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St. Ives Apricot Facial Scrub

WARNING! It is my experience that some ingredient of this product, when combined with some ingredient found in some shampoo(s) or conditioner(s) at my house, creates a poisonous gas. On two (but only two) separate occasions, as I was rinsing the scrub from my face in the shower, I felt a burning sensation in my nose and lungs, forcing me to fling open the window and hop out of the shower to open the bathroom door, creating a lifesaving crossbreeze. There is no mistaking what occurred: it happened as soon as the scrub hit the puddle of standing water at my feet; it only happened on days I washed and conditioned my hair (which is rare enough); it smelled like nothing so much as Hot Death, though the nearest analogue is home hair bleach. Unfortunately, I don't remember which hair product was the other half of the death gas equation (as none of the hair products in the bathroom is mine), and I'm loath to attempt to recreate the magical reaction.
Putting aside momentarily the possibility of death by poison gas, let's talk about this stuff in terms of its effectiveness as a beauty aid. Once I started using this exfoliating scrub, my skin started looking fresher, cleaner, and much less covered with dead skin. The gritty particles suspended in goop -- which I guess are supposed to be ground-up apricot stones -- are abrasive enough to satisfy your average American male.
     See, when it comes to skin-care, hair-care, or other beauty products, most men find it hard to pretend that we don't know the entire industry is a sham, isolating, amplifying, and preying on women's insecurities, then charging them a mint for the favor. If we're forced to participate in this evil system by buying such a "product," it had better be cheap, effective, and short on beauty-industry bullshit (for exceptions, see "Metrosexuality" coming soon).
     Your average American woman will happily plunk down $60 for a miniscule pot of "invisible microabrasive spheres in pore-frightening gel," and even really intelligent women are programmed at a very early age to disengage their critical faculties in the beauty aisle -- it's the same process that makes possible the sale of makeup and razors. Certain gay women are the most likely to be able to resist this idiocy, but are by no means immune (hence "lipstick lesbian").
     But men need something real, something with tangible effects. Something like St. Ives Apricot Facial Scrub. It feels like you're washing your face with wet cement, and that's exactly how we like it. There is no doubt that you have been scrubbed -- the contusions tell you it's working!
rating as facial scrub:: . .. : . .8.7. :
rating as non-producer of poison gas:: . .3.1. : . . . :
3/30/2006 • link

5 comments:


Blogger Sarah D. Bunting said...

I am as ungirly about this type of product as you can possibly imagine (read: too cheap to drop $50 on a cream that is not in fact going to reverse time), but SIAFS does work. But if it's dry out, I wouldn't use it every day; you start to feel a little chapped.

4/08/2006 12:54 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Both I and my boyfriend use and like this stuff. I just wanted to let you know that now I think of you and your poisonous gas experiences every morning as I remove a layer of dead face.

I've never had that experience myself, but that could be because I use detergent-free silicone-free vegetable-pulp hippy-dippy shampoo.

4/08/2006 3:54 PM  

Blogger Tammy said...

Call mw ungirly, too, but I've been using the ol' SIAFC for years. I'll watch out for the poison gas cloud in the future.

4/09/2006 1:46 AM  

Blogger Sonja said...

Erm... actually, the little rough brown bits are ground-up walnut shells. But you can add me to the list of fans.

4/16/2006 12:02 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i once swallowed the scrub by accident... is this dangerous or poisonous?

7/13/2006 11:52 PM  

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