Soap by any other name

I would like to blame the Jupiterians, but I can’t. The blame is mine, all mine.

At the beginning of the week I visited Whole Foods to buy some groceries. While I was there, I decided to get some new soap for the shower. Not the bar kind, the kind that comes in a bottle with a pump.

I have a few allergies I am cautious about, so I was taking my time looking for just the right shower soap/gel. As I was browsing the shelves I spotted the words “Fragrance Free” out of the corner of my eye.

Success! One of my allergies is fragrance, and I always have a horrible time finding un-perfumed soaps and lotions. I picked up the bottle (it was a huge one) and scanned the ingredient list for one of my other allergies, nuts. Which, let me tell you, causes all sorts of problems because everyone and their brother seems to put almond oil in everything that goes on your skin.

Anyway, I was ecstatic to discover that not only was the product fragrance free, it was also nut free. I was so happy that I didn’t feel in the least bit worried to be buying such a gigantic bottle without every having tried the product before.

So every day this week I have been lathering up with my new fragrance-and-nut-free-shower-soap-with-the-pump-on-top. Only, well, the truth is there hasn’t been much lather. It was kind of a disappointment, but since I had bought a huge bottle, I was determined to get my money’s worth and use every last drop.

I don’t know how long I would have gone on, day after day, lathering up with lather-less soap. Probably quite a while, because I am a tad bit stubborn. But today I just happed to look a little harder at the bottle, which made me laugh at my own foolishness.

Me, Ms. Librarian, had failed to read the most important part of the bottle–the title (often called a label by all you non-librarians). You see, I had not bought soap at all, I had bought a giant bottle of lotion.

And I had washed with it for an entire week!

Like I said, I would love to be able to blame the Jupiterians for this little blunder, but I can’t. They left a month ago to visit relatives on what was formerly called the planet Pluto.

I wonder what the Plutonians will say when the Jupiterians spill the beans that Pluto, the homeworld of the mighty Plutonians, has been down-graded?

Wish I had a powerful telescope. I bet the fireworks will be spectacular.