In 1952, a milkman in northern New York complained to one of his customers about the smell of spilled milk in his truck. As it happens he complained to the right guy. Julius Sämann was a chemist who had fled from Nazi Germany and had spent time in the pine forests of Canada studying the aroma of alpine trees. Snap!
To address the smelly car issue, Julius combined fragrance (originally natural pine oil, but today goodness-knows-what-chemicals) with specialised blotting paper material with an attached string, thereby inventing the first car air freshener.
The freshener originally took the shape of a buxom pin up girl, but Julius ultimately settled on the form of an abstract (little) tree in honour of his years extracting aromatic oils from pine trees in Canada.
Orders started rolling in to the newly formed Car-Freshner Corporation from all over the country, and “Little Trees” brand air fresheners quickly gained a strong international following.
The iconic Little Tree (usually dangling from the rear vision mirror of a car) has since appeared in countless movies and television shows.
While the first fragrances were Royal Pine, Spice and Bouquet, the range expanded to include Caribbean Colada, Vanillaroma, New Car Scent and a couple with very Zoolandish names: Black Ice and Pure Steel.
Today, Little Tree air fresheners are made in factories in Watertown, New York (the headquarters) and DeWitt, Iowa; and several companies in Europe produce Little Trees under license from Bermuda-based Julius Sämann Ltd. using the names "Wunder-Baum" (in Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary and Sweden) and "Arbre Magique" (in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). It was formerly known as "Magic Tree" in the United Kingdom until the "Little Tree" name was adopted in 2011.
The company is fiercely protective of its Little Tree air fresheners and is known for pursuing lawsuits aggressively to protect its trademarks.
The company also remains tight-lipped about the composition of its fragrances, comparing them perhaps presumptously to the recipe for Coca-Cola. “The makeup of the Little Trees air fresheners is a closely guarded secret” said a spokesperson for the company when questioned.
Little trees in sweet smelling cars have clearly become a big business.
Finally, for a nice summary check out this Bloomberg “Behind the Design” video on “How Little Tree Air Fresheners Got Their Smell” from 2018.
Story Idea: Bonnie Siegler
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References
littletrees.com
wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Trees
Video: "The Story Behind the Iconic Air Freshener", Bloomberg Originals, 2018
Images
1. Little Trees Air Freshener
2. Julius Sämann
3. Vintage Little Trees Air Freshener packaging
4. Black Ice & Pure Steel
5. "Zoolander Blue Steel" by Shepard Fairey, Obey Giant
6. Car-Freshener Corporate Headquarters in Watertown, New York
7. Anatomy of a Little Trees Trademark
8. Little Trees luggage tag available at littletrees.com
9. British artist Jack Williams created “Forest” a 2009 installation using 350 Royal Pine air fresheners, hung in a square configuration from the ceiling via fishing wire.
10. Video: "The Story Behind the Iconic Air Freshener", Bloomberg Originals, 2018
