Aversion Warning: May be nutty
"This conditioner really works great on my hair. What is it?" I remember asking around a year ago, after a shampoo and haircut at a place I didn't usually go to.
The question led to my buying a bottle each of the shampoo and conditioner from the salon, most likely for some ungodly amount of cash, but I can't remember that part so it can't have been too terrible.
It all seemed well and good until the first time I used it in the confines of my own bathroom, when I realized to my own abject horror that the thick humid shower air immediately became heavy with the scent of . . . bananas.
And how I hate bananas.
Oh God, I truly revile and despise bananas.
It was all I could do to keep my dinner down from the night before.
And not just any bananas: this was the saccharine sweet odour of artificial bananas. The banana of bad childhood bubble gum and cheap knock-off banana flavoured ice cream. The banana of dental tooth polish and tacky car scent.
How could I have not known this before buying the stuff?
It's taken me a year (what with alternating it with many bottles of the pleasantly sandalwood-scented Neutrogena), and I've finally used up all the shampoo, but the conditioner still has what, by weight, seemed only one last miserable dosage . . . for going on about 6 showers worth now. It's the conditioner hell that just won't end.
And although you may be laughing, I have to tell you this isn't all. There's a brand of L'Oreal hair gel (the Melting Gel, or more cake-icing-oriented French name "Gel Fondant") which I've used for a couple of years now to prevent the 2 o'clock Matt-fro which seems to happen especially in humid weather if I don't have some kind of fixative in my hair, and, honestly, I can't even say what it used to smell like.
Until the last innocent-looking tube I purchased at what I thought was my friendly neighbourhood Shoppers Drug Mart.
No indication on the package that it was new and/or improved, or included an Exciting New Scent (TM), but the first time I opened that new package . . . you guessed it . . . Hubba-Bubba banana flavour all over my head.
My sense of brand loyalty, or at least whatever you call it when you find something that really works and you're too damn lazy to explore alternatives, has kept me from switching to something else quite yet, but the conditioner and hair gel have conspired to ensure that I haven't had any breakfast appetite for going on a month now.
You know, products these days have all kinds of warning labels: allergy warnings for peanuts and nuts and wheat and soy and dairy and shellfish, indications of whether animal testing was involved, certifications of all-natural or organic backgrounds — but it doesn't seem like too much to ask to request a scent-aversion warning does it?
"Warning: this product contains a banana fragrance often associated with the only fruit you may have been fed during a serious gastrointestinal disorder early in your life and subsequently have a severe aversion to, and/or odour of the sticky unwashed fingers of a two year old with a mouthful of Blastin' Banana Bubblicious gum, and may result in loss of appetite, nausea, and faltering of will to live."
Seems reasonable to me.
The question led to my buying a bottle each of the shampoo and conditioner from the salon, most likely for some ungodly amount of cash, but I can't remember that part so it can't have been too terrible.
It all seemed well and good until the first time I used it in the confines of my own bathroom, when I realized to my own abject horror that the thick humid shower air immediately became heavy with the scent of . . . bananas.
And how I hate bananas.
Oh God, I truly revile and despise bananas.
It was all I could do to keep my dinner down from the night before.
And not just any bananas: this was the saccharine sweet odour of artificial bananas. The banana of bad childhood bubble gum and cheap knock-off banana flavoured ice cream. The banana of dental tooth polish and tacky car scent.
How could I have not known this before buying the stuff?
It's taken me a year (what with alternating it with many bottles of the pleasantly sandalwood-scented Neutrogena), and I've finally used up all the shampoo, but the conditioner still has what, by weight, seemed only one last miserable dosage . . . for going on about 6 showers worth now. It's the conditioner hell that just won't end.
And although you may be laughing, I have to tell you this isn't all. There's a brand of L'Oreal hair gel (the Melting Gel, or more cake-icing-oriented French name "Gel Fondant") which I've used for a couple of years now to prevent the 2 o'clock Matt-fro which seems to happen especially in humid weather if I don't have some kind of fixative in my hair, and, honestly, I can't even say what it used to smell like.
Until the last innocent-looking tube I purchased at what I thought was my friendly neighbourhood Shoppers Drug Mart.
No indication on the package that it was new and/or improved, or included an Exciting New Scent (TM), but the first time I opened that new package . . . you guessed it . . . Hubba-Bubba banana flavour all over my head.
My sense of brand loyalty, or at least whatever you call it when you find something that really works and you're too damn lazy to explore alternatives, has kept me from switching to something else quite yet, but the conditioner and hair gel have conspired to ensure that I haven't had any breakfast appetite for going on a month now.
You know, products these days have all kinds of warning labels: allergy warnings for peanuts and nuts and wheat and soy and dairy and shellfish, indications of whether animal testing was involved, certifications of all-natural or organic backgrounds — but it doesn't seem like too much to ask to request a scent-aversion warning does it?
"Warning: this product contains a banana fragrance often associated with the only fruit you may have been fed during a serious gastrointestinal disorder early in your life and subsequently have a severe aversion to, and/or odour of the sticky unwashed fingers of a two year old with a mouthful of Blastin' Banana Bubblicious gum, and may result in loss of appetite, nausea, and faltering of will to live."
Seems reasonable to me.