The importance of fragrance in the washroom
July 1st 2005

The importance of air freshening in the washroom is often underrated.

Ceris Burns of Kennedy Hygiene Products, talks to service provider Capital Hygiene about the crucial role air freshening plays in the washroom Afragrant door opener for the service provider? “If there is a pleasant clean fragrance, you automatically think that the washroom is clean”, says Shireen Pope, director of service provider Capital Hygiene. “The air freshener is the only unit that gives us instant results in the washroom. It makes a big difference and being a hygiene service provider, it’s definitely a door opener for us. We started out 3 years ago and have grown from 3 to 15 staff in that short time. Without doubt, air fresheners have certainly opened a number of new contracts for us”.

70% of all washrooms have air fresheners Once it was a luxury to have an air freshener, however, over the last few years, establishments have started to spend more voluntarily on the provision of washroom facilities. Some companies will even stretch to luxury chrome units. Around 70% of all washrooms are now kitted out with an air freshener.

Company managers are much more in the know. They spend more on washroom hygiene provision and are also more demanding. They are more astute and being wary of getting tied into contracts, shorter 3 year contracts are now the norm. In brief, establishments provide smarter washrooms and are better at keeping service providers on their toes! The combined air freshening solution The solution is to find and eliminate the malodour at source rather than just trying to mask it with an air freshener. A truly clean solution is a combination of quashing the malodour and installing a good air freshening unit.

Shireen explains: “You get to know the smells. In 7 out of 10 cases, in men’s toilets it’s the urinals that cause the smell. Sometimes the problem is as simple as no ventilation in the washroom or an old mop in the cleaning cupboard!” Detect, eliminate, clean, deodorise “In any case, the malodour must be detected and eliminated, the area thoroughly cleaned and then at this point we install air fresheners. In men’s washrooms we install sanitizers to prevent smells, in addition to air fresheners placed directly above the urinals to counteract malodour”.

“We pride ourselves in service”, adds Shireen. “If our customer has a problem we jump. After saying this we have to have reliable, efficient washroom products to enable us to provide an effective solution”.

The ideal air freshener An air freshening unit needs to be well designed, compact, efficient, good quality, and be pleasing to the eye. No mean feat.

Capital Hygiene installs Kennedy’s Cresta Programmable air freshener in washrooms on an on-going basis. “It’s important for us to be able to set the unit at different frequencies and the Cresta provides for this. For example, in a male washroom we would set the unit on high and use a strong fragrance such as vanilla. Meanwhile, in offices and conference halls a low frequency setting, say every 28 minutes coupled with a lighter fragrance would do the trick”.

SPA – a new complete air freshening solution Kennedy has recently launched a new complete solution for air freshening. SPA, an innovative fully programmable aerosol air freshening unit and Freedom in Fragrance, a tasteful and effective new fragrance range. For more details:

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