On my soapbox...

Forget the perfume counter at Macy's. I have a new favorite scent I like to wear, and I can buy it at H.E.B.
No… it’s not Jean Nate body spray (remember that?!).

It’s Irish Spring.

Yep. The soap.

I love the smell of it. We never used it when I was a kid, so it’s all new to me. I mean, we used soap when I was a kid… well, at least *I* did. There’s no accounting for my two smelly brothers. ;) But we were religiously a ‘Dial’ bunch. I can still remember the jingle. Come on… sing it with me. ‘Aren’t you glaaad you use Diiiialll?’

And I can still remember the Irish Spring commercial, too, from back in the day. You know the one… with the weathered old Irish guy in the cable knit sweater, slicing through that thick green bar that proves that the freshness goes all the way through? *Sigh.

And then he’d say in his thick Irish brogue… “Smells like frickin’ heaven.”
Well, maybe that’s not *exactly* how the commercial went.

It just smells CLEAN to me. After I shower at night, I’ll be laying in bed with the hubs, reading a book or watching the news, and I’ll smell my arm. On the sly. Surreptitiously.

The other night, he busted me.

Hubs: What are you doing?

Me: Um, nothing.

Hubs: Did you just sniff your forearm?

Me (nervous chuckle): Of course not! I was…just scratching my arm.

Hubs: With your nose?

Me: I can’t help it! I just love the way it smells! I smell like a proper Irish lass. (this last part was said, of course, in a poor imitation of an Irish accent.)

Hubs (without missing a beat): Like gunpowder and whiskey?

Ohhh… isn’t he the funny lad?

He does not share in my devotion to and/ or my wonderment of Irish Spring. Up until now, we have been a ‘Dove’ family because Phil and the kids (everyone except me) have ‘sensitive skin’ issues. Wusses. A buncha blonde-haired, blue-eyed wusses. ;)

It’s the same reason that I have to use fragrance free detergent, and as a result, my laundry doesn’t have the ‘Fresh Scent of Gain’ (damn… I think I watch too much t.v.)

The only reason I even had a bar of Irish Spring is because I read somewhere that it removes stains from clothing if you scrub the bar on the stained spot.

Um, it doesn’t.

But I discovered the extra bar under my sink one day when the Dove had been reduced to a mere sliver. I realized this, of course, after climbing into the shower, and had to get back out, dripping water onto the floor, while I rummaged through the cabinet. That big green bar was the closest thing at hand. I used it once, and was addicted.

I still buy Dove for the family, but on occasion, I like to use the big green, ‘heck, no, we have no added moisturizers’ Irish Spring. Sensitive skin, be damned. It may be stripping all the moisture from my skin to the point that my elbows crack…




...but at least I smell like frickin’ heaven.