This S’pore home fragrance brand has turned fragrance into a S$1M laundry detergent.

In the seven months to 2026, the Kapsä laundry brand made more than S$1 million in revenue

While Edison Lim and Lincoln Thong launched a home fragrance brand Sweet Smell in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, they had a problem that many businesses would envy: their product was very popular, yet sales were seasonal.

Pristine Aroma’s reed diffusers and scented candles like their signature Himalayan Tea, were packed every Christmas but quiet every Jul and Aug.

The two knew they wanted their next venture’s income to be a little more stable.

The fix they came up with was to take something they were best at, apply it to the most common tasks imaginable, and create an entirely new brand around it.

That kind of happened Kapsä: a capybara-shaped laundry detergent that smells like fragrance, now available in supermarkets and remarkably online.

In less than two years since its launch, Kapsä has already crossed S$1 million in revenue in the first seven months of 2026.

We spoke to Kapsä’s founders, Edison and Lincoln, both 33, to find out how the home fragrance brand became the home of a laundry detergent brand, and what it takes to compete with the laundry giants.

Turning a simple idea into a profitable business

Home fragrances, naturally, are bought from time to time. But laundry detergent is not. People wash clothes every few days regardless of the month, the mood, or whether Christmas is coming, and that predictability is what the founders wanted.

“We wanted to get into something that could be replicated every day,” Edison said. “There is a need every day.”

The insight behind Kapsä was that the customer who cares enough about how their home smells to buy a premium reed diffuser is probably the same person who does laundry who cares about how their clothes smell too.

Thus, Pristine Aroma’s existing customer base was a marketing advantage that formed a testing ground during Kapsä’s early days.

Finally, Kapsä was launched under Cool Brands Pte. Ltd. in early 2024, about a year after development began in 2023.

Each pod is formulated around Pristine Aroma’s award-winning fragrances, clearly marketed as fragrances, with powerful cleansing powers.

Smell as a selling point

Many laundry products compete on cleaning guarantees. However, Kapsä leads with fragrances, and especially with fragrances that are not already in the category.

The first pod is made with Himalayan Tea, Pristine Aroma’s most popular signature scent, which customers describe as “smelling like ION Orchard.”

Kapsä currently offers two other fragrances: Lush Freesia (inspired by English Pear & Freesia, reminiscent of Jo Malone), and Santal Noir (a sweet, masculine fragrance inspired by Santal 33 by Le Labo Fragrances). Of the three, Lush Freesia has become a bestseller.

That said, Edison added that the scent of Himalayan Tea is still unique and novel in the laundry segment.

Santal Noir, on the other hand, offers a deep, woody, masculine scent to a category of laundry detergents that is often dominated by floral and sweet profiles.

“There is no other species that smells so good. People generally like flowers, the smell is sweet, very sweet,” said Edison. “We’re not just chasing trends, we’re bridging the gap in the cleaning industry.”

Edison ranks Kapsä as a more premium than budget brand, roughly comparable to Tide and Ariel.

R&D grinds behind every new scent

Transferring the scent from the diffuser bottle to the washing machine is not as simple as throwing the Pristine Aroma formula into the washing machine. Chemistry must be done differently.

Fragrance notes need to be adjusted to stabilize and match the detergent—a process that took more than a year with Kapsä’s first product, but now takes about six to nine months to develop each new scent.

The co-founders share R&D with its suppliers and manufacturers in Singapore, Malaysia, and the US, while final production takes place in China.

In response to customer feedback, the duo created their latest offering: Magic Beads, launched in late Jul 2026—booster pellets designed to be used next to pods for customers who want their clothes to smell great.

One of the most common pieces of feedback that Kapsä received about Himalayan Tea was that the aroma, while good, was subtle. These scent boosters are designed to keep clothes smelling fresh for up to 24 weeks when stored in the wardrobe after washing.

Win against the big cleaning brands, one subscriber at a time

Competing with large laundry brands, with decades of shelf presence, marketing budgets that generate local product revenue, and familiarity with consumers, is the kind of challenge that can give many founders doubts, especially as a small brand.

These two don’t pretend it’s easy.

“It was very difficult for us to try to gain market share, to convince customers why they should use our products with Dynamo,” said Lincoln.

Kapsä’s answer is physical access to supermarket shelves, combined with ongoing registration.

This product sells through its website, Shopee, and now through physical retail at Isetan, Giant and Cold Storage.

The co-founders acknowledged the challenges that come with stocking supermarkets, where offline merchandise costs up to S$10,000 a month in marketing and advertising, making profitability in that channel really difficult.

That said, Edison and Lincoln are still determined to stay in the supermarket.

“To be a true homegrown brand in the next three to five years, we really need to be on every channel we can,” Edison said.

The subscription model, introduced alongside the product in 2024, is where the economy is developing. Subscribers typically get a discount and the convenience of autofill, while Kapsä gets predictable demand and lower customer acquisition costs.

“Typically, people who sign up for Kapsä, don’t really leave,” Edison said. “Once they try a product, once they like it, they don’t go back to other products.”

Each box of Kapsä pods costs S$15.90 at retail price.

4,000 boxes per month and counting

The numbers show that Kapsä quickly found its footing. The brand now moves more than 4,000 boxes a month, a rate that prompted the group to upgrade its Singapore warehouse from 1,600 to 3,500 sq ft in June.

The team in both brands consists of about 12 people, always deliberately lean as the founders focus on building projects over inventory, which allows Kapsä to grow successfully.

Kapsä surpassed S$1 million in revenue for the year 2026 as of Jul, a milestone reached less than two and a half years after its launch.

On the other hand, Pristine Aroma’s revenue has also grown significantly beyond the S$1.6 million figure reported in previous years, and the brand is now sold in Malaysia, Indonesia and the US.

Kapsä is set to follow a similar international path.

Looking ahead, Cool Brands’ roadmap goes beyond fragrance entirely. Edison and Lincoln plan to launch a new, possibly non-scent-related model in mid-2027, expanding the group’s direct-to-consumer model they’ve been building since 2019.

“Our long-term goal for Cool Brands is to be the most successful and sustainable D2C consumer goods group in the next 10 years,” Edison said. “We want to come up with more products in the future.”

Lincoln’s advice to anyone thinking of starting their own brand is to “get 1% better every day. And that will improve your systems, processes, and skill set tremendously.”

• Read more about Just here.
• Read more about Pristine Aroma here.
• Read other articles we’ve written about Singapore businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Kapsä