Capturing the sensory and emotional dynamics of cosmetic creams during usage: A temporal dominance approach

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between sensory and emotional responses during product application, using the Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) and the Temporal Dominance of Emotions (TDE) to capture the temporal evolution of sensory properties and emotions during the use of facial creams. A preliminary study was conducted (Study A) carrying out 20 qualitative interviews following the EmoSemio product-specific questionnaire protocol to identify 11 sensory attributes for the TDS assessment and 11 emotional attributes for the TDE test. The main study (Study B) was conducted on 100 women who regularly use facial creams evaluating five commercially available moisturizing face creams. The TDS and TDE evaluations spanned from the initial visual and olfactory assessments to cream application and post-application phases. TDS and TDE curves, and the sensory-emotional trajectories revealed differences between products based on their dominant sensory attributes and emotions. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of TDS and TDE methods to describe the evolution of sensory properties and emotions elicited by cosmetic creams during a single usage, suggesting their potential application to other product categories.