№ 17 Laundrette Frau Tonis Parfum 2018

There are many of us who are instantly hooked by "Oooh, that smells like freshly washed laundry!" and immediately grab a fragrance called Laundrette in a modern, minimalist bottle. Why actually?

I was curious about the fragrance and wanted to think about it, so I ordered a sample. The fragrance is as clean as expected, not soapy-clean, but floral-clean, not really pure white for me either, rather light blue with a slight tendency towards lilac, splashes of color from iris and freesia, light and cool and fresh, but still with a certain melancholic depth, which I attribute to the blackcurrants. It stays close to the skin and won't turn a subway into a Persil meadow full of sheets rattling in the wind, but I can still smell it on my skin after about 7 hours and on my sweater the next day. A beautiful, fresh, pleasant scent, a spring walk on a Sunday, sitting with loved ones in a meadow of flowers. Almost bought.

Back to the initial question, what is so special about fresh laundry? It's actually commonplace and easily available at any time: Washing machine open, dirty laundry in, wait an hour, fresh laundry out. Do I have to pay €80 for this? No, if the need for the fresh laundry scent didn't go deeper. Someone is taking care of you, it's clean and tidy, someone means well with you. It's clean and tidy around you and that's how it smells, at least a little bit of laundry day in Bullerbü idyll in this dirty and cluttered world. A small consolation.

And then came the memories of my visits to the laundrette. This was where we met up when we had no money and no space for our own washing machine. There was always something (or someone) to watch, students inside with hand-rolled cigarettes and laundry in huge backpacks, scolding mothers, the rattling of laundry trolleys on the tiles. I liked to sit there, to read, to watch, a little microcosm. Or back then, when I felt more alone than ever in my life, the small-town girl on work experience in the anonymous big city, and an older lady in the laundrette was the first person who really wanted to talk to me, it was so human, so approachable.
And it is precisely at this point of the laundromat association that Ms. Toni's Laundrette weakens for me. It is precisely this human, loud, perhaps a little bit grubby quality of the laundrette that I feel is missing here to perfection, because the straightforward freshness also seems a little distant, takes a step back from the dirty laundry, doesn't take you by the hand and doesn't let you participate in everyday life. Minimalism may be liberating, but it's also always a bit aloof and I'm not like that. I sometimes spill coffee on my pants. A little twist in the fragrance, a little stumble and it would be a great love. But still: almost bought. I'm still thinking about it. But first I should get my laundry out of the cellar.