Sunday, January 06, 2008
Doesn't Make Scents to Me
When I was a kid, I was less than fond of bathing (I know this is more than you probably wanted to know, but I had to have an opening for my article, so deal with it). Being a boy, I delighted in getting dirty and smelly and gross – such was the essence of little boys in the days before video games, personal computers, and DVDs. When I was forced—and yes, I chose that word on purpose—to take a bath, I was further humiliated by having to deal with sweet-smelling soaps that my mother and sisters adored. Most of the soaps around our house just smelled “good,” but, on some occasions, flower-scented soaps would insinuate themselves. This was where I was first introduced to the “insult to injury” idiom.
That’s the way it was with soaps in years gone by: sweet-smelling and, occasionally, flowery, but in the past decade, soaps have undergone a transformation of evolutionary proportions. The word “soap” rarely appears on our personal cleansing products. And now we have products called “shower gels,” “beauty bars,” “moisturizing bath cakes,” etc. And the scents make no sense to me.
History records how scenting ourselves began. Way back in the Middle Ages, drawing baths and washing clothes were major undertakings. In order to bathe, one would have to draw gallons and gallons of water, heat it over a fire, pour it into a bath tub, and then scrub away a month’s-worth of grime. Once finished, an individual would have to struggle back into several layers of heavy clothing and make multiple trips from the bathtub to the yard to get rid of the bath water. He or she would work up a considerable sweat, effectively negating the effects of the recent bath. Washing one’s wardrobe tended to produce an incredible sweat also. But this all changed when a man by the name of Sir Richard Talc III discovered that by grinding corn into a fine powder and sprinkling it in his shorts he could control sweating and smell better too. Of course, this craze didn’t catch on overnight. It took quite some time, as you can imagine, to market such a product (Prospective customer: “You grind the corn into a fine powder and then you put it where?!”).
After Talc’s powder did catch on, other ingenious individuals began to suggest rubbing flowers on one’s skin to cover up one’s own natural fragrance. Royalty, exclusively, used rose petals, and the social classes beneath them used flowers of less expense. Peasants of this time looked jaundiced and smelled of dandelion. Thus began our history of scenting.
Scenting, or perfuming as it came to be called, all but died out, except for with the wealthy, with the introduction of indoor plumbing, which, as you well know, makes bathing relatively simple. But in recent years, scenting has returned and in a big way.
It began with floral scents: lavender, rose, cherry blossoms, etc. But in recent years, makers of bath and shower products began incorporating fruit fragrances into their “soaps.” Today, we have entire stores and catalogs devoted to bath products with every scent imaginable and some scent combinations unimaginable. There’s cucumber melon (who would ever think to put these two together?), strawberries or peaches and cream, mango tangerine, watermelon, passion fruit, etc. They even have seasonal products that smell like pumpkin pie, cinnamon buns, and candy canes (I’m waiting for one that smells like Thanksgiving dinner).
What I want to know is how did it all begin? Was it with some woman, who had run out of soap and just happened to be showering with a basket of strawberries? Or was it with a couple, out for an intimate picnic. The young man starts to kiss the nape of his girlfriends neck, and, upon catching a whiff of the watermelon juice she had dribbled down her front, exclaimed, “you know what would be great? Watermelon scented soap!” I really don’t know. I can, however, imagine the ads placed for product testers: “WANTED: young ladies to test new scents. Those allergic to bees need not apply.”
Like I said, I don’t know how all the fruit-scented products came into being, but I do know where they should go from here. First of all, most of the “soap” manufacturers ignore a huge demographic: men. If they would just incorporate a few scents that men find appealing, imagine the revenue. What man wouldn’t like to step out of the shower smelling of New Car Smell: the Scent of Success? Or Major Engine Overhaul by Mennen? Or perhaps Essence of NFL? Okay, maybe not the last one, but you get my drift.
Another great idea would be to create bath and shower products that appeal to the opposite sex. Some companies are on the right track with their cinnamon bun fragrance, but fruit and flowers? Come on. Men, real meat-and-potato kind of guys, aren’t turned on by fruit. What would appeal men on a universal level? How about this: A man comes home after a hard day’s work. He opens the door and is greeted by the aroma of roast beef and by the sight of his wife, still glistening, in her terrycloth robe. Or for women: it’s late, she’s snuggled in bed reading her romance novel when in walks her husband, squeaky clean, smelling like new pumps or like a new department store credit card. I really think I’m on to something here. Think about it.
