I tend to be swayed by 2 for 1 shower gel offers. Most times I couldn’t tell you which brand I’m buying or which “flavour” I am using. I do vaguely recognise the packaging shape and might well be drawn back to the familiar – but broadly, I’m buying a branded product at the best price I can.
I was reading bottle labels early one morning in the shower last week (as you do?) and noticed through the steam that I seemed to be using Spring Onion and Space Dust flavoured shower gel. I know the scents and added ingredients are becoming more and more esoteric, but even for the personal grooming industry this seemed to be a little left of field. I peered more closely at the bottle and the lovely swirling illustration is clearly of a spring onion in a blizzard of blue Space Dust. The shower gel is from the Radox Active range and the label promises that I’ll “spring back into life”. Fair enough then – a bit literal, but I can see where they are coming from. A combination of garden vegetable and aspirational childhood confectionary could just deliver.
You can imagine how disappointed I was to realise that I had been misled by the illustration and the promise of springing from my shower when I read the rest of the label…."with lemongrass and sea salt". I appreciate that a brown stick and a small pile of white table salt would not be so eye catching, but the gel within could not fail to over deliver on the promise.
It struck me that as ‘flavour’ combinations become more bizarre, it must be harder and harder for branding consultancies to deliver the promise without having to contort the label imagery.