Tag Archives: Labels

August 11, 2015

Thanks Dial!

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I bought me a bottle of Dial brand shower gel. What an investment! Why Dial? It was on sale, and whatever shower gel is on sale when I go to the drug store has a leg up in being purchased. So much so that I buy 4 or 5 shower gels ahead of needing them just to get that sale price, but this isn’t about me being frugal or fiscally responsible, or anything like that. No. It’s about Dial. Dial has probably been sitting in a cupboard for a few months waiting for its chance, and it has arrived. So I reach into said cupboard, and pull out a very impressive looking bottle with a solution so blue I could only describe it as perfect. What’s on this impressive looking label I wonder? It says ‘sub zero’ and has a picture of a freezy kind of raindrop, but then in bigger, bolder letters it says ‘FRESH REACTION’. If you know me, you know I’m all about fresh reactions. In fact, I’ll bet I stood there in the store and looked at the different scents, and instead of smelling them, I judged them on the perfection of their colour, combined with the wow factor of their mission statements, and I don’t remember what the other ones said, but I can picture myself holding up this shower gel and thinking ‘hell yeah I want to cause some FRESH REACTIONs’, and then wasted no time in cashing out my purchases for the day.

Wanna know what else it says? ‘Micro-Infused Scent Technology’. What is that? Sounds impressive! The explanation below states ‘Specifically formulated to energize your senses and leave you feeling refreshed’. Cool! I’m buying this! Then it says ‘Non-Drying Formula’. What the hell is that forward thinking awesomeness??? Below it explains ‘Engineered with the right balance of moisturizers’. That’s fantastic. I don’t like to moisturize, and this will do it for me. Not only that, but it won’t OVER moisturize which I hate…. it is engineered with the right balance!! This is going to be the best $3 I ever spent. Then there are 2 more bullet points, but I realize they are just French versions of the first two. Slight downer, but I’m still pretty excited to get this thing home.

So today, just now in fact, I grab the bottle because it’s next in the queue, and I notice there are USAGE INSTRUCTIONS!! Oh, I better read these. Don’t want to fuck it up. This is just the best.
1. Squeeze out (of course, right?? I mean you would need to apply the gel, and you can’t do that if it’s in the bottle)
2. Lather up (ie you cannot just gel yourself up and become a ball of slime, that just won’t do. This unique product actually becomes soap sudsy if you move it around)
3. Rinse off (key final step, because how often do we forget, and just go to work with shower get STILL covering our bodies)

I think I do sarcasm well, but in case I don’t (or in case you’re in one of those countries that doesn’t understand that), I’m totally fucking kidding. In fact I find the audacity of Dial thinking I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to take a shower, upsetting and offensive. Honestly Dial, how desperate are you to find content for the front of your bottle, that you would actually try to instruct us how to use soap? Did your legal team make you do this? Were there too many instances of shower gel misuse? Was the customer service department flooded with calls from consumers who couldn’t navigate their way through using shower gel? It reminds me of those Disaronno commercials where that idiot bartender teaches you to make a Disaronno and Coke….’First you add the Disoronno……….’ I can figure out how to make a 2 ingredient drink asshole!!!!

But then, I’m of two minds about it. Maybe I should be thanking Dial. It is the responsible thing, right? I mean other than the super disgruntled like myself, who would really get offended by something like this? I know what you’re thinking…..just take a shower, man. You’re right. I’m just being difficult. I have a 2-year-old. Maybe he’d appreciate prominently displayed instructions. He’s never used shower gel before. People need reminders sometimes. We forget basic shit like the super obvious rules of the road, common courtesy, how to hold a knife, blah blah blah. I think it’s just time for me to clear my mind, and clean my body. Dial, I forgive you for being aggressively obvious, because you did give me some packaging thrills before that. I suppose if this Micro-Infused Scent Technology works the way you say it does, then you’re alright in my book.

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March 26, 2015

Questions About Underwear

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

As I got dressed this morning I noticed something as I put on my underwear. As I’m typing this I’m still wondering whether this is worthy of the finger energy to type it, but it annoyed me, and what better inspiration for writing than being annoyed? I don’t think I’m giving too much away to family and friends that may read this to say I wear Boxer-Briefs. Exclusively. I’m not brand loyal, although it seems as though I should be. I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding my most recent underwear acquisition (Christmas gift, Sale…..), but I will say that the underwear in question were purchased from The Gap. What could possibly annoy me so much about Gap underwear this morning? Was it not a quality garment? It was. In fact, they’re very comfortable, and I would even go as far as saying better than average.

GAP Boxer Briefs for whatever reason, have 3 goddamn labels stitched into the back. Not short stubby ones either. Ridiculously long flowing silky labels. Worn conservatively, these labels are long enough, that they easily pass the top end of the crack in my ass. My questions regarding this are….

1) How much information could The Gap think I could possibly need (to carry around with me at all times mind you) regarding this underwear? Information so important that it wasn’t sufficient to have it posted on the packaging the underwear came in, or on their website, but rather tickling my hind parts as I walk around.
2) Could they not have found a way to somehow consolidate this extremely urgent information so that either the labels weren’t as long, or there weren’t 3 of them, or both?

For those curious as to what information is contained on these labels, let me first assure you that there is typing on both sides of each label, so it’s more like 6 in terms of information provided. My favorite part has to be that the first label says one of two, and the third label says two of two, but the middle label isn’t numbered. It tells you where the garment is made (India). The cotton vs. polyester blend. It tells you care instructions in no less than 20 different languages, and it has importing information in the same amount of languages. All very important information for the paying customer. You may note sarcasm and say “But wait a minute…. Care instructions actually are important for the end-user”. You would be right, but any underwear that has care instructions indicating something other than ‘throw these in the washing machine’ need to be discarded immediately, or never purchased preferably.

To be thorough, I decided to see how the other guys do it. I went through my underwear drawer to see what other brands I wear, and how they handle this important situation. I have some Hanes. They stitch one label into the waistband at the back. Just exactly the way you’d expect. The message is short and sweet. Found another Hanes product here, but they have the information stamped in. No label even. Puma underwear? My favorite so far. No information at all. No label. I can probably go to their website if I have a question, right?? Here’s the thing though….. I’ve been wearing underwear for 40 years, and this is the first time I’ve had a question about it. The question is why the crazy labels, GAP?

On another underwear note, I have a diaper thought regarding my son, who I’m sure would grow up to not appreciate me discussing his underwear situation so publicly. By the time he’s old enough to read this, the internet will have probably exploded or something, so here we go. My son’s diapers have characters from Sesame Street on them. Every time I put a diaper on him, he points at the diaper and says “Elmo?” To which I say ‘yes’ if it is Elmo. Sometimes it’s Cookie Monster, or Oscar The Grouch, and on the night-time diapers, it seems to be Bert & Ernie most of the time. He either asks for Elmo because he’s more familiar with Elmo’s spin-off show than he is with actual Sesame Street, or maybe he prefers Elmo, or maybe it’s because he just knows how to pronounce Elmo, but I wonder this…… You know how adults tend to have a couple of favorite outfits in their wardrobe? You know, the ones that when you wear them to work, you’re full of confidence, and you know it’s going to be a good day?? I wonder if my son has a good day when he draws an Elmo diaper in the morning?

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized