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On Rituals, Trips, and Good-Smelling Soaps
In other words, navigating my new normal
Today I purchased a bar of soap at a local grocery store. Not just any bar of soap — but a bar of the pure castile, “not tested on animals” kind.
This is clearly not the most mind-boggling or exciting fact in the world, but for me, it’s new. It’s different. It’s me venturing into something I don’t normally do — buying bars of soap. I’ve always been a body wash and loofah kind of girl, so the fact that I was even looking at soaps was a surprise even to me.
As I walked the beauty and bath aisles, scanning products in an attempt to help my mom pick out new bars of soap, I saw, out of the corner of the corner of my eye, a stand-alone rack — the kind they put in front of certain products, typically in the middle of the aisle (product placement at its best) — inviting me to look at it. I saw the simple pale green and yellow design with words like “honey almond” and “lavender” inscribed on the bar. (Not surprisingly, the brand had the word “simple” in its name). Lying haphazardly on top of each other in two racks, the bars seemed to say “Come on, smell me. You know you want to.”
So I did. I picked up the bar and smelled the honey almond, then the lavender one. It was heavenly. I’ve smelled many things in my life (the majority of which…
