Understanding consumer preferences and behavior is a major goal of consumer-oriented companies. The application of neuroscience to this goal is a promising avenue for companies. Previously, we observed a positive correlation during actual cosmetic use between the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity, measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and the associated willingness-to-pay (WTP) values. However, we were unable to find any consistent group differences in the right dlPFC between different powdery foundations. Thus, the main objective of this study was to replicate the previous study and in addition, we aimed to refine the method of the previous study to increase the chance that a difference in valuation between different products can be detected. Twenty-five frequent lipstick using females were asked to apply six different lipsticks to their lips and to record how much they were willing to pay. To maximize the variation of the subjective experience of the products and the associated brain activity, the most preferred color lipstick and a less preferred color lipstick were chosen for each participant, and each color of lipstick had three different textures (Lo, Mid, and Hi). The time series was analyzed with the general linear model (GLM) and the correlation between the right dlPFC beta scores for the lipsticks and their respective WTP values conducted for each participant. This revealed a significant positive correlation and replicated our previous study. Surprisingly, the lipstick color and the texture manipulations did not result in any consistent differences in WTP and similarly no consistent group differences in brain activations. This study replicates our previous study extending it to a different type of cosmetic. The right dlPFC activity during the use of cosmetics may be a potential brain-based personalization or product selection process biomarker.

Emotions can be communicated in social contexts through chemosignals contained in human body odors. The transmission of positive emotions via these signals has received little interest in past research focused mainly on negative emotional transmission. Furthermore, how the use of perfumed products might modulate this transmission remains poorly understood. To investigate human positive chemical communication, we explored the autonomic, verbal, and behavioral responses of receivers exposed to body odors of donors having undergone a within-subject positive or neutral mood induction procedure. These responses were compared with those obtained after exposure to the same body odors with added fragrance. Our findings suggest that positive emotions can be transmitted through body odor. They not only induced modifications at the physiological (heart rate) and verbal levels (perceived intensity and familiarity) but also at the behavioral level, with an improved performance on creativity tasks. Perfume did not modulate the physiological effects and had a synergistic effect on the positive body odor ratings (increased perceived differences between the neutral and positive body odor).