A Perfumer Explains How Laundry Scents Are Made—and Why People Love the Smell of Hot Metal

We all know the classic smell of crisp laundry fresh from the dryer, but why does it smell so good? The hosts of the beauty podcast Fat Mascara interviewed fragrance expert Stephen Nicoll, master perfumer at International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. and creator of fragrances for fabric detergents, cleaning sprays, and dryer sheets. The podcast discussed laundry smells and how they differ from expensive perfume. (Niche perfume might have a 5% likability rate, but laundry smells appeal to a much wider base.)

What’s interesting, though, are the types of laundry scents the general population craves and why. Most of us love our linens smelling fresh and clean, but why do some of us like the smell of hot metal? Or apple pie? Here’s what the fragrance expert had to say about how laundry scents are made and how they’ve evolved.

How Laundry Scents Are Created

For Nicoll, creating fragrances for laundry products is all about recreating the “feeling” of the smell. Companies will visualize what consumers want to feel or remember and then use scents to facilitate the memory or emotion. For example, many consumers want to feel like they are in a vintage laundry commercial, where the main character hangs laundry outside in a sunny field. 

”We try [to] make the consumer feel like they’ve done it that way,” Nicoll said on the podcast, referencing hanging laundry outside. “Because at the end of the day, you know, doing laundry is very unrewarding.” Bringing you to a more serene place is part of what goes into creating laundry scents, and companies test these concepts continuously.

“We do mainly two different types [of testing], apart from our experts. We have consumers come into us, and we’ll take them into a sterile environment, which has washing machines, and we show them laundry that we’ve done, and say, you know, what do you think of this?” Nicoll said on the podcast. “But also we do home use tests.”

5 Favorite Laundry Scents People Love 

Laundry scents often try to capture what we grew up with. Here are some common (and unexpected) laundry fragrances covered on the podcast and why consumers love them so much.

Fresh and Clean

Perhaps the most popular laundry scent with the most longevity is anything that is fresh and clean. “If you look at the historical position of laundry, you know, the fragrances that people would deliver were all about freshness and cleanliness because that’s a basic function. Right?” Nicoll said on the podcast. “You wash your clothes; you expect them to smell clean and to smell fresh.” He explains that eventually, these tried-and-true fragrances left consumers wanting more.

Apple Pie and Vanilla

For U.S. residents, more recent laundry and cleaning scents include nostalgic things that most people are familiar with, like apple pie and vanilla. These smells may not directly correlate with laundry or cleaning (you aren’t doing laundry when you bake an apple pie), but they work because of the strong associations with Americana.

Herbs and Citrus

A clean scent can go beyond soapy smells. Nicoll says herbs (like rosemary and sage) and citrusy scents are popular because they tend to push freshness and cleanliness. Consumers crave scents that are “more sensorial,” according to Nicoll. “They want something that maybe reminds them of that night out or, you know, maybe a trip down to the beach or things like that.”

Spa and Beauty

Nicoll says they’ve been seeing a trend where “beauty elements” are getting introduced to laundry scents. These fragrances tap into customers’ emotions, connote a sense of well-being, and include notes like lavender and cucumber. For Nicoll, when these fragrances are experienced, someone should think, “Yeah, I feel better about myself with this.”

Hot Metal and Outdoors

Perhaps the most surprising scent Nicoll mentioned was the smell of aldehydes. “So the aldehydes have a smell that’s almost like the smell of hot metal,” Nicoll explained on the podcast. “So if you’re pressing clothes, if you think about the way the iron smells when it gets hot, it has that kind of crisp, clean impression that also makes people think of outdoors because when you go outside, you get that whiff of ozone.”

Nicoll explains that this scent is popular in laundry because it’s common for people to dislike how everything, including laundry, takes place indoors. (Not many people line dry clothes anymore, but they still crave it.) If someone throws their laundry in the dryer in the basement and comes back with the impression they just did their laundry outside, Nicoll has successfully satisfied the customer’s craving.