Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Lynx Effect

I’d like to invite you all into my shower with me, if I may?

Picture the scene. I’m there half blinded by hot water. I reach for the bottle of shower gel. Although it’s my usual brand – Lynx – it’s not my usual flavour. Not one I would have normally bought.

Because Karen and I do our weekly shop online we occasionally get what is known as “substitutions”. When the products we have selected are unavailable in the store our personal packer will substitute it for a close (living) relative or a slightly different product of a similar type.

Such was the case with my shower gel. Tesco had run out of Africa (now there’s a great newspaper headline) and had supplied me instead with Fever.

OK. I’m soaking wet by now (steady ladies) and basically fully committed to the full-on shower experience.

I open up Fever and begin to apply it liberally.

I halt mid application.

It’s got bits in it. Bits of grit.

This is not enjoyable. My shower experience is compromised.

Now I know some kind of abrasive effect is scientifically proven to get a body cleaner. I know that sugar water is supposed to be great at removing tough ground-in stains from human skin. I know there are products you can buy with the equivalent of broken bits of glass in them to help you remove stubborn oil stains from the palms of your hands.

This is great for mechanics, miners and oil rig workers. They need a hard man ablution experience. I wouldn’t argue with that at all.

But I’m just a regular guy taking a regular shower.

And like most regular guys taking a regular shower the shower experience for me is purely functional. Privates and underarm areas are a priority and then I cover as much of the rest of me as I can with soap and rinse it off. Straight in straight out. No messing.

I really don’t want or need a shower gel that exfoliates as it washes. I don’t want or need to remove dead skin from my legs to make them look silky smooth (especially when I have the Forest of Dean growing on them). I don’t want or need to have the skin on my chest glowing with that freshly scraped and grazed feeling.

What metrosexual idiot came up with shower gel for men with bits in it?

What man on this planet enjoys having his pubes and pits infested with bits of soapy grit?

Answer anyone?

Er... reading back over this post... did I supply way too much information?


23 comments:

The Joined up Cook said...

It's for those plonkers who shave themselves on areas other than the chin.

On a serious note I sometimes use a facial scrub kind of thing. I have a tendency to flake. I need tar based shampoo, for instance. THe GP told me it was because I produced too much skin.

Made me feel like a bloody snake.

You're obviously lucky. You must have a beautifully smooth skin already he he.

A sort of baby's bum with hair?

Steve said...

I have wonderful skin, AWB, moisturized, unblemishes and unpierced (by man or beast)... aside from very dry skin on my hands in the winter. They have a tendecy to bleed if I don't lubricate them with liberal dollops of handcream. I recommend Oil Of Olay.

Hmm. This blog could work quite well as a Male Beauty Corner. Maybe Metrosexuality ain't so bad after all?

Steve said...

P.S. "A sort of baby's bum with hair..."

That is just so wrong on so many different levels...!

KeyReed said...

I wonder about online shopping having often bumped into the students who meander round the store filling their carts. Can they be trusted - if one asks for sliced ham - to select the leanest most appealing packet? I think not.
One answer is to buy a spare of essential items and then replace them at the next shopping session; a bit OTT I know but that's what I do with marmalade - one of my vices I canot do without.

Steve said...

Tenon_Saw: I must admit that on the whole Tesco are pretty good but it does depend on the discernment of your packer for that day. Once in a while we find ourselves presented with questionable subsitutions and wonder if the packer is having a laugh but we do get the power of declining items at the door and these are then removed from the final bill. Having stacked shelves once years ago I can only imagine that doing the shopping of someone you have never met and will never meet is infinitely worse and just as soul destroying.

Inchy said...

I'm currently using Advanced SPF 15 Moisturiser for MEN with organic Cocoa Butter and Jajoba Oil by The Natural Grooming Company.

Its enriched anti-shine formula with 12 hour moisturisation leaves me feeling fresh and relaxed.

I'm not afraid of my metrosexual side.

Inchy said...

PS - I must be a plonker, because the gauge 1 haircut I give my head once a week has continued to all other areas.

Trust me, you'll never go back to an unkempt garden.

Old Cheeser said...

I have purchased this shower gel myself and quite like the gritty bits! Surely a real man like yourself has no objection to a bit of true grit, Stevenage?

I guess you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned exfoliant...that must be the manufacturer's reason for including the grit...and I mean the thing is, it all washes away anyway, doesn't it? Eh?

Anonymous said...

It's 5.30 a.m., I've just got up!
It's all a bit much for me ;)
I need more coffee first.

Steve said...

