Smelling Is Believing: Engineering Fragrance Microcapsule Membrane Properties to Boost Performance

Fragrance delivery systems and technologies are incorporated into many consumer products in order to enhance the sensorial experience.  In an effort to engineer substantive microcapsules with optimized fragrance microcapsule-substrate interactions and burst release, we program large physical deformations into the capsule geometry of stable, oil-loaded microcapsules during the interfacial polymerization process.  The deformations are tuned by modulating the mechanical properties of the microcapsule membranes in 3D and 2D, and these mechanical differences are successfully probed by imaging studies and interfacial rheometry. The capsule interaction area is enhanced to promote adhesion onto targeted substrates such as glass, hair, skin and fabric.   Quantitative deposition tests and sensory trials substantiate the benefits of modulating and measuring microcapsule membrane properties and morphology in a scalable, industrially-relevant process while exploiting the consumer product formulation-independent physical parameters of our system.