Or how laundry brands try to convince us that clean has a smell.
Who has never had the sensation, when smelling the smell of clean laundry, of living in order and harmony? The global detergent industry, which is worth $60 billion annually (Euromonitor 2012), includes washing powders, liquids and fabric softeners. The market is dominated by a few behemoths like Procter & Gamble, Unilever or Henkel. With a lot of publicity, but not only, these laundry brands have succeeded in nostalgia, the image of sheets floating in the wind and harmony with nature. "This is due to the imagination invented by the laundry workers, with Mother Denis who floats her laundry in the wind, in clean and unpolluted air", specifies the philosopher of the body Bernard Andrieu. "The smell of laundry soothes both physically and psychologically, it's a kind of osmosis," he explains. Smelling a clean smell is based on an olfactory association between cleanliness and the freshness of nature.”
To give us this reassuring and soothing sensation, manufacturers use different scents such as lavender, jasmine, thyme, eucalyptus or lemon. “Our choices of detergent are made by virtues, therapeutic, antiseptic, antibacterial, hygienic, cleaning that we attribute to them. The detergents appeal, with the help of these perfumes, to our unconscious by selecting the virtues used by aromatherapists", explains Annick Le Guérant, anthropologist and perfume historian author of numerous books, including The powers of smell (1988 ), and Perfume from its origins to the present day (2005) published by Odile Jacob.
“The collective memory of peoples” Patrice Bellon, president of the French Society of Cosmetology, recalls that the effects of perfumes vary according to individuals: “In French culture we link lavender to the notion of cleanliness, while it can be bleach for the Germans for example. Perfumers summon the collective memory of peoples.” To obtain trends applicable to the greatest number, perfumers test scents on a panel. There are several ways to assess the feelings of the group: the verbal questionnaire, assess the heart rate or body expression. The correlation of all these behaviors makes it possible to define a trend on the emotion triggered by a perfume. Then comes the generalization of these teachings to as many people as possible.
Le Guérer, Andrieu and Bellon all speak of "sensation", "impression", "marketing" because laundry detergents do not use natural but synthetic aromas which cause the user of detergent to be carried away by an illusory feeling of hygiene and well-being. This feeling of cleanliness is an illusion, but it has rocked our imaginations so much since the 1930s that this "smell of sanctity" has also inspired the big brands in the luxury and cosmetics industry, and that "perfume with notes clean T-shirts or sheets heated in the sun are on the rise”, notes le Temps. “This freshness of cleanliness that holds is often composed of molecules of aldehydes or white musks. Aldehydes have the particularity of smelling of hot iron with a smell of white musks”, details for the Swiss daily Pierre Aulas, director of olfactory development for Thierry Mugler and Azzaro Parfums. “This new generation of synthetic, organic and sensual musks has a connotation of clean skin. This is also why they are often massively used in detergents, ”concludes the nose.
http://www.liberation.fr/france/2017/08/26/ca-sent-quoi-le-propre_1590542
TAGS: THE SMELL OF CLEAN
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