Brain (and Hair) Wash

I had to use a girls' shower the other day, and I spent a good fifteen minutes just reading all the bottles in there. I don't understand what they are all for. I mean, I do, because they say on them. There is shampoo for dandruff, shampoo for horses, shampoo with vitamins, shampoo with juniper, heat-activated shampoo, orange-scented shampoo, shampoo with aloe, shampoo with conditioner, shampoo for permed or color-treated hair. There's fortifying conditioner, leave-in conditioner, conditioner for body, conditioner for control, conditioner that makes your scalp tingle (and hurts like the dickens if it gets in your eye). There is hand soap, face soap, non-soap, soap with special little snowflakes in it, raspberry scented soap, exfoliating soap, glitter soap, I-can't-believe-it's-not-soap, soap with cucumbers and melons. There is body wash, body scrub, apricot face scrub, facial cleanser, and facial cleanser with special acne-fighting agents, there are oils and oil-removers and bath beads and bath salts and bubble baths and lufas and shaving cremes and shaving gels and shavers themselves in multifarious colors.

The packages are interesting, too. There is a shampoo for every color of the rainbow. There are some in English and some in French and some that seem made up, with words like "ClAriTee" or "cleen". The bottles have a few curved lines that are supposed to represent naked women, as far as I can tell. The backs of the bottles have simplified pictures of bubbles that represent molecules and vitamins and list unpronounceable words like "methylisothiazolinone" and "hydantoin." There are tall bottles and square bottles and round bottles and stumpy bottles and bottles that hang down instead of stand up and there are tubes.

Shampoos have their own vernacular. They don't "clean," they "cleanse." They moisturize, revitalize, rejuvinate, add vigor and sheen and shine. They give a noun called "bounce." They are allowed to add anything that sounds like it was grown in a jungle: "With pineapple husks!" "With ginko!" "With treefrog venom!" they exlamatorily point out.

I hate them.

There is shampoo that says "For silky luxurious hair." I think I can understand what that one does. Then next to it is one that says, "For dry or damaged hair." Now I don't know which one to use. There is shampoo that says "Now with witch hazel!" Are they claiming that it's magic? Next we'll be seeing "Now with eye of newt!" But really, how dirty can three single girls get? I think I'm missing something.