Housekeeping can be a real downer—scrubbing the shower stall, doing laundry, washing dishes. But a big lift can come from the smallest portion of these cleaning formulations: the fragrance.

“We are seeing scent become much more important than ever before in hard surface care, laundry detergents and MPC (multi purpose cleaners),” said Jennifer Powderly, vice president of marketing at Robertet Fragrances, which recently completed a $20 million investment project on its new fragrance and ingredient division headquarters in Mount Olive, NJ.

“Fragrance matters! Everybody opens the bottle and smells it,”  Dr. Michael M. Ott, VP-R&D cleaning and international with Clorox, told attendees at Cleaning Products 2014 in Washington, DC in November.

In fact, while today’s household care companies are likely to boast about performance attributes, green ingredients and safety profiles, they don’t shy away from capturing the consumer’s attention with a fragrance call out. Think thai dragon fruit in the Dawn Destinations line of hand dish detergent or clean linen, one of two options featured in Clorox Smart Seek Bleach, a new rollout in the laundry sector.

“For Clorox Smart Seek Bleach, we reinforced the whitening benefits of this product, on whites and whites with a little bit of color, with fragrances like fresh meadow and clean linen that are both comforting and crisp without harshness,” said Rina Mussallam, associate research fellow, fragrance innovation at The Clorox Company. 

Finding the right accords for a household cleaner is both art and science—and it requires teamwork between marketers and their fragrance suppliers.

“To help identify the next trend in fragrance technology for bleach we partner with strategic fragrance suppliers and leverage olfactive inspiration from the laundry and personal care categories,” noted Mussallam.

Calling her company’s fragrance suppliers “great partners,” Suzanne McCormick, senior director of fragrance at Method, said, “We partner with them for creativity and technical support.”

That support is critical in today’s household care market, where overarching trends centered on product safety are impacting formulations, which in turn affects the fragrance.

Powderly cited hydrogen peroxide base as a prime example.

“Your olfactive range is limited in that base versus other types,” she said.

McCormick said Method’s cross functional team has a seat at the table at the very beginning of the NPD process—as was the case with new scents the firm will soon debut in the antibacterial lineup.

Striking the Right Accord
Introducing new scent profiles is nothing new to Method. The firm—which says its products “clean like heck and smell like heaven”—is a proponent of seasonal and limited edition offerings. In 2014, for example, the company created peppermint vanilla and mulled cider—perfect for the holiday season—as well as honeycrisp apple, which Method crafted for use in its hand wash, dish soap, all-purpose spray cleaner and liquid laundry detergent.

On occasion, limited editions have made their way onto Method’s permanent roster. Examples include lime and sea salt, the company’s modern spin on citrus, and waterfall, which Method’s fragrance team recently formulated to work across several platforms from hand soaps to dish soap to glass and surface cleaner.

According to Powderly of Robertet, companies in the household care sector run the gamut from adventurous to practical when it comes to scent choice (and the naming process), and it often depends on the sector in which they play. For example, carpet spot removal brands tend to be more conservative.

“Bringing innovative products to market, there is risk in that,” said McCormick.

After all, consumers have a strong connection to scent. At Cleaning Products 2014, Ott relayed a story about his company’s effort to upgrade the fragrance of Clorox disinfecting wipes, which had remained the same since their debut in 1999.

“We tried a variety of scents, but they failed because the consumer wasn’t ready for it. It’s not about having the best fragrance, it’s about having the right fragrance for your brand,” he said.

Pine-Sol is another Clorox property that has a strong scent heritage, but the company has been able to push the boundaries a bit with offerings like mandarin sunrise and sparkling wave.

“The fragrances in the Pine-Sol line of cleaners serve to reinforce the efficacy of the product. When Pine-Sol consumers clean, they want the overwhelming proof that they’ve reached their high standard of clean and scent is a key cue for this. They’re looking for authentic, high quality, hard-working, intense and lingering scents,” said Mussallam.

As for what Pine-Sol may try next, she said, “Future scents are created with these attributes in mind to make sure they offer the ‘Pine-Sol-ness’ our consumers have come to expect.” 

More than One Direction
When it comes to what consumers expect to smell when they open and use a household product, certain scent families have staying power. In areas like dilutable MPCs sold in the US, citrus fragrance leads the way (representing 26% of launches), with the green/herbal category representing 20%, followed by florals, according to data culled by Robertet. 

But nowadays there is greater diversity within each category. For example, citrus has moved beyond lemon, with companies featuring clementine, lime and grapefruit. And firms are paring what’s familiar with new notes as they look to differentiate their offerings, yet keep in consumers in their comfort zone.

Having recently revamped the packaging of its hand soap, Seventh Generation now offers soap in lavender flower and mint (not just lavender) as well as mandarin orange and grapefruit and a SKU called Purely Clean Hand Wash, which comes in fresh lemon & tea tree scent.

Sean Busch, co-founder of Puracy, looked at scent as a point of departure for his Austin, TX household and personal care company.

“We knew that the fragrances were extremely important when developing our products. We scoured the internet reading reviews of our competitor’s products; specifically, their fragrances. We did our own research on how we wanted ours to differ,” said Busch.

“We felt that a lemon-scented cleaning product had been done far too many times. The same could be said about each category we are in. There are certain fragrances that dominate each category—cleaners equal citrus; laundry equals cotton; lotion equals vanilla, etc.. While we feel this is important to keep in mind, we wanted to create an interesting aroma which piqued interest and made our products enjoyable to use.”

Puracy’s goal, according to Busch, was to create scents that were both balanced and unique. But just as important was how quickly that scent would dissipate in certain products.

“We found a great dissatisfaction with our focus groups (mainly moms) on how perfume-y some competitors’ products were. Some even discontinued use during pregnancy as their sense of smell was heightened and these products made them nauseous,” Busch said. “We knew that the fragrance had to be balanced, pleasant and forgotten a few minutes afterwords.”

But in laundry care (which Happi covers in depth this month, see p. 55), scents are designed to linger—and can serve as a decision-maker for shoppers.

“Consumers can’t always judge products based on stain removal or whitening. It’s the whole experience, which includes what does it smell like when it’s in the bottle and on the clothes,” said Ed Vlacich, VP-marketing, Sun Products. “Products have to clean, so fragrance adds to the experience. Scent is a differentiation.”

According to Vlacich, the detergent category will see more scent intensity and scent layering. In fact, laundry care companies continue to roll out ways consumers can add and personalize scent—from the detergent to add-ins including Sun’s Snuggle Scent Booster, which comes in lavender joy and blue iris bliss scent choices.

”We can now redefine the intensity and the variety of scent,” Vlacich said.

Experience Required
Consumers expect to find a fragrance that resonates with them on a personal level—even when they are in the household care aisle of their local supermarket. 

“Scent can accelerate a brand’s EEQ (experiential and emotional quotient),” noted Sue Philips, who is president of Scenterprises and founder of Scentsorium. “Odor has ties to place and memory. Experiential engagement is what consumers want these days and scent delivers on that.”

And when brand marketers and their fragrance suppliers come up big, that scent can prove even more powerful.

Said Ott of Clorox, “Fragrance can help you stretch your equity.”