One of These Things is Not Like The Other

I just came back from a great weekend in Philly with a great group of people and I stayed at a lovely hotel that provided us with the above concoctions.

It being fall and all in the Midwest, my skin needs a little more lotion than in the summer and I was happy that the hotel provided me a cute little bottle to use.  Lord knows it’s impossible to take anything in your carry-on luggage anymore except the basics and in this house we use giant bottles of lotion, so thinking of taking a little one along did not even occur to me. 

I don’t know about you, but to me the two little bottles above look remarkable alike – except that they are not.  

And this is something that I did not notice on the first day of my stay.  On that day I popped open the cap of a bottle and slathered the contents onto my arms, legs, hands, feet, chest, neck and headed on my merry way out to see the town and get a bite to eat.

And here’s what I noticed when I slathered the lotion on, that it was REALLY, REALLY LEMONY.  I thought – hmm, odd, this really is fragrant – I hope people aren’t offended by my newly acquired scent “Eau Du Mr. Clean” (AKA Mr. Proper for all my Irish family out there). 

As far as I know, people weren’t offended – no one said a word about my lemony fresh scent.  But they may have been thinking – note to self, don’t use cleaning products for perfume….

The next day I’m getting ready to get in the shower and grab the shampoo and the “conditioner” except, it’s not…  This time I am looking at the label and see it says lotion, than I look at the bottle I used yesterday (see above – opened and showing usage at the cap) and it says conditioner.  OOOHHHH, OOPS, AHHH, that explains the heavy scent – you are meant to rinse the concoction off you after usage, not parade around in it.  Yes, thank you, got it.

Now, beauty and health care product industry, I have a request – two really:

1) Please make your labels different on the baby bottles you supply to hotel chains, not just change the tiny font from black to white, apparently I cannot tell the difference. 

  2) From previous experience of a similar nature, could you mark the shampoo bottles with a big S and the conditioner bottles with a big C on top – you know, like salt and pepper shakers? I can never tell the two apart when I’m in the shower.  I’m wet, there’s water in my eyes and I can’t see – give me a hand here.

I hate it when I squirt a glob of conditioner in my hand when what I really need is shampoo – It’s completely in the wrong order and I have to waste the conditioner and rinse it down the drain, yes I’ve tried to put it back in the bottle, but really the bottles are meant for one directional usage – out!

So there you have it, apparently I can’t read in the bathroom and need an idiot proof method to make sure that I am not rinsing my hair in Ty-D Bol blue. Ohhh wait, that explains it – I never understood why little old ladies had blue hair – wow.

Dear Proctor and Gamble, please stop the blue madness - Now!