Imagine being able to take your fragrance on the go with you and to control the intensity throughout the day. Now imagine being able to pop those fragrance notes into your bag in a chic case the size of your keychain.
Imagine no more.
Capturé is a fragrance delivery concept designed for the L’Oréal Brandstorm 2026 competition by FIT Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing graduate Christine Lin ’26 and her Parsons School of Design teammates Britney Chen and Louis Lin—aka Team “Three Notes.” They are the first American team in 18 years to win Brandstorm.
Established in 1992, L’Oréal Brandstorm is a global innovation case competition that invites students and young people aged 18 to 30 to pitch disruptive business ideas and jumpstart their careers. In 2026, more than 380,000 young people from 64 countries registered to participate. In total 45 teams—135 participants in all—made it to the L’Oréal Brandstorm global finals in Paris, France. The top six teams advanced to the final to pitch their projects on stage at VivaTech Paris, Europe’s biggest startup and tech event. The Brandstorm prompt this year was “Craft the Future of Luxury Fragrance.”
Inspired by Listerine breath strips, which dissolve on the tongue, the Capturé fragrance strips would dissolve on the user’s skin. The strips would be housed in a recycled aluminum case, containing 60 strips of each note, for a total of 180 strips. Once applied to the skin, they would dissolve completely so there is no waste. Also, they would be alcohol-free and hydrating and therefore non-irritating for people with skin sensitivities.
“There’s so much more to a product than the scent, and that’s the user experience,” Lin explained. “We’re breaking down the fragrance pyramid, and giving consumers authorship of their own fragrance through their own experience.”
The fragrance they designed for the competition and its three component notes—one floral, one fresh aquatic and one with spice and depth and a slight sweetness to it—are designed so when one mixes them together they get a floral, fresh, and slightly spicy and sweet fragrance, but because they can control the intensity of each one depending on the consumer’s preference they can create something more floral-leaning or sweeter.
“In the [Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing] program, something that gets drilled into us is the difference between innovation and creation,” said Lin. “That was a really new way of thinking for me that was ultimately helpful in this project.”
The team will travel to L’Oréal Luxe headquarters in Paris from January through March of 2027 to explore the feasibility of the product and “stress test” it, in other words, everything that might happen if it were to be put into production to see whether it would be something viable. Afterward, they will pitch the idea to senior leadership.
“One of the most valuable parts of the experience was the opportunity to speak with so many experts across L’Oréal, each with their own area of expertise,” said Chen. “Having access to that kind of insight and perspective made the entire experience incredibly formative for me.”
“Brandstorm gave me the opportunity to see product development from a much broader perspective than I had experienced through design alone,” Louis Lin added. “I’ve had a lot of experience with the hands-on side of designing and producing physical products, but the competition made me really interested in understanding what happens before that stage…”
Applications for the 2027 Brandstorm competition are open at the Brandstorm website. Preregistration is currently live; the official 2027 mission will be released in early November 2026.