Musings on Shampoo...

[BTM]

Okay, so several weeks ago I found myself low on shampoo, so I went to the store to buy some.  Now, being that I'm male (and straight) I don't really know a heck of a lot about shampoo other than it cleans your hair and said hair needs to be wet for shampoo to work most effectively.  Going over to my local Wal-Mart, I went into the hair care section and purused the various brand names looking for something effective but relatively inexpensive.  I figured more than likely I'd just go with a bottle of Suave, being that it's the shampoo that mom always bought, and, being that experience has taught it's relatively effective and only about a dollar a bottle, I figure why change what works?

Finding the Suave was an eye opener.  Turns out there's about 100 different "flavors" of shampoo under that brand.  What I thought was rather odd was that a lot of the shampoo brands are named after various food items, as though one is going to actually consume the shampoo rather than simply wash their hair with it.  I kid you not, there was Strawberry, Coconut, Tangerine, Cucumber Mellon (say what?), Juicy Green Apple (anyone else see the hilarity in naming a shampoo JUICY Green Apples?  Again, as if I'm going to be eating this stuff), and several others with vague names like Ocean Breeze, and Refreshing Waterfall.  There were also a couple named after flowers, and one called Daily Clarifying shampoo.  (I get the feeling this must be the "plain" version of the shampoo, as it was clear, as opposed to all the others which had some color to them.)

My first thought upon seeing all these was thinking, "Why would they name so many shampoos after FOOD products?"  To me, that didn't make a hell of a lot of sense.. I mean, if the main selling point on the variety of shampoos is the different smells, (and I suppose, colors) right?  I mean, I suspect that, with the exception of a minor ingredient or two, these shampoos are all pretty much the same.  So, why not have more shampoos named after flowers, cause when you think flowers you think fragrance, food you thinking eating stuff (at least I do.)

Well, I found out later while looking over the ingredients that many shampoos actually have a small amount of JUICE and/or other food extracts in them.  Probably just a tiny amount, as they're listed almost next to last in the ingredients, followed only by dye colors.  (If you're curious, the number one ingredient is water.)  Doing some more research, it turns out adding bits of food to beauty products is nothing new, in fact many "organic" health and beauty items have them.

Dunno, seems like adding a bit of food to something would cause the product to "spoil" eventually, but I don't know much about the chemistry and biological compositions of things.

Come to think of it, what's in Ocean Breeze and Refreshing Waterfall that makes them unique?  I mean, do they have a bit of ocean (ie salt) water in Ocean Breeze?  If so, what did they put in Refreshing Waterfall, water supposedly imported from the Brazilian rainforest or something?

Well, here's the kicker, turns out Suave has a website (of course) which has this NIFTY flash animation where you can scroll through all the current variations of shampoo (as well as, I assume, their other products, but I didn't wander from the shampoo section), and, get this, they actually LIST all the ingredients on the site! From this, I discovered the answers to my questions... Refreshing Waterfall's special ingredients are (in order): Spirulina maxima Extract (aka Blue-Green algae, had to look that one up), Mentha Aquatica Leaf Extract (Watermint) and Nymphaea Alba (waterlilly) .  Interestingly enough, only the "Spirulina Maxima" was left without an explanatory parenthesis behind it.  Kind of wonder why they didn't just call it Refreshing Watermint Shampoo, or even Refreshing Mint shampoo.  Granted, maybe they legally couldn't because there was more algae in it than mint.

As for the Ocean Breeze, it's magic ingredient is apparently algae extract.  Hmm.. I guess Algae Shampoo wouldn't have made for the best marketing campaign.

Anyway, I eventually decided to go with the strawberry flavor, as it's one I've used before (and, to be honest, not really sure the different variants of shampoo would make my hair smell that much different, apart from maybe a few minutes after the wash.)

Strawberry Shampoo!

And there it is!  The lucky shampoo flavor that would be blessed with the task of  cleansing my hair!

Looking over the bottle, I noticed some other interesting details...

Do you see that??  This isn't just regular strawberry shampoo, this is FRESH MOUNTAIN strawberry shampoo!  Because we all know that plain strawberries (whether they're plain as in "ordinary" or plain as in "grown in a field") just aren't GOOD ENOUGH to be a part of Suave shampoo!

I also noticed that each brand of shampoo had a corresponding conditioner to go with it.  On my bottle, the instructions read, in part, "For best results, follow with Fresh Mountain Strawberry Conditioner."  That got me thinking, what would happen if I were to say, use FMS shampoo with, I dunno, Coconut Conditioner?  Would my hair fall out?  Would it cause a chain reaction that would destroy the universe?  Or would I just end up with a b***hin' strawberry/coconut smell? 

