Saturday, March 01, 2008

emotional hair cream purchase

So the hair cream appearing above is called "Ends Well" and it's made by Grassroots. It does a decent job of smoothing my hair which is becoming increasingly frizzy and out of control as the humidity increases here. It doesn't work as well as the $3.00 creamy gel stuff that I usually buy at the supermarket, yet I fully plan on keeping a tube of this "Ends Well" concoction on my bathroom counter until I'm old and gray. Why? Because it smells EXACTLY like my Nana and Poppy's bathroom in Thatcher, Arizona, in a house that no longer stands. The interior of this house (for some reason) always appears in my mind's eye as the setting for Franny and Zooey,
their master bedroom being the place where Franny receives the crucial (and fake) phone call from Zooey. Anyway. I've been interested in reading this book titled The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell by Rachel Herz. I wonder if she covers the topic of purchases made solely on the basis of scent-induced nostalgia. I've read that certain hotel chains and clothing stores are investing in "signature smells" to be piped through the store. Right now our house's signature smell is sweaty children, after a day spent at a tiny creek near our house, throwing rocks in the water and replenishing the ant farm.

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