Inchy: I must admit I have never considered weeding my garden mainly because the grass has grown wild and strong over much of my surface area. Can you recommend a good lawn mower?

OC: it does indeed wash away rendering it's exfoliatory facilities redundant! You're welcome to have my bottle of Fever if you like... but would that mean we have technically taken a shower together?

Missbehaving: give me a call about 8.0. I'll keep the shower running. ;-)

Inchy said...

Morning Steve,
I'm happy to recommend the WAHL ColourPro hair grooming kit, available from all good Argos stores for the trifling sum of £14.69

It feels like it was engineered rather than manufactured, and I have it on good advice from a hairdresser friend that most WAHL products outlive their owners.

Bald is the new hirsute.

Steve said...

Cheers for the ad-bite, Inchy, my old razor is possibly on the way out now so I may have to invest in a new one at some point. Though whether I got for the Luke Skywalker smooth-as-silk look or stick with being Chewie very much depends on the preferences of the wife...!

MOTHER OF MANY said...

Not that it is a problem BUT Steve you are positively weird!
I will do anything rather than loiter in shops and whilst it is not quite the on-line experience I buy from AVON much to the chagrin of my children.
They accuse me of smelling like a cross between their grandmother and talc.I actually like the smell and funnily enough it doesn't bother me that they say I smell like their grandmother(ex-mother-in-law)!but perhaps I should considering the fact that she is dead and was in her middle 80's when she died!

Steve said...

Ally, "positively weird" is infinitely better than negatively weird so I'll take that as a compliment!

Andrew Glazebrook said...

My wife gets this shower gel for the kids that's green and smells like liquid Jelly Babies, it even has on the bottle 'Mouthwateringly zingy' like you could drink the stuff, and I'm sure some little kids have tried it !!

Owen said...

Ahhh Steve, again I'm arriving late to the battlefield, this week has been hell at work... but as always I see you are pushing the limits of the extreme side of blogging, and are ready to invite almost anyone into your shower with you... (I'll be right over, if there's coffee after)...

A couple of thoughts :

This goes hand in hand with your piece below about air brushing photos. If you just add a bit of grit to the air brush, you then can perform what is called "sand blasting", guaranteed to remove all manner of centuries old epidermal buildup and leave your naked (and skinless) inner being exposed.

So, a male beauty corner blog... a great idea. Personally, I save the engine oil from my automobile after an oil change, and have a months-long supply of body oil like that... by using old engine oil all over from head to toes, I don't need to shower, it sanitizes everywhere, it gives me a rich tanned commplexion as if I'd just returned from six months in the tropics, and the minute metal shavings from the cylinder heads wearing down give a barely perceptible by day, but very effective by night, glimmer or sheen that catches female eyes. And it prevents dehydration by sealing in natural moisture... as well as leaving my hair easy to groom ; I never have bad hair days !!! :-D Have a great weekend !!!

Steve said...

Andrew: hmm... edible shower gel and edible soap. I'm sure it's been done and if not somebody should. Something that cleans the body both inside and out and is mouthwateringly zingy can only be a good thing. Soap, toothpaste and enema all in one. Great idea!

Owen: there's coffee and Dunkin' Donuts for afters - please bring your own towel. I have noted your use of motor oil with interest and, being a keen cyclist, wonder if squeezing out my bike chain could be as beneficial to my ablutions as draining your engine is to yours? Or maybe I should save time and merely use the bike chain as a hyper-flexible loofah? It would make an excellent exfoliatory device I'm sure.

MommyHeadache said...

Yeah I can see that those microderbabrasion granuals could be a bit painful if rubbed on the old Johnson.

Steve said...

Emma: oh yes. The Johnson is a sensitive soul if not as clean as he might be...

The Poet Laura-eate said...

I'll bet you buffed up well though!
;- )

Steve said...

Laura: I'm remarkably buff even before I step into the shower! ;-)

Anonymous said...

I got this stuff handed to me in the street in the form of small promo packaging.

I've been using this for about three weeks, simply because i've got given loads!

Anyway, i'm now going to see my doctor because i've got dry skin not only down either side of my testicles, but also on the end of my penis. (I can't even remember any shower gel going there!?) But I am 100% that this is the reason for the dryness.

No moisturiser has sorted out this problem.

So cheers lynx! That will really bring the fanny in won't it!?

NICE ONE!!!!

Steve said...

Anonymous: ouch. I'm wincing on your behalf. Maybe you could sue? In the meantime, do you mind if I have your share of the fanny? Shame to let it go to waste after all...