechanisms and even matters related to conservation of the liquid in very high and low temperatures that ca be found inside a car.

While the fragrances Mercedes-Benz developed are oil-based and especially formulated for this usage, the regular perfumes we get at the perfume store do not have the ability of translating perfectly in this system. So you might smell a different thing. Of course, one thing is the scent on your skin, another completely different one is a perfume carried by the ventilation airflow inside the car. I would say that when using a regular perfume, all you can smell from the Air-Balance package are top notes. However, if you use the specially designed fragrances, you will get a more complete experience since they have a regular olfactive pyramid that comes out together. Marc Vom Ende is the perfumer from Symrise who created the four Mercedes-Benz fragrances. As he explains, “these kind of layers in the fragrance are related to the differences in the volatility of materials. You can still say that there are top notes or basenotes, even though in this system, you will get a complete complex that comes out all at once.”

Marc Vom Ende, the perfumer

While creating the fragrances, Sabine was feeding Marc Vom Ende with all sorts of elements she envisioned smelling inside the car. There was a different inspiration for each one of the perfumes. “The one that will come inside all cars is Freeside Mood. It is very minty and citric. It's a fresh and clean fragrance which is meant to please everyone. It's something that isn't going to hurt anyone. It's not rough or disturbing. The other ones have more character and make a statement,” stated Marc Vom Ende. He also confessed that Nightlife Mood is very personal and emotional for him. “It's my favorite. There was an idea of sitting in a stylish bar with dark wood and a fireplace, drinking a nice glass of cognac. Sports Mood tries do depict the experience of being in nature, like in a walk or jogging at the Tiergarten in Berlin. I received a box of nettles from Sabine so I could get the idea of what she wanted this fragrance to be. There is a smell of linden inside and it reminds me of the streets in Berlin where you have lots of linden trees. For Downtown Mood I worked with transparent floral notes, musky notes. There is also an interesting metallic note that can be edgy and adds character.”

Here are the four fragrances as presented by Mercedes-Benz for the S-Class vehicles. More fragrances will be added in the future.

DOWNTOWN MOOD

Fragrance family: floriental, musk, fruity
Transparent, flowery combination of jasmine and lilac, with warm undertones of musk, ambergris and a cashmere note. Top notes include magnolia and rosewood for freshness, peach for softness and an intriguing metallic effect.

NIGHTLIFE MOOD

Fragrance family: woody, oriental, amber
Enriched with complementary woody notes that give the perfume body. Cool spices such as cardamom and pink pepper give a freshness to the top notes. And a hint of a particular aldehyde balance adds a subtle cognac effect. In the base notes the wood tones combine with frankincense, ambergris and vanilla to create a soft, silky elegance.

SPORTS MOOD

Fragrance family: green, flowery, citrus
This perfume is based on a harmony of lime tree blossom and fresh, light-green leaves. The lime tree blossom at the heart of the perfume is surrounded by light, flowery tones such as magnolia, gardenia and violet. The green top notes take their freshness and lightness from aspects of grapefruit and watermelon, while the base notes have a mossy nuance.

FREESIDE MOOD

Fragrance family: citrus, flowery, tea
Citrus elements combine with tea at the heart of this perfume, which is rounded off elegantly with flowery top notes. The base notes include hints of cedar, patchouli and ambergris.

The Air-Balance Package is an optional extra you can get when you buy an S-Class Mercedes-Benz. It costs around 350€ and it comes with one 15 ml flacon of Freeside Mood fragrance. Each flacon comes in 15 ml and lasts 1500 hours for the price of 59€. When you purchase this technology you also get a sample pack with all four fragrances.

Photographer: Heiko Schulze for Mercedes-Benz