Our expert explains how LUX’s bestselling Magical Orchid shower gel has a fragrance that is proven in consumer tests to last for 30 hours and can make women feel more confident.
LUX Magical Orchid shower gel is the brand’s bestselling bodywash in China, its biggest liquids market
The product is designed with a unique fragrance exclusively created for LUX bodywash and lasts for up to 30 hours
Scientific research with world-leading experts also proves the fragrance can make women feel more confident
LUX celebrates its 100th anniversary this year – and the cleansing brand famed for its captivating fragrances remains as innovative as ever.

One example of how LUX continues to evolve is its Magical Orchid shower gel. The brand launched this bodywash in 2014 and relaunched it in 2024 with a never-before-seen 30-hour long-lasting fragrance claim. In the past decade, it has become LUX’s most popular product in China – the brand’s largest liquids market.

Simone Sethna, Global Head of R&D for LUX. Simone is smiling at the camera. She has long dark hair and dark eyes.
Simone Sethna, Global Head of R&D for LUX
The irresistible floral scent is a key benefit for consumers. But what makes Magical Orchid truly unique is its long-lasting fragrance, proven to last for up to 30 hours.[a]

And that’s not all. A new neuroscience-based study also reveals that this fragrance can make users feel more confident.

Simone Sethna, Global Head of R&D for LUX, explains our consumer insights and the pioneering science behind this bestselling bodywash.

Unilever’s innovations are always underpinned by strong consumer data. Simone, can you share some of the insights that led to LUX making a long-lasting fragrance shower gel?
An Ipsos Habits & Attitude Study looking at consumers in China in 2021 revealed that 75% of respondents took a shower at night, while just 10% had a morning shower.

In China, the potency of fragrance is highly important to consumers, who gauge the effectiveness of a bodywash’s fragrance by the in-use bloom and the residual smell on their skin when they wake up in the morning.

In a seven-day home-use test conducted in China by Ipsos, more than 70% of consumers agreed that the Magical Orchid shower gel fragrance lasted 30 hours after use.

’30’ written in large purple numbers made from purple petals. Text reads ’30 hour long-lasting fragrance’
How does the fragrance last, even after the shower gel is washed off?
Our R&D teams have explored at length how to make a fragrance last longer on skin. LUX Magical Orchid shower gel has been designed with the right formulation and a scent that contains highly substantive large fragrance molecules, which help with its ultra long-lasting performance.

These ‘heavier’ components are designed to remain on the skin for longer than typical fragrance ingredients, and the art is in combining the right chassis with the perfect fragrance.

The fragrance also contains ethically sourced, 100% natural Orpur-certified essential oils, a label only awarded by our perfume partner Givaudan to their most exceptional ingredients.

They are blended with a mix of highly concentrated, luxurious fragrance notes, including the product’s signature nature-identical black orchid note, which is based on fragrance technology that captures the essence of the floral fragrance without damaging the flower itself.

A picture of a purple orchid, representing LUX Magical Orchid, the best selling LUX shower gel in China.
As well as the long-lasting fragrance, an independent neuroscience-based study also showed fascinating results around the confidence-boosting effects of this scent. Please tell us more.
Olfaction – our sense of smell – has a strong impact on how we feel as its anatomical pathway is unique. It can directly access limbic (emotional) brain regions without passing through other relay structures first. No other sensory modality has the same ‘direct’ access pathway in the brain.

In research conducted with world-leading neuroscience experts at the University of Liverpool, we were able to measure how female brain responses are boosted in the presence of the LUX Magical Orchid shower gel fragrance within 100 milliseconds. That’s about the same speed as the blink of an eye – well before conscious processing is possible.

Using medical-grade electroencephalography (EEG) tests to capture electrical signals directly from the brain with millisecond precision (through a net of 128 sensors on the scalp), scientists showed that participants’ brains responded differently, and in a more positive way, to photographs of themselves and others in the presence of the LUX fragrance (versus clean air).

When they smelled LUX Magical Orchid bodywash, early visual processing in the frontal brain was boosted. This type of reaction had previously been observed when test subjects looked at faces considered to be attractive, indicating a more positive response and greater confidence about their own appearance.

The researchers at the University of Liverpool have never seen any other fragrance behave like this. It’s no wonder, therefore, that Magical Orchid is LUX’s bestselling scent globally.

Read full details about the study in this paper on ScienceDirect.com

[a]
Unilever consumer test data, in which 73% of consumers agree that this bodywash fragrance lingers on their skin for 30 hours after use.

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