I've Tested Detergent for 6 Years, And Bath & Body Works Makes the Best-Smelling Ones Out There

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TOTAL: 93/100

Everybody clamors to Bath & Body Works for the three-wick candles and body cream, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: One of the most satisfying buys is its least expected. I’m talking laundry detergent.

Fabric care is new territory for the predominantly soaps, lotions and candles brand (it launched earlier this year), and admittedly, I was skeptical of it. After testing stain removers , detergents for sensitive skin and just about everything in between over the past six years, I’ve found the most reliable detergents tend to come from the major brands who’ve been doing this for decades. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Bath & Body Works. Here’s why.

How I Tested the Detergent

Over the course of 12 loads of laundry, I tested three different fragrances from Bath & Body Works’s laundry detergent line . I tested loads in hot and cold water, as well as with a variety of items, from linens and towels to workout clothes and delicates. During each test, I examined whether there was evidence of color fading, as well as how strong (and pleasant or irritating) the scent was, whether the detergent left any sort of residue or had an impact on a fabric’s texture, and its ability to remove stains and odors.

Bath & Body Works’s Laundry Detergent, Reviewed

bath & body works

The Pros

The Scent

Fragrance is the reason people shop at Bath & Body Works. Whether you’re a Cucumber Melon fan from the ‘90s, team Brown Sugar and Fig from the early aughts or live for Halloween 2024’s berry-forward Vampire Blood, you have certain scents you gravitate toward—and that are wrapped in core memories. Bath & Body Works’s fabric care line features a rotating mix of new and best-selling scents, all offering an elevated take on the traditional fresh-and-clean smell. Lavender? Boring. How about something more complex, like Moonlit Goddess, which pairs the flower with pear blossom and vanilla? Or the woodsy-boho Sunwashed Santal, which blends citrusy bergamot with white violet and amber wood?

The scent can fill the laundry room as your clothes wash, creating a more pleasant experience, though it tends to all but disappear by the time your clothes are dry. On the plus side, it meant my scent-sensitive family members weren’t bothered wearing the clothes, though I wish the fragrance lingered a bit more. (To that end, I recommend pairing it with the brand’s Fragrance Boosters .)

The Freshness and Stain-Fighting Ability

Sweaty clothes from a six-mile run* came out stench-free. Baby clothes soiled with pureed carrots, mango juice and spaghetti sauce were stain-free, too, and dried toothpaste came off a towel with ease. Sadly, rust stains didn’t come out of a towel, but I have yet to find a detergent or spot treatment that could get those out entirely.

*That’s not me humble bragging. I haven’t run a cumulative six miles in the past year, but thankfully, for the sake of thorough testing, I live with people who do.

candace davison

The Ease of Shipping

Ordering laundry detergent online often feels like a fool’s errand. All too often, it’s arrived leaking everywhere, no matter how it’s sealed. Bath & Body Works uses specially cut cardboard frames to keep its bottles secure, so even if my delivery driver hurls the box against my stoop (as he’s known to do), everything inside remained dent- and drip-free. (I’m also a fan of being able to order in-store pickup, with everything ready in about four hours.)

The Cons

The Price Per Load

While the bottle itself is slim, its concentrated formula can last 64 washes, at a cost of about 31 cents per load. Granted, that’s not nearly as budget-friendly as, say, Arm & Hammer (12 cents) , Gain (17 cents) or even Tide (20 cents), which may be a deal-breaker for some—particularly if you fill to the max line with every load (in which case, it’ll last 32 loads, doubling your cost). However, if you’re comparing luxury laundry care fragrances, it’s still way under the cost of buzzy brands like Dedcool (58 cents) and L’Avant (92 cents). And if you snag it on a two-for-$30 sale, the cost per load slips down to 23 cents.

The Fill Line

Seeing the two fill lines inside the cap can be tricky, especially for the bottles with dark caps (Mahogany Teakwood and Vampire Blood, I’m looking at you). In fact, for the first two loads I accidentally overpoured detergent, simply because the lines were so hard to spot. Still, that was a very minor thing.

The Bottom Line

The scents alone are worth giving Bath & Body Works a shot. Since I tend to go through detergent quickly, I found myself savoring this detergent, using it for linens—where I could slink into bed and cocoon myself with the scent (particularly when I amplified it with a Fragrance Booster) and workwear. Or, well, any time I was dealing with a particularly heinous load of laundry and wanted a more enjoyable experience overall. Consider it the olfactory equivalent of whistling while you work.

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