Dilemma! Your laundry detergent may come in one fragrance; your favorite fabric softener in another. How do you achieve just the right fragrance? After all, you want your laundry to smell fresh, not like a trip through the perfume aisle. Here are a few tips for creating the scent experience you want from washer to dryer.

The idea of scent layering in the laundry room has been ignored for too many years! With a variety of new scented laundry detergents, fabric softeners and additives coming on the market almost daily, trying to find a consistent or complementary fragrance that you can carry through your whole wash can be a cumbersome task.

The ideal approach is to maintain matching scents throughout the whole wash. The Tide Fabric Care Network now offers matching scent lines from Tide, Downy and Bounce.

Tide and Downy^® offer matching scents in both detergent and liquid fabric softener: Tide Mountain Spring^® and Downy Mountain Spring^® and Tide with Febreze™ Freshness and Downy with Febreze™ Fresh Scent in two varieties: Spring & Renewal™ and Meadows & Rain™.

And new Pure Essentials from Tide, Downy, and Bounce^®, offer matching scents in all three brands, so whether you prefer dryer sheets or liquid fabric softener, you can layer the scent from start to finish. Try pairing Tide Pure Essentials White Lilac Scent with Bounce Pure Essentials Aloe and White Lilac Scent. If you prefer a blend of citrus and fruity-floral notes, pair Tide Pure Essentials Lemon Verbena Scent with Downy Pure Essentials Chamomile & Lemon Verbena Scent.

If the same scent isn't available in both your detergent and fabric softener, try complementary scents that are in the same general category. Try matching an outdoor scent with another outdoor scent, or a floral scent with another floral scent. For example, try pairing Tide Pure Essentials Lemon Verbena Scent and Bounce Pure Essentials with Aloe and White Lilac Scent. The scents in both are naturally inspired, to create wonderfully clean and fresh fabrics. Although pairing similar scents may not be the same as pairing the identical scent, they can create a pleasant fragrance.

Sometimes the answer is having no perfumes at all. In that case, Tide Free, Downy Free & Sensitive, and Bounce Free offer a system that eliminates all the dyes and perfumes from the products, for a perfume-free laundry experience.

If you're faithful to one scent of fabric softener, another option is to use a detergent without a scent. Tide Free paired with April Fresh^® Ultra Downy is an example of how to use the fabric softener scent to freshen and soften your laundry.

So, the next time you're in the laundry aisle deciding what fragrance to choose, remember that sometimes matching scents make the best sense!