You know those small annoyances that really ruin probably only your day (well, probably me plus 1 million people)?
Well I’ve happened upon one of those, courtesy of Unilever.
Like most (many?) folks I wash my face twice a day (I would be interested to see the statistics on that). I have always found Dove to be a very good bar of soap for this. I also think it to be a great shaving soap. After trying others I find them to be drying and all around not as good. Washing your face then shaving the lather off feels like a time saver too.
Now, upon buying a new 12 pack (somehow more expensive than a fifth of Evan Willams… *shudder*), I quickly detect that the scent has definitely changed. Very one note, not particularly refined. My mind tells me “cheaper”. Bummer but whatever. Now upon getting in the shower (the bar at the sink had some life left) I soon find my face burning quite distinctly. Much like Evan Willams again. It was not a mystery to me what the cause was, but nevertheless I resolved to use the whole bar. Sometimes your face gets sensitive or what not. This was not a temporary condition, and in the mornings washing my face at the sink I had no such issues. They have ruined their soap. Sigh.
This annoys me so much. I also feel like “well, shit, now I need to figure out some other bar of soap for my face”. This feels like a no brainer business. You sell me the same bar of soap (or reasonably equal, there have been at least 2 versions within my possession that both work fine) and I buy it for 70 odd years. I am fine with this deal. Then they fuck it up and now I’m left having to do work and put my face on the line to find a solution.
And I must assume there is a capitalist motive here. Cheaper fragrance, cheaper ingredients, or maybe just some perverse middle management drive to “modernize” “update” “refresh”. I find it interesting that the positive reviews (on Target at least) are all of the “Influenster” variety, read, “send free product for a review”. The negative ones, I imagine, are from folks like me who aren’t paid off. The astroturfing seems to work well enough, combined with the history of positive reviews. The rating continues to be 5 starts for a clearly inferior product.
I actually make my own soap on occasion, it’s quite fun, but I have never liked it for my face. The good thing about modern chemistry is they can put all sorts of molecules or whatever in their soap that I can’t get with the good old saponification process.
I will try and raid the local stores for any left over old bars, then begin a search in earnest for a new soap I predict.
I didn’t think I’d write this much, but here we are. Apparently it annoys me quite a lot.