It all makes scents: how "scentscaping" can enhance your home and workplace

Smell is said to be our strongest sense. Clever use of fragrances can affect our mood, trigger memories and even impact the ambiance of a room. For 2015, scents are on the interiors map, with fragrances being used in many guises to subtly enhance spaces in the home.  

Perfume, the evocative novel by Patrick Suskind, explores the power of scent and its ability to influence our emotional state, to mould our lives.  The theme is embraced by Australian entrepreneur Belinda Everingham, who says the book inspired her to launch Bondi Wash, a line of gloriously scented, natural home cleaning products and washes that are now available in Hong Kong.

“I was inspired by the desire to give pleasure through scent,” she says.

Using Australian plants, flowers and essential oils, Everingham created a line of natural alternatives to household cleaners: floor washes, bench sprays, room mists and even a dog wash.  Their ingredients include fiery Tasmanian pepper, paperback, pungent lemongrass, cleansing tea tree and lavender. So, while each product contains natural disinfectants, it also fills the home with a delicious fragrance. 

“I wanted to bring Australian botanicals into homes all round the world – just like the French have done with their cosmetics and fragrance industries," Everingham says. "Australian botanicals are only just starting to be researched and discovered. Many of our natives have anti-bacterial properties, so a range of ‘washing’ products that use these powers made sense to launch with.”