Baffled, I sprayed a little in the air and discovered that it really does smell just like fresh strawberries and cream. It was like being at Wimbledon in that little cubicle.
I find myself increasingly confused with this scent decision. I totally get lavender and rose, or potpourri and forest tree for a bathroom toilet spray. But I don’t get the thinking behind food flavours.
I’m going to be blunt and a little coarse here, because there’s really no delicate way of putting this. But do people really want their um… er… their poo to smell like strawberries and cream? Do they? Really? Do we want our bathrooms to smell like our kitchens? Is that what we’re doing nowadays? I’m only asking because I may have missed that trend, they seem to come and go so quickly.
Also I don’t think that the good people at the multi-national corporation responsible for this product would ever just randomly come up with a scent by sucking it out of fresh air. Chances are, when the time came to launch a new flavour, they put together a task force of their finest minds, wrote reports and delved into at least six months of costly research and development, and held a number of national research focus groups to come up with the idea.
Ah research. It’s a marvelous thing. You put fifteen random regular South Africans from your target market around a table, feed them sandwiches and ask them probing questions about your product. While suits sit on the other side of a one way glass observing them and taking notes.
I can only picture the scene:
RESEARCH LADY: Right ladies, today we want to find out from you, if you didn’t want your poo to smell of your poo, what would you like it to smell of?
HOUSEWIFE ONE: (Tentatively) What about lavender?
HOUSEWIFE TWO: I’m sure that’s been done before.
HOUSEWIFE THREE: I think it should be a really lovely, lovely smell, you know, a pretty smell, something that we all like to smell.
HOUSEWIFE FOUR: I like the smell of strawberries…
ALL HOUSEWIVES IN UNISON: Oooh yum, strawberries.
HOUSEWIFE TWO: You know what goes well with strawberries? Cream!
And so the idea to invent a Strawberries and Cream toilet air freshener was born.
I’m posting this comment on behalf of Tiah, who has always had a problem posting from her computer to the blog. some kind of technical glitch.
Tiah has a lovely blog over here:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1273735.Tiah_Beautement/blog
here’s her comment:
Hello,
Your blog made me laugh. Anybody quoting Good Morning Vietnam has my attention. Very good points. Not about to put strawberries & cream in my bathroom either.
But, I’m going to take a wild leap and assume that Glade is a US brand. And I’m going to take another wild leap and assume marketing people were lazy and just went “people in the US love it, so SA peeps will too!” Sure as heck wouldn’t be the first time.
And I’ll bet they’ve got lemon meringue and maybe a cinnamon in there, too. In fact, almost certain.
Because there is a group of US peeps (now, I’m not one of them) that use these sprays for other parts of their house. In fact, all bloody over. (Yes, your nose feels as bad as you are probably imagining, when you enter one of these homes.)
Then there is the fact that strawberries cream smelly / tasty artificial whatever is bog standard in the US, akin to the UK with their salt & vinegar. And yes, there is a whole lot that can be extrapolated between the country of strawberry & cream vs salt & vinegar.
Ahem.
🙂
At least the toilet paper wasn’t scented, yes?
Keep well!
Tiah
Excellent point, i’ve wondered about this same thing before 😉
totally agree… and for me it works the other way round too..there’s one called ‘wind dried linen’ or ‘crisp white sheets’ or something. Seriously? Euw. that’s gonna put me right off washing my bedding :)or the ocean for that matter.
lets just stick with Lavender and finished. or some sort of vaguely green floral!
Second only in strangeness to “Baby Caress”.
exactly! this is why I prefer odourless sprays or even lighting a match.
http://stilettoadventures.blogspot.com/2009/02/lot-like-love.html
you do get scented loo paper – the Aloe Vera version sold at Woolies and , um – the puppies one?, at other supermarkets does have a vague smell to it. Its kind of nice though so I’m not calling them on it 🙂
Ditto with the rest of you though – artificial strawberries and cream just sounds gross. I also can’t bear the smell of most baby wet wipes – they smell like poo to me… guess its association from nappy changing. urgh.
@cosmicgrrl – great minds right? fantastic post. thanks for linking. 🙂
Peatree – i don’t mind the scented loo paper too much, but not crazy about the scented tissues! nothing worse when you’re trying to blow your nose!
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