![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThis is going to be one of my rougher segues here- from the cold hard reality of gay marriage politics to the strange world of household cleaning products.
Hey, I just did the dishes. Sue me.
Sometime in the past couple of years, our old standby dishwashing product- which made both "dishwashah powdah" (as I usually write it) and handwashing liquid- simply disappeared from the store shelves.
You remember Sunlight, right? It was heavily advertised, had a nonoffensive smell, and, not insignificantly, it washed the damn dishes. Since then, we've stumbled around the cleaning aisle with various house brands, trying to find our new Nirvana.
This, my friends, is NOT it:
Part of the problem is the branding. Ajax is a FLOOR cleaner, people. Stronger than dirt, the white kiniggit on the horse, all that? Stay out of my sink except to rinse the mop. The maker of this product, Colgate-Palmolive, has a perfectly fine dishwashing product. Hint: IT'S THE BACK END OF THE NAME OF YOUR FREAKIN' COMPANY! I want Madge the Manicurist in my kitchen sink, not some horsey-set guy in a suit of armor who probably can't see the knives in the dishwater through that visor of his.
Even so, Ajax has one thing going for it. The top of the bottle doesn't break off after four washings. That's the fate of most of these products, the ones with the pop-tops that hang by a thread when you open them. Ajax has the old-school style of top that pushes up and down. Much more durable.
Ah, but there's the rub- or rather, the smell. Previously, we'd tried the lemony version of this stuff. It wasn't my dear departed Sunlight, but at least it didn't stand out. This orange stuff, though? Well, the official product website ought to be enough to warn you:
Boost your mood and your dishwashing experience with the lively scent of Orange while eliminating germs.
The HUH?!?
As soon as I poured the first drop of this shizzle into a sink full of water, my mood wasn't boosted. Rather, it was sent on a psychadelic experience even Dr. Timothy Leary would've been proud of. That scent was about 327 percent sugar and the rest a trace quantity of artificial orange that I knew that I knew from someplace.
Was it Tang? (Leading me to wonder, do they even make THAT stuff anymore? The horrifying answer.) No. Too much sugar.
Some orangey flavory Kool-aid or similar variant? Nuh uh. This was, amazingly, more sugary than even that.
Finally, it hit me. One of my few remaining childhood brain cells somehow fired, and I called out to the grrls what the Secret Ingredient of Mood-Boosting Ajax Orange was:
Yup, the single worst chewing gum ever made! (Naturally, this is still sold in stores, too!)
Not only that, in the course of researching this fine, scholarly article with cites and everything, I discovered that the tripped-out zebra from the Fruit Stripe ads has a name.
It's "Yipes."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Hey, I just did the dishes. Sue me.
Sometime in the past couple of years, our old standby dishwashing product- which made both "dishwashah powdah" (as I usually write it) and handwashing liquid- simply disappeared from the store shelves.
You remember Sunlight, right? It was heavily advertised, had a nonoffensive smell, and, not insignificantly, it washed the damn dishes. Since then, we've stumbled around the cleaning aisle with various house brands, trying to find our new Nirvana.
This, my friends, is NOT it:
Part of the problem is the branding. Ajax is a FLOOR cleaner, people. Stronger than dirt, the white kiniggit on the horse, all that? Stay out of my sink except to rinse the mop. The maker of this product, Colgate-Palmolive, has a perfectly fine dishwashing product. Hint: IT'S THE BACK END OF THE NAME OF YOUR FREAKIN' COMPANY! I want Madge the Manicurist in my kitchen sink, not some horsey-set guy in a suit of armor who probably can't see the knives in the dishwater through that visor of his.
Even so, Ajax has one thing going for it. The top of the bottle doesn't break off after four washings. That's the fate of most of these products, the ones with the pop-tops that hang by a thread when you open them. Ajax has the old-school style of top that pushes up and down. Much more durable.
Ah, but there's the rub- or rather, the smell. Previously, we'd tried the lemony version of this stuff. It wasn't my dear departed Sunlight, but at least it didn't stand out. This orange stuff, though? Well, the official product website ought to be enough to warn you:
Boost your mood and your dishwashing experience with the lively scent of Orange while eliminating germs.
The HUH?!?
As soon as I poured the first drop of this shizzle into a sink full of water, my mood wasn't boosted. Rather, it was sent on a psychadelic experience even Dr. Timothy Leary would've been proud of. That scent was about 327 percent sugar and the rest a trace quantity of artificial orange that I knew that I knew from someplace.
Was it Tang? (Leading me to wonder, do they even make THAT stuff anymore? The horrifying answer.) No. Too much sugar.
Some orangey flavory Kool-aid or similar variant? Nuh uh. This was, amazingly, more sugary than even that.
Finally, it hit me. One of my few remaining childhood brain cells somehow fired, and I called out to the grrls what the Secret Ingredient of Mood-Boosting Ajax Orange was:
Yup, the single worst chewing gum ever made! (Naturally, this is still sold in stores, too!)
Not only that, in the course of researching this fine, scholarly article with cites and everything, I discovered that the tripped-out zebra from the Fruit Stripe ads has a name.
It's "Yipes."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:14 pm (UTC)Or do they even bother giving you gum with cards now?
As for the actual thrust of your post -- yeah, I use Palmolive, the original green stuff. It's too hard to rinse whatever chemical-weapon fruit smell of the others off of one's crockery. (And they have the usual top, too, not whatever fragile one you mention.)
Huzzah for 1950's cleanliness!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 08:11 pm (UTC)and good lord, that fruity stripe gum was absolutely terrible. but tang. now tang is delicious. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 10:45 pm (UTC)As for Fruit Stripe, I totally dug it too! It was colored with stripes for Pete's sake...what little kid didn't dig that?
As for the dishwashing liquid, I can't comment. I use Walmart's brand of orange anti-bacterial that can also be used as hand soap.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 11:28 pm (UTC)Fruit Striped gum, not the worst ever. I liked it as a kid, but the flavor didn't last long enough. My worst gum, Bubble Yum regular, YUCK...it had spider eggs in it , you know, LOL.
Tang- maybe I am weird, I HATED TANG! NASTY NASTY NASTY!
Cherry Cool Aid good!
Tang and Gatorade NASTY!
Unbelievable picknittery
Date: 2008-12-08 05:12 pm (UTC)Ummmm.
The White Knight/"stronger than dirt" ad campaign wasn't for the floor cleaner, Ray. Jogging your memory: "New Ay-Jacks Laundry Detergent is stronger than dirt!"
The campaign for the floor cleaner at that time was the White Tornado.