Stay Tuned/Skin Mascots and Breakfast

I have a peculiar outlook at the grocery store. Also at the drugstore and in many other places where I purchase consumer goods. Every so often, because of my odd habits or just because I think they work better, I find myself purchasing products which are intended for members of the opposite sex.

As a long-time purchaser and user on "both sides of the fence," as it were, I am in a position to tell you something you probably already suspected: The differences between male and female versions of some products are highly exaggerated by the manufacturers.

Aside from the Universe of Razors, which we covered recently and which is a microcosm of its own, there aren't a lot of differences. I'm not talking about products which are manifestly only usable by one gender, like tampons. I'm not talking about products which are an abomination for any gender, like "feminine deodorant spray."

No, I'm talking about, for example, the differences between men's and women's deodorants. (Answer: different scents, and that's about it.) Or the differences between men's and women's shaving creams.

For years, when shaving my face, I used plain old Ivory soap and a shaving brush. But the soap dries out my face. I still use plain soap to shave my legs - but then, I don't shave my legs nearly as often. I normally use some soaplike stuff, loaded with lanolin, that Tom's of Maine makes (all their products are top-notch). It comes in a toothpaste tube. But it's hard to find. Today, determined to cut some of this unladylike growth off my face, I went shopping in commercial shaving preparations - something I haven't done since I was old enough to need to shave.

Aerosols and foams are out. I want something that doesn't lather until I rub it in briskly, working it into the hairs. So, a gel. But, ah ... to buy the men's gels or the women's?

Looking at all the line extension, even confining myself to gel preparations, was staggering. For example, there were seven varieties of Edge gel, each with a different combination of mystical chemical supplements; there were four varieties of Skintimate gel. You get no points for guessing from the names which of those products is intended for men and which is for women.

Indeed, an inspection of the labels showed that there is no tangible difference between Skintimate with moisturizers and Vitamin E, and Edge with the same, except that the women's product makes a virtue of it and the men's product kinda tries to sneak it in - men apparently can't be seen wanting their skin to be soft.

In fact, for every Skintimate product, there was an exact equivalent Edge product. Given that both product lines are made by the same company, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't filling both types of packages with the exact same glop, perhaps with the dyes changed. Of course, I can't prove that, and I wouldn't try to; I find it amusing. Who is vainer? The men who have this macho image to maintain? Or the women who all want to be smooth and sylphlike?

I bought the Edge. But I had a good reason: The supermarket was discounting it this week.

This stuff really bothers me sometimes. With these superfatted soaps (Dove, Caress, et al.) you'll often see the smooth-skin pitch - a recent Caress ad notes that it "meets the needs of a woman's skin." Oh? And if a man has dry skin, tough luck?

But, my short attention span being what it is, I get over it quickly, and move on to other concerns. For example, what does an endorsement from Michelle Kwan have to do with soap? And, for that matter, why do people continue to be swayed by endorsements? I love that Sprite ad which has the basketball star talking about how much he loves the drink, on and on and on. Meanwhile, in the corner, with a cash register noise, images of him counting money keep popping up - more money every few seconds.

That's what I think of endorsements. I could not care less what soap Michelle Kwan uses, even if she wasn't paid to say so.

Another thing which confuses me about the general public is why they'd want to purchase merchandise which has a corporate logo or mascot on it. OK, I admit that the set of Morton Salt mugs for their 150th anniversary was a little bit tempting. (It's a set of four, each showing how the little-girl logo looked at various periods in the company's history.) But buying root beer mugs with the A&W logo? Buying the Oscar Meyer Weinerwhistle? (No, I am not making that up.)

Company mascots or critters used in ads have always mystified me in some ways. Charlie the Tuna is the canonical example. Charlie wants you to eat him. Charlie wants to be the Dish of the Day. Does this strike you as weird? Louis Kemp has some animated crabs in their ads for their pressed-crab sticks. The "husband" crab is upset because the crabsticks taste better than he does. Is it just me that finds this bizarre?

And sometimes even when a company invents an animal character that isn't autophagically beseeching, the effect is bizarre anyway.

