The Laundress enters Target, embarking on its largest retail expansion to date

Experiential Marketing // September 16, 2026 The Laundress enters Target, embarking on its largest retail expansion to date By Anna Hensel The Laundress After years as a predominantly direct-to-consumer brand, Unilever-owned The Laundress is entering Target stores with a fresh take on laundry care.

A 16-SKU collection from The Laundress is now available for sale on Target’s website and through its app. Products are rolling out in 600 Target stores this month, with expansion into 1,000 Target stores planned for March 2027.

The Laundress, known for its high-end laundry care products, like a $30 wool and cashmere shampoo, developed an exclusive new scent for Target. Fragrance will be a key selling point in stores.

“We’re one of the first laundry care brands at Target that will have scent puffers,” Kathleen O’Brien, general manager of Unilever home care North America, told Modern Retail in a Zoom interview.

In stores, there will be “clear articulations of the notes behind each fragrance and each piece and [information to ensure] the guest knows that it is prestige fabric care that is formulated with the best ingredients.”

O’Brien said Unilever’s home-care business overall, which also includes the eco-friendly Seventh Generation brand, is “on a very clear mission … to double our business by 2030.” Bringing The Laundress into stores will be a critical piece of that. Unilever acquired The Laundress in 2019; the brand ended up relaunching in 2023 after a product recall.

For the past few years, sales have largely been split 50/50 between the brand’s DTC site and its Amazon business. The Laundress can also be found in a few other channels — its products have been available through The Container Store’s website since 2016, for example.

But Unilever decided now was the time to bring the brand into physical retail stores due to a confluence of factors. According to O’Brien, The Laundress operates at the intersection of a few different wellness trends that gained prominence in the skin-care and beauty categories but are now starting to creep into home care.

The concept of self-care remains a powerful driver for many consumers, and conversations around self-care have broadened beyond temporary salves like face masks and massages to include discussions on creating a soothing environment in the home through daily rituals.

Then there’s the premiumization of fragrance, with brands pushing luxurious scents as a reason to command a more premium price tag. It’s a trend that investors have been watching in recent years.

“On the shelves of Target and Walmart in the traditional laundry and household cleaning aisles, you’re going to start seeing more premium products that have that differentiated scent architecture,” Diana Melencio, general partner at XRC Brand Capital Fund, said on an episode of the Modern Retail Podcast earlier this month.

The Laundress likes to bill its products as ones that “pair high-performance cleaning with perfumer-crafted fragrances.” Scent is a major focus in its social media and marketing copy, with the Wirecutter naming the brand’s signature classic detergent its “best-scented laundry detergent” in an article earlier this year.

When looking at all those trends — “where the category is going, and then where Target is going, as well, we said this is exactly the right time for us to bring this forward to the guest,” O’Brien said.

The exclusive fragrance that The Laundress developed for Target, called Cloud, is meant to “evoke the soft and cozy comfort of freshly laundered linens,” according to a press release.

The Laundress is bringing its other three top-selling scents — Classic, Dream and Marine — to Target across a range of products including laundry detergent, fabric softener, fabric perfume and stain treatment. O’Brien said The Laundress had to rethink some elements for Target, like packaging.

The easy part, O’Brien acknowledged, was figuring out the digital part of the Target launch, since The Laundress is a digitally native brand. “We brought [our products] to life at Target, where they could feel that fine fragrance and fine fabric care and self rituals online.”

The Laundress’ brand page on Target’s website includes tutorials on the art of scent layering and extending the life of and freshness of activewear. O’Brien said Unilever has no immediate plans to bring The Laundress to other brick-and-mortar retailers.

“We’re going to partner exclusively with Target for the foreseeable future, and continue to maintain our vibrant DTC and Amazon business.” Copy link