A Beautiful Nose Job — Inside the World of Signature Scenting and Houston Real Estate Power Hines’ Push to Bring It Into the Office

Smell may be the most underrated of the senses, as taken for granted as Ringo on the Beatles. Or the amuse bouche in a lavish tasting menu. But high-end resorts and hotels realized what grandmas knew long ago — that scent keys so many of our memories. The best hotels and luxury stores in the world latched onto signature scenting, creating fragrances that visitors would remember and, in some cases, even come to love.

Now Hines is bringing signature scenting to the world of the office and residential living. The Houston-headquartered real estate giant developed its own scent and is using it more and more of its office and residential towers.

“It’s a whole new world that I really didn’t know much about, that now I’m fascinated with,” Whitney Burns, Hines’ senior vice president of Global Client Strategy, says. “And it makes sense.”

Burns laughs. “There’s so many good puns,” she says. There is also a world of science behind it.

“Olfactory senses are our strongest memory makers,” notes Burns, who leads the team that came up with Hines’ own signature scent. “It’s so true. You smell a certain smell and it takes you back to wherever. Realtors, the old adage that they bake cookies for open houses.”

Sweet smelling cookies wafting through a house are one thing, but the art of scenting and scent making are much more exacting. It took Hines nearly a year to develop its own signature scent. Burns and her team turned to ScentAir, a company that helped Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton create their own signature scents, and Belle Aire, which curates scents for a number of luxury hotels.

The Hines team brought specific ideas of what its scent should be like.

“Uplifting, refreshing, calming,” Burns says. “Not so clean (smelling) so to speak. Nothing too lemon forward.”

Creating the right scent meant plenty of scent reviewing. Whitney Burns and her team tested and tried numerous scents, doing something of a sniff off. Much like with a wine tasting, this requires cleansing the palate. Smelling coffee beans between each prospective scent accomplishes this.

The Hines team decided on a scent with European primrose, Asian sambac jasmine and Frangipani balanced by natural elements such as marine salt, Texas sea grass and Brazilian cotton. Indian sandalwood, Italian pine and upcycled driftwood add their own notes. It sounds like a lot. But the scent itself is more subtle than overpowering.

Which is part of the point of scenting. It’s more about creating a feeling and a vibe than hitting someone over the nose.

“I would say it’s more on the subtle side,” Burns says. “Where it’s more of a subconscious memory that makes you feel happier.”

Creating a Better Office Land

Whitney Burns has worked at Hines for 11 years, tackling a number of different roles. From marketing to operations to development. But she’s never done a project quite like this. Signature scenting aims to bring the best of luxury hotels and spas to the office and residential high-rises. High-end brands such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès quickly embraced scenting, but for Hines it’s not about selling something as much as it’s about creating a place where people want to be.

“Just trying to see if we can sort of flip the script of the perspective of the office,” Burns says. “I think the office kind of got a bad rap over the last couple of years. But we really believe it’s an opportunity to do more than just return to the office.

“We want to reframe it and make it an enjoyable experience that people associate with positive memories. Let’s learn from the best in hospitality and retail and really take the best in what they’re dong.”

Signature scenting is just one element of Hines’ push to make the office a more hospitable place. One of the company’s more popular new initiatives is offering interviews to get into U.S. Custom’s Global Entry program on site at Hines headquarters.

“It saves that trip to the airport (for the interview),” Burns says. “That’s not an Instagrammable moment per se. But it’s something that people love because it saves time and money.”

Making the office a place where other things can get done helps offset the time, inconvenience and expense of commuting, the No. 1 complaint against returning to the office. With that in mind, Hines offers free fitness classes at the office, Manicure Mondays, Botox treatments, Lunch Drop (group ordering to eliminate those delivery fees, with a different restaurant chosen each day) and grab-and-go dinner options to bring home. As a working mom with two young kids, Burns appreciates anything that can save her time. Ways to get errands done while working are semi priceless.

“It’s really just trying to think outside of the box and continuously innovate,” Burns says. “And reframe how we experience spaces. It’s something when we think about Mr. (Gerald) Hines and a lot of the mechanical engineering innovations he had and just trying to use that same innovative spirit.”

Gerald D. Hines, the Purdue engineer turned pioneering founder of Hines, died in 2020, before signature scenting moved into the mainstream. But it fits with his push for superior air quality, something Gerald Hines championed long before LEED ratings and green building came into vogue. Back in the 1990s, Gerald Hines pushed to get materials out of buildings that contributed to off-gassing, the release of harmful chemicals into the air. Signature scenting fits into this idea of caring greatly about the indoor air.

“I think he would have liked it,” Burns says of Gerald Hines.

You could even say it’s right on the nose for Hines.

“I think the office kind of got a bad rap over the last couple of years. . . We want to reframe it and make it an enjoyable experience that people associate with positive memories. Let’s learn from the best in hospitality and retail and really take the best in what they’re dong.” — Hines’ Whitney Burns

Signature Scenting Spreads

Hines is deploying its signature scent in more than 20 buildings now, including Texas Tower in downtown Houston, Aris Market Square, Brava, La Colombe d’Or in Montrose, The Southmore in the Museum District, The Victor in Dallas and The Stack mixed-use tower in Dallas’ Deep Ellum neighborhood. It’s also being used in Hines buildings in London and India, including its new $1 billion European headquarters in London’s Grainhouse development.

Hines only pumps the scent into a building’s common areas through the HVAC system, but some of its office tenants have asked for the scent on their floors too.

“There is that consistent experience and sense of arrival due to scenting,” Whitney Burns says. “It’s really powerful. I smell it here in Houston. But then if I’m in London going into our new headquarters in Grainhouse, having that same sense of arrival is really powerful.”

Will a signature scent make workers more productive? That’s highly debatable — and not really the point. These carefully-concocted scents are more about setting a happier (and hopefully focused) mood, with the idea of making the office a little friendlier place.

It turns out your nose can teach you a lot, set a tone and maybe even open your eyes to a whole new world. Just take a sniff.