Now why is it that I find the above plush toy moderately disturbing, yet Richie the plush chocolate-dipped doughnut just strikes me as oddly cute? (Honest! I know it's a weird concept, but I think he's adorable. I'm sorry I didn't have space to show you his pals, Sprinkles the cupcake and Chip the cookie. Maybe it's got something to do with my abiding love for Entenmann's products.)

Speaking of doughnuts, I encountered a doughnut in an ad which I think could serve as an example of Too Accurate Photography. This is perhaps the most unappetizing-looking doughnut I've ever seen.

If you're really keen on having gloppy sweet stuff for breakfast, how about some Thomas' Maple French Toast English Muffins instead? Mmm-mmm. Yes, not only is this product flavored where no flavoring belongs, but it seems confused about what kind of foodstuff it is. This one should never have left the research lab.

Of course, it's really hard to have something for breakfast which isn't either oversweetened or full of grease. Grape-Nuts, maybe. I don't recommend people try my usual breakfast (a very large cup of coffee with no accompaniment).

What else do we have for the audience in foodstuffs today, Johnny?

Well, how about disgustingly flavored milk? I have an ad here from the (say it with me now, brethren and sistren) National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board, a.k.a. the "Got Milk?" people, wherein you can send off for your free "milk shaker." The shaker is a little plastic cup with a lid, in which you mix milk with one fruit juice or another in order to make "fun, delicious drinks like a Purple Cow, Apple Pie in a Glass, or Orange Dream."

I know the Purple Cow is fairly venerable, but really - grape-flavored milk? (On the other hand, I kinda like strawberry Quik, so maybe it's a matter of opinion.) What really pushes the ad over the edge is that the mother and children in the picture is each sporting a different color of milk mustache. The ads with the fake white ones were bad enough.

(I wonder how much they'd pay me to stand around all day being photographed with a smear of cold cream on my upper lip.)

I'm getting really tired of seeing food which purports to be "grilled," but actually just has smoke flavoring and painted-on grill marks. Frozen fish fillets which you heat in your oven are in no way "grilled."

This is particularly egregious when another brand of Painted Fish announces itself as

Grilled salmon
for people who love grilled salmon
but absolutely, positively
do not
want to grill a salmon.

Finally, we have some meat products which strike me as fairly unappetizing. The first is Lloyds Barbecue-in-a-Tub. No, they don't call it that, but that's what you get - a margarine tub full of sauced, shredded meat. I don't know why this hits me the wrong way - heaven knows I've enjoyed many a pulled pork sandwich where the filling looks basically the same as this - but it does. Maybe it's because I think barbecue is not something you can buy in the supermarket. Silly me.

The other is Mosey's Time For Dinner entrees. These are precooked, non-frozen meat products. Beef Pot Roast. Beef Brisket. Beef Teriyaki. Pork Loin Roast. Somehow, buying a box of pot roast strikes me as even more improbable than buying a tub of barbecue.

Don't you have days when you never want to see the words "just heat and serve" ever again?

Originally I had a note here that James Lileks, who among his other humorous writing ran an adoption service for abandoned company mascots, had commented several times on their penchant for cannibalism. I don't link Lileks anymore for personal reasons, but you can find him at the obvious URL.

The weird cow, for the purpose of completeness, was obtainable through a Kraft promotion involving cheese slices. I am deliberately not naming the maker of the Ugly Doughnut, as I don't want to embarrass them any further. After all, not everyone may agree that it's ugly.

After this was posted, two people wrote in to point out that The World's Ugliest Doughnut looks remarkably like the picture you'd get if you magnified the surface of a Cheerio. One long-term correspondent clearly suspected me of pulling a con job similar to ones I've perpetrated in the past.

For the record, it is a picture of a doughnut, and it did come from an actual doughnut ad. I admit that the similarity is uncanny, though.

The Dish of the Day is a Douglas Adams reference, naturally. If you're reading this I probably didn't need to tell you that.

The crabs in the Louis Kemp ads were named Claudia and Curt. I do not recommend you use that information in your next trivia game.

Some time after this was first written, I discovered the best shaving cream in the world: It's called Ambrosia, and it is one of the few products from Lush worth paying their prices for. I have used it religiously ever since.

and now back to our program

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