Downy Simple Pleasures

Several months ago, I was out grocery shopping when someone I was with happened to place an unfamiliar bottle of fabric softener into their cart. My curiosities piqued, I eventually went shopping around - looking to see who had this product and at what cost. After committing to a location with the best price, I decided to try out the new fabric softener to see if it was worth purchasing repeatedly.

Before purchasing Downy Simple Pleasures, I decided to test the smell, obviously. I wasn't one to purchase a brand name product based on just the name alone. The fragrance was better than I had anticipated. I was expecting one of two problems. Too much vanilla fragrance or too much lavender fragrance. However, it seems Downy managed to get a perfect combination of both aromas to create a very soothing, however in concentrated form strong, softener. I had hopes that the aroma would stick around through drying.

The bottle I purchased cost $4, which is about what it cost everywhere else I had searched, but, I did not believe the promise on the bottle of 52 loads of laundry in this one rather small bottle. That would be the ultimate test.
When I finally came home with the product, a rather anxious me decided to start a load of laundry immediately, wanting to see how far and how well the product worked on my clothes. I was rather amazed to see how they could state 52 loads, but, the cap is so small that one may think they have to use more than one cap full to have any real fragrance. I followed the label and put the softener in my rinse cycle.

As the washer filled and began it's final rinse, I could catch a faint hint of the fragrance from quite a considerable distance away from the washer. This made me even more eager to see how Simple Pleasures would hold up.
The clothing smelled quite strong after being washed, so with hope still there, I tested out how it would smell post drying. Let me just say that as the dryer heated up, the entire laundry room was filled with the still perfectly blended fragrance, which seemed to smell even better as it warmed up.

I was enthralled with the product so far, but the final test would be after the clothing was dry and cool, which seemed to take forever, as most things tend to do if you're really looking forward to it.

The dryer ceased operation and I waited a few minutes before pulling out a few of the towels, taking each one up to my nose to test before folding. I was mildly disappointed. Most of the fragrance was gone and all I could smell was a vague hint on a few items, but nothing that was remotely close to what I had expected. The cotton items in the dryer kept the fragrance moreso than the synthetics from what I could smell. This still didn't deter me. The towels and other clothing were indeed, softer than usual in comparison to my regular fabric softener.

While it did not hold up fully to expectations, I am fairly certain I would buy Downy Simple Pleasures again, however, this time I would try it with the Tide Simple Pleasures Detergent to see if that helps or hinders any. All in all, Downy still stands true by its promise for softer clothing, even if the fragrance isn't as strong as one would think. If there were a star rating I'd give it a 3 out of 4 stars, definitely.