I live in a house with two beautiful women, my wife, and our 19 year old exchange student. Between the three of us, there are sixteen (count 'em) bottles of various beauty products in our one shower. When I was single, my shower contained only two items, soap and mold. Now I've got such products invading my shower as I'd never imagined I'd see outside a salad bar.
The following are a list of some of the ingredients that I found in the various bottles and tubes invading my shower. No, I am not making this up.
- Apricots
- Tangerines
- Sea Kelp
- Sea Salt
- Buckwheat
- Aloe
- Chamomile
- Rosemary
- Vanilla
- Thyme
- Freesia - I'm not sure what this is, but I think it's meant to be used only with really cold water.
- Blackberry
- Raspberry
- Peppermint
- Jojoba
- Tea Tree Oil
- Lily
- Gardenia
- Comfrey
- Lots and Lots of "Mountain Spring Water"
Judging from this list, one could effect a serious makeover simply by diving headfirst into the fruit display in the produce section. Perhaps this is the reason that women used to wear those hats with the fruit all over them. Their shampoos contained mostly soap, and maybe a little water. This was probably regular tap water, however, maybe filtered, but certainly not mountain spring water. Thus, women who wanted lots of fruit in their hair had to do it the old fashioned way. There was probably a short period of time where women experimented with putting various jams and jellies in their hair, but that would have made for a sticky sleeping situation. Maybe today you don't see many fruit hats because now women get all the fruit they need in extract form in their shampoos.
Just why people need fruits and vegetable extracts in their hair is another question entirely. I've heard it said that fruits and vegetables are a good way to stay healthy and fight off colds. In shampoos this must work well, because you don't often see hair with a cold or flu.
What benefits mountain spring water give, I'm not sure. I guess it's better than "Florida swamp water"
Perhaps women prefer these ingredients because they like the smell of them. Why, then they don't stick with one theme escapes my capacity of reason. By the time a woman is fully dressed, she will be sporting at least 40 different fragrances on different parts of her body this might explain why most women that one passes on the street smell like they were involved in a collision of a produce truck with a flower stand.
Personally, I'm not very concerned with the contents of my shampoo. I typically shop for quantity, not quality. I must admit, I've sampled some of the 16 brands that inhabit my shower, and haven't noticed much of a difference between that and the stuff that goes for 99 cents a gallon. Maybe the benefits aren't as apparent if your hair is less than 1/4 inch long. At any rate, I've come up with a list of suggested ingredients for shampoos aimed at men. I'm not suggesting that men would actually buy these, unless they sold for 99 cents a gallon, since men are typically more concerned about not having heavy bottles fall on their toes as they practice the macarena in the shower. (or so I've heard)
At any rate, here's my list:
- Gun oil
- Cedar shavings
- beef jerky extract
- wood smoke - or better "mountain wood smoke"
- motor oil
- beer
- jet fuel extract
- wd-40
- leather extract
- ski wax
- axle grease
- crawl space
Maybe I won't get rich by my ideas, but at the very least, I think I've figured out why I'm always so hungry after I shower.
-- 
Chuck (woah@mission4me.com), January 24, 2002