That’s the way it was with soaps in years gone by: sweet-smelling and, occasionally, flowery, but in the past decade, soaps have undergone a transformation of evolutionary proportions. The word “soap” rarely appears on our personal cleansing products. And now we have products called “shower gels,” “beauty bars,” “moisturizing bath cakes,” etc. And the scents make no sense to me.
History records how scenting ourselves began. Way back in the Middle Ages, drawing baths and washing clothes were major undertakings. In order to bathe, one would have to draw gallons and gallons of water, heat it over a fire, pour it into a bath tub, and then scrub away a month’s-worth of grime. Once finished, an individual would have to struggle back into several layers of heavy clothing and make multiple trips from the bathtub to the yard to get rid of the bath water. He or she would work up a considerable sweat, effectively negating the effects of the recent bath. Washing one’s wardrobe tended to produce an incredible sweat also. But this all changed when a man by the name of Sir Richard Talc III discovered that by grinding corn into a fine powder and sprinkling it in his shorts he could control sweating and smell better too. Of course, this craze didn’t catch on overnight. It took quite some time, as you can imagine, to market such a product (Prospective customer: “You grind the corn into a fine powder and then you put it where?!”).
After Talc’s powder did catch on, other ingenious individuals began to suggest rubbing flowers on one’s skin to cover up one’s own natural fragrance. Royalty, exclusively, used rose petals, and the social classes beneath them used flowers of less expense. Peasants of this time looked jaundiced and smelled of dandelion. Thus began our history of scenting.
Scenting, or perfuming as it came to be called, all but died out, except for with the wealthy, with the introduction of indoor plumbing, which, as you well know, makes bathing relatively simple. But in recent years, scenting has returned and in a big way.
It began with floral scents: lavender, rose, cherry blossoms, etc. But in recent years, makers of bath and shower products began incorporating fruit fragrances into their “soaps.” Today, we have entire stores and catalogs devoted to bath products with every scent imaginable and some scent combinations unimaginable. There’s cucumber melon (who would ever think to put these two together?), strawberries or peaches and cream, mango tangerine, watermelon, passion fruit, etc. They even have seasonal products that smell like pumpkin pie, cinnamon buns, and candy canes (I’m waiting for one that smells like Thanksgiving dinner).
What I want to know is how did it all begin? Was it with some woman, who had run out of soap and just happened to be showering with a basket of strawberries? Or was it with a couple, out for an intimate picnic. The young man starts to kiss the nape of his girlfriends neck, and, upon catching a whiff of the watermelon juice she had dribbled down her front, exclaimed, “you know what would be great? Watermelon scented soap!” I really don’t know. I can, however, imagine the ads placed for product testers: “WANTED: young ladies to test new scents. Those allergic to bees need not apply.”
Like I said, I don’t know how all the fruit-scented products came into being, but I do know where they should go from here. First of all, most of the “soap” manufacturers ignore a huge demographic: men. If they would just incorporate a few scents that men find appealing, imagine the revenue. What man wouldn’t like to step out of the shower smelling of New Car Smell: the Scent of Success? Or Major Engine Overhaul by Mennen? Or perhaps Essence of NFL? Okay, maybe not the last one, but you get my drift.
Another great idea would be to create bath and shower products that appeal to the opposite sex. Some companies are on the right track with their cinnamon bun fragrance, but fruit and flowers? Come on. Men, real meat-and-potato kind of guys, aren’t turned on by fruit. What would appeal men on a universal level? How about this: A man comes home after a hard day’s work. He opens the door and is greeted by the aroma of roast beef and by the sight of his wife, still glistening, in her terrycloth robe. Or for women: it’s late, she’s snuggled in bed reading her romance novel when in walks her husband, squeaky clean, smelling like new pumps or like a new department store credit card. I really think I’m on to something here. Think about it.
Labels: fragrance, Scents, shower gel, soap
