I am not my khakis. Or am I? (1)
Posted 29 February, 2008 in life shiz
I am a 121A. Not a 120 (fades too quickly) or a 122 (too goth), but a 121A (a little darker than my natural color, but goes well with my skin tone). I’m talking about my hair color - Clairol Nice N’ Easy, number 121A, Natural Darkest Brown. I hate to admit that I let a product define who I am, even if it is only in a small way, but these days, no matter how much they try to avoid it, (and sometimes because they try to avoid it) almost everyone I know has various products that have become symbols of themselves.
I’m not going to talk much about how terrible it is to be enslaved by products. Of course it’s terrible, especially when we’re bombarded with ads for shit we don’t need, and we’re maxing out our credit cards because we feel like we have to have the latest cool stuff or we’re somehow deficient as people. But other writers have covered this subject far more eloquently and knowledgeably than I ever could. Also, I and most of the people I know are trying our hardest not to buy into consumer bullshit and to waste as little as possible, but there’s a point beyond which we can’t really progress without a complete reorganization of society. I mean, I’m sorry, but I just don’t have time to weave my own cloth every time I need a new shirt, or make my own shampoo out of rice husks. I gotta go to work. So, yes, I buy stuff, and occasionally it is frivolous stuff. I try not to go overboard. That’s all I can really say about that.
O drinks this in the morning. While both he and I are skeptical as to whether the drink really burns calories as it claims, it is fat-free and has a decent amount of both calcium and the antioxidant EGCG. It wakes him up in the morning without giving him the stomach ache he gets from coffee, or the hefty dose of fat in the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf ice blended mochas I love so much. When I see the green Enviga cans on supermarket shelves, I immediately think of him.
The drink does go against some of my bobo beliefs, which is why I personally don’t imbibe it. First, it contains aspartame. Not only might this artificial sweetener cause certain types of cancer, but Donald Rumsfeld was involved in its dodgy FDA approval process, and we know what a pillar of integrity Rummy is. Secondly, Enviga is made by Coca-Cola and Nestle, which means O is in violation of two commandments of Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip: “Thou shalt not buy Coca-Cola products,” and “Thou shalt not buy Nestle products.” It is wise to obey Dan and Scroobius; after all, it was they who said, “Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.”
I don’t judge O for his choice of morning beverage, however. I drink the odd Diet Coke, which, like Enviga, contains aspartame and caffeine, and has the added bonus of delicious sodium benzoate; and I can often be seen toting a cup from The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I let myself be defined by my mocha just as O lets himself be defined by his Enviga. (Only one of us, however, is ingesting 500 extra calories a day from the liquid fat she’s sucking into her body.)
People also define themselves by the products they don’t use. My friend M will not wash her hair with shampoo that contains sodium lauryl or laureth sulfate. She introduced me to the Skin Deep cosmetic safety database, which rates hair, face, body and bath products based on the levels of potentially harmful chemicals they contain. I personally will not use nondairy creamer, because of all the artificial crap in it. I am inclined toward boycotting IKEA products from now on, since they sold me and O a busted piece-of-shit dresser and tried to claim we’d broken it ourselves, but God damn it, I am bound and determined to recreate the Bluefly Accessory Wall in my bedroom, and the LACK shelves are the only ones that will look right (plus they cheap as hell). I’m trying to find a set on Craigslist instead of going to the source: the sooner I can begin defining myself by my hatred of the Swedish behemoth, the better.
Perfume is a product by which it’s very easy to define yourself; almost everyone can think of a scent that, to them, symbolizes a particular person. Chanel No. 5 is my mum’s smell (and many of my friends’ moms’ signature scent, too, I’ve discovered). Giorgio Red is my grandma’s. The smell of a shampoo can also come to symbolize someone: Herbal Essences, the pink kind, reminds me of my sister-in-law C, while JASON Apricot shampoo smells like my friend M. (It’s sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate-free, of course.) One of my coworkers sometimes wears perfume that smells exactly like the conditioner that comes with my Nice N’ Easy hair color. (And so we returneth neatly to the beginning of our post, just like the snake which eats its own tail, and so forth.) At least, I think it’s perfume - maybe she, too, colors her hair with Clairol. If so, I’d say she’s a 114: Natural Light Ash Brown.