A few days ago, I picked up dishsoap. Since I am more price conscious than brand loyal, I was more focused on price than the variety. It wasn’t until I unpacked the soap at home I noticed it was almond scented. Not really a problem, although I want my dishes, glasses and silverware to smell like the food I am serving, not a cleaning agent, dishsoap is usually subtly scented - unlike a frat boy discovering Ralph Lauren but this almond scent was aggressive. Not just strong, the soap despite featuring attractive packaging, smelled like Dr. Bronner’s Magical-Mystical-Not-Hemp-Soap.
Holy Smell. How is it soap can smell like dirty hippie? Its soap, it cleans, not makes stuff it touches unclean like an Old-Testament proscription.
It is so unfair, there ought to be a warning. Maybe not so much about a specifically worded label – caution hippie stink - instead like a bad housekeeping seal of some sort. The cost of groceries is rising and not just by the extra 17 cents per bottle I am going to be forced to spend on a reliable brand of dishsoap.
Tom Philpott takes us through some of the causes for our rising food bill in Grist. The US government predicts a 4% rise in food prices over the next year, while Bill Lapp, the same Bill Lapp quoted in the above article, predicts annual increases of 7.4% through 2012.
Rising price of oil, climate change, mandates for bio-fuels and a farm policy that encourages and rewards commodities over the actual growing of things we consider food - are going to contribute to an increase in the amount we spend at the grocery store. The only hope of (partial) reforms can be enacted is if President Bush stops a flawed farm bill from passing into law this year. Yes that is right, President Bush is more correct on this issue than any thing else on the table – Funny thing...I type up these entries on a Word File before I post them and the Word program keeps prompting me with a help window asking me if I am sure I want to imply President Bush is right about something, weird the recent Word update included some sort of policy check.
With Macro-economic forces are conspiring to crush us - something Ayn Rand novels never warned me could happen - will, invisible hands and free markets are self-correcting or something like that - it does look like things, at least in the check out lane are going to get a little worse for a while. And there is no economizing with dishsoap.
Update - US News explains more here
2 comments:
dave, i've got a cup of some eco-destroying palmolive i can shlep over there, if you like. doesn't smell like dirty hippies, that's for sure.
and just to put my two cents in, i effing HATE that almond eco stuff. it doesn't clean! it doesn't cut grease! it's the dishwashing detergent equivalent of vegan food - more people consume it to prove a point than to bask in its quality.
i'll just stand back now and let the vegans glare passive-aggressively at me.
xoik
I am wondering how in the world somebody can use the Almond dish soap and say it is strong. The Almond eco friendly has the mildest scent on the market. All of the others nearly knock you out just opening them. What you smell in the Almond is natural. What you smell in the others is Petroleum. That's right, gasoline, kerosene, etc. It is Petroleum mixed with other toxic chemicals made to smell like something it's not. I have used the Almond for many years from dishes, to laundry, in the shower, etc. I love it!
HhhMmmm ? "Each to his own"
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