One year when I was hyper fixated on the idea of Christmas immersion (like, that’s every year, but maybe that year was moreso I don’t know lol..), I was hypnotized into buying these holiday soaps.
I was shopping in one of those home stores. You know what they are, the ones that just put anything on the shelves as long as they have some type of home aesthetic depending on the theme of the season.
So, here I was shopping for – I think, socks or something – and I saw these soap bars in a bin.
I am very much able to be pushed by the power of suggestion. I hate it but that’s just something I’ve learned to accept about myself. If it’s Christmas and the display is just right and there’s bright Christmas colors, you could probably sell me anything….and I mean, anything.
So, I buy these soaps and my cool, detached demeanor at the cash register communicates “yeah…I’m just picking these soaps up as extra Christmas gift trinkets, if you know what I mean.”
But privately…..I am super hyped to smell like Christmas. 😂
Well, I gotta tell y’all. I was disappointed. I started with the Gingerbread one and it was far too muted, there was no gingerness at all – it smelled oddly of the regular grocery grade white-bread, and the supermarket brand to boot! After a couple of days using it, thinking more applications would get to a more fragrant center, I gave up on the soap.
The one with the Merry Christmas graphic on it was even worse. There was a smell, for sure, but it was more like a bad amalgamation of……Christmas essences you didn’t want. I used it for a day and threw it out.
Life is not without a sense of irony. And I was reminded of that using the Gumdrop soap. I had to Google what an actual gumdrop was because honestly, I only bought it because the packaging had that nice green hue and it was candy like. Again, I’m susceptible to the modern evils of advertising.
The Gumdrop soap, to its credit, was the only one with an olfactory identity. It was strong and I guess, if one knew what a gumdrop was, it smelled good. And surprisingly, despite it being the last soap I wanted to try, it fulfilled its job of smelling like Christmas – or at least, an aspect of it. Strangely enough, there were only certain friends and acquaintances that recognized what the scent was or what it reminded them of. For others, it was a vague – but positive – association.
I’m not going to wax poetic or anything about Christmas being this amorphous experience of the senses, don’t worry y’all. I just wanted to tell you if you see soaps like this all wrapped pretty while Christmas shopping – you should temper your expectations.
I probably would have been better off just rubbing gingerbread dough in places where I spray myself with deodorant or cologne. 😂
Have a great weekend y’all!
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