Soap

The other day, Mike sent me to the commissary to buy soap.  He runs a lot (about five miles a day, and seven on Thursdays (= Saturdays)), so he takes lots of showers.  As a result, he goes through a lot of soap.  Nothing is sold in bulk here, like it is at Sams or even Wal-Mart, so we end up buying a week's worth of stuff like paper towels and toilet paper and soap at a time.  (It's very annoying.)  So after the boys were in bed, I took advantage of the opportunity to have a little freedom, and I jumped into Clyde and zipped up to the commissary for soap.

Like any other lady in a grocery store, I started at the produce section and spent at least 45 minutes meandering all over the rest of the store, adding items to the cart that were not actually on the list.  Not that there was a real list.  The real list was mental, and it only had one thing:  soap.   But I got bread and bananas and cereal and cold cuts and milk and crackers and spaghetti sauce and salad dressing and tea and butter and yogurt and chips on clearance and I looked at frozen turkeys and Saudi brand nutty buddies and construction paper and cat food before I finally made it over to the soap aisle.

Well, by the time I got there, maybe it was a good thing that my cart was full.  Because I wanted to buy ALL the soap!  (Of course, I couldn't.  There was no way I could fit more than about 10 bars into that tiny cart with all that other stuff.)  What I discovered in the soap section is that soap here is hilarious!  They name the fragrances all kinds of wild and funny names, all in true seriousness.  Add to the fact that this is such a sheltered, protected society, especially for women, that the soap names left me weak with laughter.

We'll start with the most familiar-sounding:

"Shake Me Up."  OK.  I can see this.  It's like Zestfully Clean, right?

"Secret Bliss"?  Hahahaha!  You can't show your face in public, but you can buy soap called Secret Bliss?  Just what exactly is going on under that abaya?  

 "Passion"!  Looks like we are making up for something!

 "Magic Spell"  Oooooooh.  Look, her shoulders are showing.  She must be putting a spell on you.

"Evenly Radiant."  Because God knows you wouldn't want to be "Unevenly Radiant." 


By now I am just guffawing in the personal hygiene aisle.   I only actually bought four bars, though.  They were my favorite picks.

"Creamy Perfection"!  Yes!  I want Mike to be Creamy Perfection!  His reaction:  "You bought me women's soap?!?" 















 "Young and Radiant".  They are too suppressed for Restless.












"Lifebouy": the soap that Princess Leia used as a child.   

(Also notice that on the bottom, it says "100% Proven To Fight Today's Illnesses.  Influenza A, H1N1, Infection, Diarrhea."   ....correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that infection and diarrhea were also yesterday's illnesses.  And they will probably be tomorrow's illnesses, too.  They need to talk to Disney to come up with a list of EPDOT: Experimental Prototype Diseases of Tomorrow. Ha!)

And my personal favorite:

Because Mike has a long, long way to run.