Byredo distills the smell of fresh laundry

Perfumer Ben Gorham has made a Byredo scent that wears even better on your linens than your skin. A new take on the fresh laundry perfume.

The scent of clean, fresh laundry is not new to the perfume world. Brands like Clean have built their reputation on it, while others, like Demeter, have translated the concept quite literally into fresh-laundry fragrances. Byredo takes this trend a step further by bottling the smell of fresh laundry into a perfume and asking you to spray it on your clothes, sheets and towels.

Toile, the textile perfume

First, what does Toile smell like? Inspired by the iconic lightweight linen or cotton French fabric, Byredo’s website describes the fragrance Toile as a mix of notes—bergamot, aldehydes, lily of the valley, silk, amber and cotton musks—which does indeed make us think of fresh laundry. The explanation, according to the marketing scribes? “Toile is a fresh yet illusive perfume. It hints at the metallic tingle of a freshly starched shirt collar and the abstraction perfumers use to hush overly dramatic flowers. The caress of cotton jersey on the skin, the scent of pressed linen folded in an antique wardrobe. A singularly chic statement, it blends effortlessly with other trails of scent that occupy space.”

Wow, we love perfume poets.

The formula

Toile is described as a “textile perfume,” instead of an eau de parfum, eau de toilette or a cologne, which begs the question as to whether this formula is different from those we’ve come to expect from Byredo. The lower price point seems to suggest so. Byredo suggests that this scent is made for linens and clothing suggests a scent more suited to fabrics—though we have yet to confirm the difference between and EDP and an eau de bedding when it comes to chemistry and details such as percentages of perfume oils.

Our take

Think of Toile as artisan Febreeze. But (we imagine), much, much better. While we’ve yet to do a true sniff test, Toile’s description leaves us longing for fresh laundered sheets and a crisp, white wardrobe. Not that people haven’t been spraying their bed linens with their favourite perfumes for years. Hey, maybe that’s what inspired this! Gorham might be right on the nose (pun intended)! We’re also interested to see if the brand expands beyond Toile’s fresh-linens approach into some more unexpected—how about Camp Sleeping Bag? Or, Dewy Porch Swing?

Byredo Toile textile perfume, 45 € (75 ml), www.byredo.eu

Read more perfume news or subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date.

Read more:
Perfumes that smell like rain
Lily-Rose Depp is the new face of Chanel No. 5 L’Eau
Use perfume to attract the opposite sex

PHOTO: FlickrCC/Klearchos Kapoutsis