“This blog contains neuro-cleansing beads, exfoliating your brain cells as you read and leaving you with that refreshed, more intelligent feeling.”
Ever read anything like that on a liquid soap bottle? The label says the soap contains micro-cleansing beads, which are supposed to exfoliate or give you some other cosmetic benefit. But, what do they really do … besides making your soap feel gritty? Mmm! Soap grits – the tasty, internally cleansing breakfast! Anyway, back to the original question: what do those micro-beads really do?
… crickets chirping ….
Hmm? Anything? I didn’t think so. Well, they may do something, but I think it’s probably fairly negligible. I think the soap would have to be more like liquid sandpaper for it to really exfoliate; but you’ll never see a label like that in the cosmetics aisle, except maybe in some parallel universe where men are the cosmeti-razzi. Frankly, I’m glad I don’t live in Bizarro World.
Imagine the sequence of events that took place at the soap company that fateful day when we were blessed with micro-beads:
Foreman to Plant Manager: “Sir, we’ve had a little accident in the bottling room.”
PM: “What kind of accident? Is anybody hurt?”
F: “No, sir. No one’s hurt, but the soap batch is contaminated.”
PM: “What? How did that happen?”
F: “Well, sir, Jenkins was on the catwalk over the main vat when he doubled over and put his lunch on public display.”
PM: “Oh, terrific! We’ve got to dump an entire batch of soap because he blew chunks in the vat.”
F: “Not exactly, sir.”
PM: “Explain.”
F: “Jenkins didn’t toss his cookies into the vat; it all stayed on the catwalk. In fact, for such a violent, biological eruption, he produced the tidiest puddle you’ve ever seen. The problem came after the janitor arrived.”
PM: “So the janitor spilled Jenkins’ ‘tidy little puddle’ in the vat?”
F: “No, sir. He accidentally kicked over the box of that kitty-litter stuff they use to soak up accidents. All 50 gallons of it.”
PM: “Fifty gallons!”
F: “Sir, the janitor has a Sam’s Club card.”
PM: “So instead of chunky soap, I’ve got gritty soap.”
F: “Yup.”
PM: “Terrific. Well, we’ll be stuck here for a while dumping this batch and loading a new one. There goes my evening; the wife’s not going to be happy.”
F: “Special plans tonight, sir?”
PM: “Sort of. The wife likes to schedule these husband-and-wife spa sessions every now and then so we can ‘bond.’ I don’t care for that spa stuff myself, but they keep her happy and off my case when I want to watch the game with the guys. So, I humor her.
“You know, for a lot less money, she and I could get the same spa effect by digging a hole in the backyard and covering ourselves with some slimy, nasty, gritty … gritty?
“Gritty, YES!”
F: “Sir?”
PM: “Looks like the wife won’t be ticked after all; we’re going home on time!”
F: “Sir?”
PM: “I’m calling Marketing.”
F: “I don’t understand.”
PM: “I’m going to tell ’em we’ve got a brand new line of liquid soap for them with — ahem — ‘exfoliating micro-cleansing beads’!”
.end.
Gkend Getaway 