The total joy of fabulous smelling linen, with the White Company

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My love of fragrance is not restricted to the perfume you spray on yourself, I am equally obsessed with smell in the home and in particular, making everything tediously domestic such as washing liquids, floor cleaners and bedlinen smell delicious too. This could have something to do with having a house full of once-teenage boys, who can kick up a pungent pong of their own, left to their own devices in their respective bedrooms. And not wishing to put you off your breakfast/lunch,  I’ve learned to keep a wide berth of any bathroom they’ve been near first thing in the morning.

Controlling domestic smells is my way of keeping things a bit more feminine in my testosterone heavy household, although I’m not for one moment claiming wanting a nice smelling house is a female thing. But no one else but me lights the scented candles in our home and certainly no one else slots scented sachets of herbs in between the sheets in the laundry cupboard. All of which makes me very happy (am I on my own here?)

Which is why, when i win the lottery/inherit millions from previously unknown relatives, on my list of ‘immediate things to action’ (after buying Great Dixter) will be to hire staff to line everyone of my drawers, cupboards and bedlinen shelves with The White Company’s plain white scented drawer liners. They must be the White Company ones, because they are PLAIN WHITE, no itsy-bitsy flowers or pictures of tiny kittens, just lovely simple, pattern-free white. Staff would have to change the paper every few months so everything always smelled divine.

In this fantasy world, every item of clothing (particularly in the boys’ rooms) would be wrapped around one of those scented sachet and the Perfect Linen scented candles would be lit daily in every bedroom and bathroom AND we would never run out. It would be a heavenly fugg of scented-domestic bliss.

Without wanting to sound like a complete fluff-head, I now consider linen spray an absolute modern-life essential for good wardrobe maintenance, it’s so useful. As well as making already made beds smell just a bit better, the spare room bed has often been drenched in distracting notes of citrus, vanilla and jasmine when I haven’t had time to change the sheets. Yes I know this sounds a bit grubby, but we have so many teenagers to stay I’d be constantly fighting with duvet covers in the spare room if I changed the bedding every time.

It’s also brilliant for overcoming the very distinctive fragrance* that just-bought vintage clothing has, often even after you’ve washed it and hung it out in the fresh air. A good dousing in linen spray and it’s bang up to date. Ditto for any item of clothing that might need a pick-up in this sultry weather. Bedlinen, towels and even the inside of the tumble dyer all benefit from a fragrant spurt. And if you spray the insides of your holiday suitcase with it, your clothes will smell fabulous when you reach your destination and will probably be perkier than you.

For those with similar domestic fragrance nerdy-ness (please say it’s not just me….?) the Perfect Linen collection from The White Company’s a good place to start (where the cedar rose drawer liners are in the sale, just sayin’). But you may use others, if you do have favourites for keeping the linen smelling good, let us know

*Others may call this Old Clothes Pong

 

 

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