Meet Jasmina Aganovic who has created a perfume brand from extinct flowers. Her company, Future Society, is perfuming the air with surprising scents and a championing a  mission to  build the future of beauty through biology.

How did you come up with the idea to recreate extinct flowers for a beauty brand?

This is an idea started in multiple places, and I played a role in a portion of it. I was close contacts with several people at the biotech company Gingko Bioworks. Their company has a portion of their culture that is excited and inspired by Jurassic Park. In conversation with some people in the fragrance industry, one of which would end up on our Board of Directors, the idea of a resurrecting the smell of extinct plants came up . Fast forward a few years and they tried to make this a reality . Their creative director at the time, Christina Agapakis, had started working together with the Harvard herbaria to see if they could sequence the DNA of some of their preserved specimens. They ended up showcasing this work in some prominent museums around the world. I eventually joined the Ginkgo Bioworks team and started to understand more about the science that had been done. Coming from the beauty industry and knowing the power of fragrance and the use of storytelling, I became excited at the opportunity to tell an entirely new story that was uniquely made possible due to science. This is what led to the idea of launching this line of fragrances. With the support of the team at Ginkgo and our own connections in the fragrance industry, we were able to bring artistry to the science which culminated in six beautiful fragrances that have won multiple awards

How did your training as a biologist at MIT come into play?

Well, it might be tempting to paint a story of exactly how my technical training translated to this. I think the more important thing I carried from MIT was the way of thinking that the university encouraged. MIT is infamous for their extremely open, ended problem sets, and exam structure. In fact, many of our exams were open Internet. What we were graded on was not so much whether we got the right answer, but instead about how we thought about, framing the problem, and carving a path to a potential solution. This environment encourages more creative, thinking in my opinion, which throughout my career has enabled me to connect seemingly desperate concepts and to use creativity in a way to bring something new to my industry.

Can you tell us about the perfumers and the process of creating the scents?

We worked together with three different perfumers. Working with multiple was important to us because it was critical to showcase that there was no singular “right” fragrance. The whole point of these fragrances was not to create an exact replica, but rather to enable the stories of these flowers to live on and to spark a provocative conversation about our relationship with nature.

The human element, specifically the perfumer’s way of thinking, and their inspiration, was important to demonstrate here in part because the human relationship with nature is an important one. We depend on one another. And just as we have had a negative impact resulting in the extinction of some species, we have also had positive impacts on our environment and should increasingly focus on how we can continue to do so.

Some of the perfumers wanted to tell the story of extinction from the perspective of the Earth, others wanted to replicate the environment that the flower grew in at the time, while another perfumer was more exacting in her approach.

Can you walk us through the six scents and give us a sentence about their stories?

Invisible woods is a fragrance based off of an extinct flower from India. This flower grew in a forest area that had alternating droughts and floods. It is known throughout history to have disappeared and reappeared but had not been seen in 80 years. 

Reclaimed flame is a fragrance based off a flower from South Africa that relied on wildfires to spread its seed. However, with colonization indigenous practices were discouraged, and the reduced use of wildfires resulted in the loss of this flower.

Haunted rose is based off also a flower from South Africa. This flower was known to have survived many of the challenging conditions in this region, from drought to fires to grazing animals. But ultimately it was not able to withstand the introduction of new plant species which competed with its root structure and led to the loss of this flower.

Grassland opera is a fragrance based off a flower that grew on rock Island in the middle of the fall of the Ohio in the Kentucky area. This flower was reliant on the Buffalo migration pattern to be able to reproduce through its roots. However, as the buffalo migration pattern began to change, this flower was not able to reproduce and ultimately has not been seen since the late 1800s.

Solar canopy is a fragrance based off a flower from Hawaii. This flower was known as the mountain hibiscus of Hawaii, and it was reliant on a species of bird to be able to pollinate. However, logging practices diminished the environment of the bird which minimized the pollination of this flower, which has now been lost.

Floating forest is a fragrance based off a flower from Borneo. This flower grew on a tall, towering tree in the rainforest, which was ultimately cut down to make way for palm plantations.

Do you have a favorite Future Society scent?

 All the sense are special to me for different reasons. Like many people, I wear different fragrances based on my mood or the setting. However, haunted Rose has always been special to me. I cannot say that I wear it every day though, but it always holds a special place in my heart.

What are your plans for the future for Future Society?

 Future society is focused on reimagining fragrance through the lens of biology. You will continue to see us, tell imaginative stories through fragrance, and cultivate a relationship with Personal scent where it is one that is nurtured.

What do you hope to perfume the planet with?

Hope and optimism for the future.

Read more of our interviews with tastemakers and leaders in our Voices section!