I have mentioned in past posts my fondness for the citrus scent, particularly orange. I tend to use an orange oil based product for most of my household cleaning, and almost all my air fresheners use some sort of an orange scent. I just really like it.
My grandmother has always been partial to lemon, so I recognize the family appreciation for citrus.
I almost never fail to start my morning with a glass of orange juice while I am waiting for my espresso machine to warm up. Fresh squeezed juice is obviously a nice treat, but most of the time I make do with a bottled version of juice that I get at my local store.
My juice consumption is restricted to a glass or two to start the day, for the most part, and after the rounds of coffees during the rest of the morning I tend to switch to water as my beverage of choice. At least until the pub opens. I drank a lot of juice throughout the day as a child, but as I got more aware of sugar content, etc, I realized that staying away from beverages high in sugar was a pretty good idea.
Fortunately, I weaned myself off cola many many years ago, and truth be told, was never really all that worried about sugar content, because I simply was finding such beverages a little too sweet in the first place. Thus, I am still amazed to see a lot of people drinking cola (diet, even) non-stop throughout the day, then complaining that they cannot make any progress with the diet that they are on. My father experienced an interesting situation several years ago when he abruptly stopped drinking gatorade for about 7 days and almost immediately lost 5lbs. I, too, consumed gatorade with frequency when I was actively playing tennis, but, again, wisely moved on to water as my hydration key. Pure water, no flavors added.
The funny thing about flavors is just how unnatural they can taste. Upon arrival in Germany, a colleague introduced me to something called Spezi, which is a mixture of cola and orange soda.
I did not take to it. The flavor combination was too unnatural.
In a word, I found it gross.
But, this colleague could not get enough of it, and tried to convince me that at a proper establishment, a natural orange soda and cola combination was just fantastic. I will leave him to his own opinions and tastes. This guy also enjoyed a Bananeweizen, which is a combination of a wheat beer and banana juice.
In a word (or two), fucking gross.
Of course, I am sure that some people are not big fans of a Radler, or a Shandy, as it is known in the UK. This is a combination of beer and lemonade, or sometimes lemon soda. I actually kind of enjoy this on a really warm day, but after awhile it can get too sweet. This might also have to do with the fact that I tended to drink more Radlers than beers; one summer I consciously wanted to reduce the number of beers I consumed, so switched to Radlers, and actually increased my overall consumption. Instead of having 4 beers, I was drinking 6 Radler during a similar time frame, which resulted in a higher alcohol intake, higher outlay of cash, and the end of the evening I was a little tipsy and hopped up on sugar.
Back to the safety of the orange grove...
With my orange cleaning products and air fresheners, I try to be very careful in my selection. It is important that the scent be as natural as possible. I am no chemist, nor do I want to become one. But I know my nose and the rest of my senses. I much prefer a basic orange (lemon works too) scent that smells as natural as possible. This is one of the reasons that I have never been a big fan of air fresheners with the scents like "beautiful calypso beach breeze," which is a miracle of science, in my opinion. Somehow, somewhere, some person figured out how to take a Capri Sun beverage and put into an air freshener.
We all have our tastes and favorite flavors, but let us be realistic: as children it took us quite a while to get our heads around the fact that a raspberry flavored beverage was a bright blue in color. (Yes, I consumed my share of slurpees and equivalents during my childhood and adolescence).
With orange, you tend to know what you are getting.
Putting orange juice in my body, using my orange products to clean my house, and strategically using my fresheners to create a fresh orange scent in my kitchen and living room, the next logical step would be to stock my bathroom with an orange shower gel.
Several years ago while visiting my sister in Valencia, a city located in a region well known for it's citrus products, she and I were doing some shopping when we found ourselves stocking up on some shower gels that were offered on special at the shop. The shop invited all of its customers to test the products (or at least open them up and sniff), and we spent the better part of half an hour comparing some of the body washes and shower gels. We eventually loaded ourselves up with a cornucopia (you did not expect to see that word in a sentence, today, did you?) of shower gels, including grapefruit, lemon, and my favorite, orange.
Smelling these soaps just makes you want to go take a shower.
My nephew was playing on the local basketball team, and in the locker room after games, all his teammates wanted to use his shower gel, because it smelled so great.
I had a slightly similar experience myself, though it did not involve 12 year olds and basketball. One evening I showered with my super duper orange gel, then went out to dinner with some friends. After dinner, we headed to a local pub for drinks, and somehow got involved in karaoke. The place was trendy, and not a place I would ever choose to go, but I was with a couple of attractive sisters, and, well, I was enjoying myself.
Because the place was packed with people, we were all in close quarters. One of the girls in my group, after a particularly sardine-esque moment when someone had to push through the crowd with a load of drinks, yelled into my ear (to be heard above the loud music), "Wow, you smell great!" referring to the lingering orange scent coming from my skin.
It was by no means a pick up line; she and I are simply close friends. She was just making a compliment, much the way one does when you see someone at a wedding dressed to the nines. What was additionally cool, though, is that during a trip to the ladies room, she and her sister overhead some other women talking about the fresh orange smell coming from one of the corners of the pub.
Our corner.
The problem with this super shower gel is it's price in relation to the quantity. True, I just said that my and sister had "loaded up" on these goods during a shopping trip, but that was during the Christmas season, when sometimes you just splurge on little treats for yourselves.
As good as the product is, both for washing myself and smelling nice afterwards, it is not really sustainable, at least in my economic world. At about 20 Euro per bottle, and at the rate I like to lather up, I could easily be spending hundreds of Euro per year on shower gel.
Thus, I have been on the quiet quest for a similar, more inexpensive product. During my weekly shopping, I alternate between a major supermarket chain and a bio-markt. I usually linger on the aisle with the shower-gel, and always browse the different varieties on offer. When it comes to showering, I do open up my tastes to just about all of the citrus flavors. Indeed, grapefruit gel is quite refreshing, as is the lemon-lime stuff I found one time. Both were more citrus and less sugary, so I never felt like I had just taken a shower with a bottle of Sprite.
This past week, while in the bio place, I spent a few extra minutes in the "natural cosmetics/body products" section of the store, which really is not all that big. I came across a body wash with the flavor spicy orange blossom, and after a second's consideration, put it in my buggy.
What a colossal error in judgement that turned out to be.
Once I got home and unpacked the groceries, I opened up the shower gel to take a big sniff. The Duft was not overwhelming, which should have been my first clue. But, I decided I would test it out the following morning.
I am not saying that I am now off of the orange scent, but I am very disappointed. This spicy orange blossom smells like oranges that are overly ripe (ie..approaching that sickly sweet fragrance), and just to add to the situation, there seems to be an added element of a smell that I can only describe as "dirty sock after having played a football match," which is what made me laugh out loud in the shower. Normally, that would not have been a big deal, but because my mouth was open, the shower head sent a gulp of soapy water into my mouth, so I got to smell and taste my purchase.
And that was fucking gross.
I immediately tried to make amends by grabbing another shower gel, which turned out to be a sort of lime scented soap. Unfortunately, this did not make things too much better, and I rinsed off thinking that I smelled like a bowl of fruity pebbles or a pack of skittles. Way too much unnatural flavor and way too much sugar.
I choose to believe that the lady who almost crashed her bike while riding past me a few minutes later when I was on the street did so because a dog almost ran in front of her bicycle, but perhaps it was because the dog was running for its life away from my scent...
Maybe I am going to have to suck it up and invest heavily in the known product that is great and expensive. At the very least, I will use a bit more caution next time in the shower gel section at my store.
See you out there
bryan
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