Symrise Bets on Singapore Hub to Speed Asian Fragrance Development

Symrise has opened a Scent Creative Center in Singapore, concentrating fragrance creation, evaluation and consumer insight in a market where global fragrance suppliers are competing to shorten product-development cycles. The October 13 opening is part of a broader site expansion that also places a Global Skin Cleansing Center of Excellence in Singapore, according to Symrise. An adjacent innovation center is planned for the first quarter of 2027.

For the German ingredients supplier, the investment is operational infrastructure for B2B customers in personal care, home care and fine fragrance. Teams can assess scents in recreated bathrooms, hair salons and laundry rooms, bringing perfumers, formulators and consumer researchers closer to the customer brief. Symrise is also linking the site to its Care & Wellness and Taste, Nutrition & Health capabilities, extending the company’s ONE Symrise reorganization into its physical development network.

Cleansing is central to the commercial case. Symrise cites a €38.9 billion global skin-cleansing market, including €12.1 billion in Asia-Pacific, based on Euromonitor data. The Singapore competence center will focus on bar soaps, shower gels, hand wash and emerging formats. That places the project in high-volume household and personal-care categories where a fragrance has to perform through use, storage and wash cycles, alongside the prestige-fragrance work that draws more public attention.

The site arrives as Scent & Care seeks to improve momentum. In Symrise’s first-half 2026 report, the division reported flat organic growth, while reported revenue fell 1.7% to €1.009 billion and its adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 17.7% from 18.6%. Consumer Fragrances and Oral Care grew at a mid-single-digit organic rate, while Fine Fragrances declined slightly. Asia-Pacific fragrance sales, however, posted low-double-digit growth.

Singapore is already a developed competitive cluster. Givaudan opened a regional Fragrance Creative Centre and production hub there in 2015, while IFF has operated a large innovation center in the city since 2022. Symrise also previously listed Singapore among its fragrance division’s creative locations, making this launch an expansion and integration of capabilities rather than an entirely new market entry. The company did not disclose capital expenditure, site size or a hiring target, despite saying it has invested more than €80 million in Singapore over the past decade. The practical test will come in the simulated laundry room, where teams can evaluate a scent from the opening of a washing machine through dried laundry stored for two weeks.