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Perfume-filled microcapsules are intended to be incorporated in household products (e.g. detergents), and then provide a pleasant scent to consumers after laundry processes. To realise this, it is essential for the microcapsules to deposit and then remain on fabric surfaces during and after laundry processes. Therefore, microcapsules and model fabric surfaces were modified respectively with special chemicals in order to enhance the adhesion between them in this work; then the adhesion and retention of microcapsules on model fabric surfaces were investigated and adhesion mechanisms were explained; finally, the relationship between the adhesion and the removal/retention of particles from a model surface was established by a mathematical model. It is believed that this study has enhanced fundamental understanding of the various interactions between microcapsules and fabric surfaces relevant to industrial applications and has laid a solid foundation to effectively develop new formulations to improve the performance of various consumer products.