Friday, January 18, 2008

Products that never make it to the shelves

I was eating yet more Cheez-Its last night - because I finally said fuck it, fuck buying those little fucking bags from the fucking vending machine, and bought an enormous box. (Oh and btw, I'm doing fairly well on my New Year's resolution to be more profane, but falling down seriously on the bacon intake.) But anyway.

So I was looking at the back of this ginormous box, at the pictures of different flavors of Cheez-Its advertised on there. And one of them, at first glance, had an enormous green ball on it. And the first thing that popped to mind? Brussels sprouts flavored Cheez-Its! On more thorough inspection, it was a picture of Shrek on the box.

But it got me thinking about the kinds of flavored and scented products that you could come up with that would just never make it to market. It's an exercise in the ridiculous, much along the lines of naming colors of makeup, something I find endlessly entertaining.

For example:

Breakfast cereal - Breakfast cereal is essentially little crackers in a bowl with milk, no? Yet it's hard to imagine breakfast cereal as anything but generic and maybe sort of fruity or desserty and sweet. Although bacon is fantastic for breakfast, you'll never find bacon and egg flavored cereal. Nor Gouda, Gorgonzola, or Stilton - all nice with crackers, though.

Lip gloss: - This would never come in flavors such as salami, biscuit and gravy, or pork sausage. In fact, probably all meat flavors are out. Similarly, while cinnamon works nicely, seasonings such as onion or garlic are out for obvious reasons. I think rosemary and thyme would probably be weird but not gross. But basil? Questionable.

Juice - Now, juice doesn't always have to be fruit-flavored - you do see carrot, beet, and celery juice. But while cran-apple and cran-raspberry are fine, you will probably never find cran-tunip, -broccoli, -kale, or -lettuce.

Toothpaste - This is something that doesn't always come in mint. I have a Tom's of Maine fennel toothpaste, for example. But it's a product that you want to leave you tasting clean. Cream of broccoli, for one, would be a bad flavor. So would dill pickle. Similarly, beef stroganoff, candied sweet potato, and hollandaise sauce would probably all be pretty undesirable.

Deodorant - Now, this is one you can be a little freer with. Like, you could have sandalwood deodorant, while you'd never want sandalwood lip gloss. But you'd be willing to put more food smells on your lips than in your armpits. Dr. Pepper - kind of fun as a lip gloss. Totally weird in your armpits. Other possibly objectionable pit scents - hot buttered popcorn, fried chicken, or liver and onions.

I also thought about the possibility of scented/flavored nail polish, but then thought about the fact that one might encourage people to chew their nails, which would be most unhelpful. I briefly amused myself with the thought of scratch and sniff nail polish. Ha ha, get it? Ha? So anyway.

A smell I'm not sure about is fresh baked bread. That seems to be a smell everyone likes. Could you wear it as lip gloss? Would the taste be OK for toothpaste? Would it attract people to you, or give them a warm fuzzy feeling, if the smell of fresh baked bread were wafting from your armpits?

You'd think I didn't have enough to do, wouldn't you?

15 comments:

  1. oh that is good friday morning fodder!!!... lol.... my current deodorant is called ASIAN PEAR... a few days ago when i had somebody in a headlock (dont even ask) ...i said kinda triumphantly "how do you like the asain pear?" and they thought it was some sort of ninja move..cool huh...have a good weekend
    xoxo

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  2. Lip gloss of ANY flavor... even the yummy ones you mentioned... is a bad idea in my book because I end up chewing on my lips - never sexy! So, what do Shrek-flavored cheezits taste like, exactly? LOL

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  3. suicide_blonde - Hahaha! An asian pear martial arts move. And you know I'm dying to ask...

    charlotteharris - Oh, I love flavored lip gloss, but no, chewing is not sexy. And damn! I can't even begin to speculate cleverly on what they'd taste like.

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  4. Ewwwww....Lisa, thanks ever so much. You were my first read this morning, and I am now thoroughly disgusted!!! Blegh.

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  5. Great, hilarious list, especially for a Friday/holiday weekend!

    I had a slice of bacon while reading this post.

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  6. I think fresh-baked-bread-scented shampoo would be nice.

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  7. I actually own scented nail polish. All of the Anna Sui ones smell like rose (after they dry) and keep the smell for a day or two before it fades. Techology!

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  8. Loved this post. I think you need to focus a bit more on the bacon resolution though. Thanks for the great post.

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  9. Love it all! Kept me laughing for quite awhile!

    And you could always put bacon on the Cheez-Its, no? Or just drape some over a spoon!

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  10. Susan - Ha - sorry! At least it's Friday...

    HKW - The fact that you were eating bacon made me giggle.

    Mark - Hey! I wonder. I love how bread smells. And I love delicious bath products. Hmm.

    Allison - Ooh, that sounds so pretty! Who knew?

    Sean - Thank you. Will definitely work on the bacon this weekend.

    Sarah - That is the BEST suggestion! Thanks!

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  11. I don't remember all the wierd and wonderful flavours you find with sweets and other products in Asia, but when I was in Thailand I had the pleasure of brushing my teeth with Sea Salt flavoured toothpaste - which actually gives me a peristalsic reflex. Nice.

    In fact, over there a lot of things were slightly salty, even if they were chocolate coated - brands that we have at home tasted just slightly odd - obviously different recipes to suit local tastes

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  12. I've been a total whore for vanilla mint anything lately. Mainly gum I guess, which is not weird. But then I found some vanilla mint toothpaste. Using it is like brushing my teeth with frosting, which is very weird.

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  13. GaryQ - Yah, it's interesting how tastes vary country to country. We like things ridiculously sweet here.

    A.S. - A total whore for vanilla mint - hahaha!

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  14. Lately, I'd love some martini flavored lip gloss. The mmmm quality without the calories.

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  15. I found a package of funky flavored lip balms at Five Below before Christmas. My sister got "French Fries" and my brother in law got "Cheeseburger" in their stockings. My dad was given "Jelly Donut". I kept the "Cola" one for myself - daring aren't I? There were others, but I don't remember which ones when to who!

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