The mind boggles.

[Ash]

I always liked the coconut shampoo.  Smells great.  

But I've been shaving my head for years.  The good thing about that is I don't have to buy shampoo.  Haven't bought shampoo in over 5 years.  I just use soap. 

[Rev. Powell]

Shoot, I was all prepared to discuss Warren Beatty's performance...

I just buy the cheapest stuff.  There's nothing in it but a detergent, anyway.  I stay away from scents, both because I'm male and because I found they have a tendency to attract unwanted bees.

[Psycho Circus]

I use SunSilk volume for that extra oomph! 

[trekgeezer]

I use Pert Deep Conditioning shampoo.  I have really thick hair and I can't stand having anything in my hair (gels, sprays, and such.  I like to keep it conditioned because I wash it every day and don't want it getting dried out.


Many moons ago (the 70's)  when my hair was really long I used to buy baby shampoo in the 1/2 gallon jug, because it did a good job and didn't cost much. I've always been cheap about personal hygiene products.

[Patient7]

Coconut all the way.

[Raffine]

For the record I use Suave 'Daily Clarifying' shampoo.

It's Suave, so it's cheap, and the name sounds very functional to me. Since I  wear my hair very short I don't use conditioner or any other hair care products 'cause they make me feel 'greasy'.

I remember a lot of the girls at our high school used "Gee! Your Hair Smells Terrific!" shampoo, which had a really strong, nauseatingly sweet odor and left their hair smelling like cotton candy.

It attracted bees and yellowjackets like the dickens.

 

Other freaky 70's shampoos I recall are 'LemonUp', which had a big plastic lemon for a cap, 'Body on Tap', which supposedly contained beer, and 'Psssssst!', which was an aerosol dry shampoo.

[Psycho Circus]

I remember a lot of the girls at our high school used "Gee! Your Hair Smells Terrific!" shampoo, which had a really strong, nauseatingly sweet odor and left their hair smelling like cotton candy.

It attracted bees and yellowjackets like the dickens.

 

That shampoo lady is very gorgeous 

[Raffine]

That shampoo lady is very gorgeous   

And, gee, her hair smells terrific! 

[Ash]

Nowadays, if you leaned in close to most women and sniffed their hair and said, "Gee, your hair smells terriffic!" they would most likely put a lot of distance between you and them. 

 

[indianasmith]

What I want to know is, why do people buy shampoo when they could have real poo?

[Derf]

What I want to know is, why do people buy shampoo when they could have real poo?

Aaagh! I was just scrolling through to see if anyone had said this yet! 

[BTM]

You know, crazily enough, this whole thing just started as random thoughts that entered my head while shopping.  I figured, "Hey, I'll type this up in my livejournal because it's (hopefully) funny."  Then, next thing I know I'm actually going to the Suave website cause I'm thinking, "Hey, I wonder why this is" (to various questions that sprung up in my mind) then I had to go to OTHER websites to figure out what the hell all the ingredient names meant (and I didn't even get into the chemical names that were about 50 letters long).

Anyway, as I did this impromptu research project, I came across a website that mentioned "Suave" and "toxic chemicals" in the same sentence, and I'm like, "WTF?", so I clicked on it.  It was written by a guy (yes, a guy) who was reviewing various shampoos and other health care products talking about how choked full of toxic chemicals and how all these unnatural ingredients are damaging ones skin.  He had reviews for various shampoos and he rated Suave's as "highly toxic".

So, that got he curious, what did he think were some good shampoos?  Well, of course, the shampoos he liked were all organic, and the one shampoo he ranked a ten of ten just HAPPENED to be the brand of shampoo he was selling on his OWN site! 

But I'm sure that was sheer coincidence.

:)

[Jack]

I just use whatever the wife buys.  We've got green shampoo now, before that we had red stuff.  I like conditioner too, just because when you run your fingers through your hair as you're rinsing it out, it feels really cool 

LOL, just looked and it's Sauve Juicy Green Apple!

[Psycho Circus]

I just use whatever the wife buys.  We've got green shampoo now, before that we had red stuff.  I like conditioner too, just because when you run your fingers through your hair as you're rinsing it out, it feels really cool 

I'm not a big fan of conditioner, I hate rising it out as it never seems to go and my hair just feels greasy. It's very fine after I use conditioner, I like it all tangly and thick feeling especially when I blast it with hairspray. I like to "Jack" it up