Said It Here

Why did they change the scent of Dawn?

Favorite household products often get heavy, perfumy scent updates that smell horrible and force users to switch alternatives like free and clear versions. This leaves customers worried about whether replacement options will actually meet their expectations even if the core performance stays the same.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    switching to free and clear variants
  2. 2
    stockpiling remaining original bottles

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/CleaningTips2 people · September 2026

I had to switch to the free and clear Dawnsource ↗

zo0ombot · r/CleaningTips · 1 upvotes

Smells horrible tbh - super strong perfume in it. Can confirm it still works like dawn.source ↗

d1tt0bl4ze · r/CleaningTips · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised