Skip to Content

The 6 Best Smelling Laundry Detergents for Men

This post may contain affiliate links. Learn more.

Every man’s dream is to dress sharp and smell good. While the first is a matter of practice and keeping an eye on what’s trendy, the latter is not easy to achieve. It’s no secret that men’s laundry comes out of the washer smelling no better than when they went in. And I’m not just talking about activewear, undervests, and sweatpants that get more than their fair share of sweating. Even shirts, dress pants, and jackets maintain a lingering odor when they’re newly washed.

The problem is not with your body or the clothes themselves. It’s with the laundry detergent you use. If you’re using a regular detergent, you’ll have a hard time keeping your clothes smelling fresh. What you need is a laundry detergent specially for men. One that fights the toughest stains of all kinds, eliminates off-putting odors and infuses the fabrics with a pleasant fragrance.

I went looking for the best smelling laundry detergents for men and came up with this list of 6 products (Amazon paid links):

1. Best for Tough Stains: Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent Plus OxiClean   

2. Best for Removing Odors: Fresh Wave Odor Removing Laundry Booster

3. Best Eco-Friendly: HEX Performance Laundry Packs

4. Best Natural Scent: The Good Home Natural Liquid Laundry

5. Best Masculine Fragrance: Distinctive

6. Best Value: Persil Pro Clean

What Makes a Good Laundry Detergent for Men

So what actually makes a good laundry detergent for men? For one thing, the laundry detergent has to be able to handle some of the toughest stains and deal with overpowering odors that a regular detergent will simply try to hide. Here are the key features that you should look for in the laundry detergent for men.

A man preparing a washing machine for use
  • Fight Tough Stains: Clothes get stains all the time. Whether you lead an active lifestyle and spend hours on end outdoors or stay behind a desk in an office, your clothes are subject to some of the toughest stains. A laundry detergent for men can break down and remove the toughest stains of all kinds.
  • Economical: The laundry detergent should save you money in the long run. Ideally, it should double as a fabric softener while also providing powerful cleaning powers.
  • Combat Odors: Odors are the main reason you’d want to buy a laundry detergent for men. No matter what odors are stuck to the fabrics, the detergent would eliminate them and not just hide them.
  • More Fragrant: And finally, the detergent should be more fragrant. You’d want the clothes to smell good when they’re dry which also saves you money on deodorants and colognes.

The 6 Best Smelling Laundry Detergents for Men

1. Best for Tough Stains: Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent Plus OxiClean 

Arm & Hammer is more than just a powerful detergent. It also comes supercharged with the stain-fighting capabilities of OxiClean. Whether you have food stains, oil stains, or even grass and mud, the detergent will handle them efficiently and get rid of them in one washing cycle. 

You won’t have to remove the stains first before washing them. Just dump the dirty clothes in the washer and let Arm & Hammer fight off the stains and perform a deep cleaning to remove even shadow and invisible stains.

Moreover, the powerful detergent protects the colors of the clothes and keeps the whites looking bright like new. You won’t have to buy two detergents, one for colors and the other for white clothes. Additionally, the detergent works on all machines and water temperatures with a low-sud formula.   

2. Best for Removing Odors: Fresh Wave Odor Removing Laundry Booster

If you don’t want to change your laundry detergent and just want to focus on the unpleasant odor in the laundry, then Fresh Wave is the right solution for you. It can handle the most lingering odors in the armpits of shirts without damaging the fabrics with an extra-strong formula.

Unlike other deodorants that do more than mask the present odors, Fresh Wave works on the fabric first by removing the bad scents and then adds its own natural and fresh fragrance. The deodorant has natural and biodegradable ingredients including pine needle, lime, clove, anise, and cedarwood. These have no negative impact on the clothes, the environment, or your skin. 

Fresh Wave removes the stains of sweat, food, sweat, stuffy clothes, wet clothes, or any other odors that linger on the clothes due to storage. With no harsh chemicals or toxins, it’s a safe product to use around pets and children in the household.

3. Best Eco-Friendly: HEX Performance Laundry Packs

Hex’s claim to fame is that it targets activewear with this special product. It handles stains differently than other laundry detergents. Not only does its powerful formula break down the tough stains, but it also blocks the fabric from reabsorbing them again. That’s where many laundry detergents fail. They would remove the stain, but the fabric will absorb it while the laundry is in the water. Hex dissolves the stains and breaks them down completely to keep the fabric clean.

The formula also protects clothes against damage such as piling, getting stretched, losing stretchability, or looking old after each wash. This protection extends to all types of fabrics from sensitive synthetics to tough textiles like cotton and linen. It protects towels and bedsheets with the same efficiency it does to your dress shirts and underwear.

The ingredients in the formula are biodegradable leaving no footprint on the environment. And with its pleasant apple citrus scent, the clothes smell fresh after every wash cycle.

4. Best Natural Scent: The Good Home Natural Liquid Laundry

Big brands have a lot going for them, but small businesses pay extra attention to what the customer needs and provide a good quality product in a competitive market. This couldn’t be more true than with The Good Home. A small business that produces laundry detergents with a special focus on niche markets such as laundry detergents for men. 

What sets this detergent from others on this list is that it uses natural scents that give your laundry a long-lasting pleasant odor even after you wear it for a few hours. Natural is the operative word here since the fragrances are 96 percent natural plant and mineral scents. The detergent is free from toxic chemicals such as sulfates, silicones, and phthalates. 

The natural ingredients not only protect the fabrics of the expensive clothes but also leave no trace amounts of toxins and chemicals that your skin could absorb when you put on the clothes.

5. Best Masculine Fragrance: Distinctive

It’s no secret that many guys like to smell masculine. This is why they would spend a lot of money on perfumes and colognes that make you smell like a stud. If that’s the kind of odor you want to send out to the world every time you walk into a room full of people, then Distinctive would be the right choice. It makes all those masculine perfumes and deodorants redundant as it works on the fabrics and infuses them with that distinct scent.

The formula is based on enzymes that work well in any amount of water in the washer as well as at any water temperature. But it’s the scent that sets it apart from other laundry detergents for men. The unique masculine scent is a combination of sandalwood and amber refined and perfected to make it a pleasant and enticing smell both for men and women. Your body heat warms the fragrance in the clothes and releases their seductive odors. And to keep the scent on the clothes for longer, you should air-dry the laundry.

6. Best Value: Persil Pro Clean

Persil Pro Clean combines the two most coveted features of the best laundry detergent for men. Namely, the power to remove the toughest stains and a strong odor that keeps the clothes smelling good on you when you wear them. With the power of the Persil brand behind it, you know your laundry is in safe hands no matter how malodorous or dirty they get.

This extra stain-fighting power comes from the fact that the product is twice as concentrated as other detergents. Not only do you get your clothes cleaned up of the toughest stains, but you do that using less detergent. This is what makes Persil Pro Clean a cost-effective detergent that gives you more mileage for your money. You can use it on regular washers or high-efficiency machines with consistently satisfying results. The laundry will look and “feel” clean and fragrant regardless of what type of washer you have.

Conclusion

If your clothes smell all the time and have stains that are hard to remove, then you need a powerful laundry detergent for men. These detergents have strong fragrances and formulas designed specifically to remove tough stains and eliminate the smell of smoke, food, and sweat. 

When you choose a laundry detergent for men, make sure it saves you money in the long run by doubling as a fabric softener as well as a powerful detergent.

Next, you can check out my article on the best fabric softeners for men.

Pin It on Pinterest