From laundry to the loo, today’s cleaning products offer a wide variety of scents designed to pique consumers’ fancy, or at the very least, add a moment of delight during a mundane household cleaning task. And while scent isn’t the primary purchase driver in the home care market, it nonetheless can help a brand stand apart from its competitors. The right scent in a laundry detergent, kitchen cleaner or toilet spray can make an emotional connection, generate category excitement and foster brand loyalty—and the best do all three at the same time, according to fragrance experts.

What’s New in Laundry Scenting

The cleaning industry’s biggest players—P&G, Henkel, Clorox and SC Johnson—have their own scent blends that dominate the aisles inside supermarkets and drugstores nationwide. But indie and niche companies are pushing the envelope when it comes to what a scented laundry and home care product can smell like today.

No segment is more diverse than fabric care. Fragrance plays an elevated role across the category in detergents and especially in fabric softeners, dryer sheets and scent boosters. For more on the entire fabric care category, click here.

The fragrances in this category are more elevated—and eclectic—than ever before, say experts.

“Laundry, which is usually perceived as a chore and unglamorous, is getting a fragrance upgrade with luxe laundry scents in a variety of olfactive directions,” said expert fragrance and flavor consultant Amy Marks-McGee, founder of Trendincite LLC.

Marks-McGee cited Francis Kurkdjian’s Aqua Universalis laundry detergent and fabric softener as a just one example of fragrance diversity and uniqueness. This scent is said to “adorn fabrics with a bright and sunny scent which reflects the art of perfume as much as the art of living well,” according to the brand’s website.

New fragrance options at the Laundress—the specialty fabric care brand owned by Unilever—include Isle and No. 723. Described as coastal-and wanderlust inspired, Isle’s top contains lime, bergamot, hyacinth, green, grapefruit, basil, mint and water notes; the heart is comprised of lily of the valley, rose, cyclamen, lilac, heliotrope, anise, violet and jasmine; and the base includes amber, musk ambrette, sandalwood and guaiacwood. No. 723 was inspired by the scent of Damask rose for a washing experience evocative of a fragrant rose garden at bloom, according to The Laundress.

More Choices

For consumers who seek alternative fragrances in laundry products, there is a seemingly never-ending stream of new options—just like laundry itself!

Niche brands and newcomers continue to push boundaries, allowing laundry consumers to select bold options such as Laundry Sauce’s new Egyptian Rose (notes of Egyptian geranium, briar rose, honeyed hawthorn, vanilla bourbon and Haitian vetiver) or DedCool’s “Dedtergent” liquid in Ouai Melrose Place, the haircare brand’s signature scent.

DedCool—the self-described functional fragrance brand that dabbles in many personal care categories—also added new dryer sheets to its roster of home care products. They are available in two of the company’s most popular scents—Milk, which has notes of amber, bergamot and white musk, and Taunt, a blend of bergamot, vanilla and amber.

In the UK, there’s upstart Tallow + Ash, which says it is out to reinvent the “stale, standard boring industry” with laundry products that “turn the chore into a ritual.” The brand’s range includes Date Night—billed as a “romantic” and “opulent “cherry-based scent”—and Duvet Day. The latter is described as a relaxing scent with top notes of ozone, lemon and cassis, a middle of French lavender essential oil and a base that combines woods and musk.

And Bath & Body Works joined the fray, rolling out liquid detergent and scent boosters last year. BBW said it wanted to seize the opportunity to reinvent the laundry category and give consumers a way to bring their favorite fragrances to yet another part of their lives.

The new BBW range is said to span 14 scents, including Cactus Bloom (cactus flower petals, fresh citrus and vanilla coconut), Sunwashed Santal (Italian bergamot, white violet and amber wood) and Fresh Blue Sky (garden mint, juniper berry and crisp lavender), to name just a few of the options.

Special Editions & Collaborations

Homecare brands are also crafting signature scents for specific retailers and rolling out new collaborations with celebrities.

Last year, for example, Grove Collaborative tapped Drew Barrymore—the brand’s global brand and sustainability advocate—for its Fresh Horizons limited-edition homecare products including dish and hand soap, candles and more. Two scents were offered: Island Orchid and Palm Leaf Mist.

Kris Jenner and Emma Grede’s Safely home cleaning brand continues to gain more shelf space, and for its expansion into Whole Foods and Kroger, the brand created unique scents for each retailer. Joy (Whole Foods) encompasses notes of yuzu, basil, sage, spearmint, musk and licorice. Kroger’s Sunrise scent—available in Safely’s universal cleaner—combined notes of gardenia, tuberose and saffron, with mint and sage.

Dirty Labs, Portland, OR, also expanded into select Whole Foods stores. The organic supermarket chain stocks Dirty Lab’s Bio Enzyme Laundry Booster and Signature Free & Clear Bio Laundry Detergent as well as new scent—Murasaki. It is inspired by the early Spring green tea harvest in Japan and features fresh notes of jasmine, matcha and vetiver.

Of course, seasonal scents remain popular with consumers. For marketers and retailers alike, their arrival in stores can entice consumers to purchase a household product of which they already have ample supply—just to celebrate the season.

Home (Fragrance) for the Holidays

At the start of the holiday season in 2023, shoppers at Target could pick up Everspring products in Cinnamon & Birch and Clove & Nutmeg; Grove released a limited-edition Eves of Enchantment line in Balsam Fir and Peppermint Bark; Method got into the holiday spirit with Balsam + Berry and Brown Butter + Vanilla; and Tallow + Ash offered a Christmas Discovery set with scents like Candy Cane, Chemis-tree (billed as a warming balsamic, fruity and floral fragrance) and Santa Slay, with ash notes, white oud and Lady Emma Rose.

Whether designed for the season or the current zeitgeist, today’s homecare and fabric brands put a modern spin on classic scent themes.

“At Canary we take an unconventional approach to inspire you to think twice about the products you bring home,” Founder Luke Wilson told Happi.

“In general, with hand soaps on the market, they tend to be boring in our opinion… Lavender, lavender, lavender or ‘Ocean Breeze’—whatever that is…. Our soaps are intentionally bold and last a while on your skin to keep you smiling long after you wash your hands,” he said.

Wilson and his wife mixed “countless” batches and spent hours testing and blending essential oils that they loved. The result: Canary offers concentrated foaming hand soaps in Cedar Mint (reminiscent of Wilson’s “cozy cabin in the mountains,” with a dash of vetiver, his wife’s favorite scent) and Fir Needle and Sage, which he called “universally appealing.”

Deliberate Design

Brands must be both inventive and intentional about fragrance development.

When James Roberts founded his Vancouver-based indie cleaning brand called Nellie’s, the intent was to forgo fragrance.

“When I started Nellie’s almost 20 years ago, I chose not to put fragrance in the laundry products we produced. After all, you are washing clothes to take odors out and I didn’t believe in adding chemical-based fragrances to our products just for the sake of it,” he told Happi.

But for the customers who wanted scent, Roberts said Nellies developed an alternate version of its popular rubber Dryerballs that offered a space inside to insert an essential oil fragrance stick that leaves a natural scent on fabrics during the drying cycle.

In addition, when Nellie’s was ready to roll out its Wow Stick Stain Remover, the brand opted for a Lemongrass scent. That fragrance has since taken on a larger role across the brand.

“Lemongrass has become our signature scent and is found in our cleaners, soaps and single-scented wool dryerballs,” said Roberts. “Customers love lemongrass as it smells fresh and familiar, but not the typical lemon scent found in most cleaning products in the market.”

Two decades since its launch, the brand’s approach to fragrance remains the same.

“Throughout the years we have added scent-based products where it made sense,” said Roberts, noting that scents have not been added to Nellie’s best-selling Laundry Soda, Oxygen Brightener and Lamby Wool Dryerballs.

Scents That Serve Customers

The goal for all household cleaning companies is to offer solutions—scented or unscented—that match what consumers want in their homecare products.

“Our customers are addicted to fragrances selected from a palette of essential oils with proven therapeutic and mood enhancing properties,” said Mark Sorensen, co-founder of Cleanery, a fast-growing sustainable cleaning brand based in New Zealand that can also be found in the US on Amazon.

Sorensen, who launched the brand in 2020, said Cleanery’s team tested hundreds of different fragrances to “find clean simple scents which complement our products and leave spaces feeling fresh.”

Cleanery, which is making a bigger push into the US market this year, recently launched two new wash products in New Zealand and Australia that will be arriving in the US in the spring. These include a dish washing liquid fragranced with fresh citrus essential oils, and a foaming dish spray that is fragranced with Tahitian lime essential oil.

Scent is a core element for AlEn USA, the US subsidiary of Industrias AlEn S.A de CV of Mexico. Its compact roster of cleaning brands—Cloralen, Pinalen and Ensueno—“prioritize aroma,” according to Gustavo Gonzalez, head of innovation, AlEn USA.

“At AlEn USA, we know how important fragrance is when it comes to cleaning—a lot of people associate fresh scents with having a clean home or caring for your family, particularly when it comes to laundry,” he told Happi.

Scent “is what many of our customers love about us,” he continued. “A great laundry product smells good when you open the bottle, as it’s washing your clothes, and maintains that fresh scent even after multiple wears. It’s really about finding the crossroads of a captivating aroma and cleaning power to give customers a pleasant experience they can remember.”

A complete Fragrance lifecycle

AlEn USA works with a large fragrance house to create the fragrances in its Ensueno product line, tapping the company’s master perfumer, neuroscientist and quality control team to blend aromas.

“We are one of the only brands on the market that offers a complete portfolio of products to maintain a consistent scent—from our fabric softener, laundry detergent, scent boosting beads to our dryer sheets,” Gonzalez told Happi.

Ensueno’s newest fragrance is Tropical Blossom.

“After initial market research, we found that consumers were looking for something tropical and floral, but the tricky part is that can mean something a little bit different to everyone. Ultimately, after trying out several different combinations we landed on the right mixture of fruity and floral scents,” he said.

According to Gonzalez, Ensueno looks at the complete lifecycle of fragrance when creating products.

“We understand that when you unscrew the bottle and smell a product for the first time, that initial impression is what is going to nudge you to buy our product,” he said. “But it needs to perform at an equally high level so when you open the dryer door and smell that burst of fresh scent you are reinvigorated. Similarly, when you pick a shirt out of your drawer to wear, it should still have that same fresh scent so you can feel confident as you enter your day.”

A well-executed scent plays a role in reinforcing the consumer’s purchase.