Thu, June 12, 2003

I'm not one of those Diet Coke-drinking guys who get all excited about lotions and scented soaps. I promise I'm not. However, I grew up sharing a shower with a sister, so I am aware that such things exist. If she was going to be stocking the place with Lavender Honey and Summer Mist, I had a responsibility to come up with a workable alternative for my use. So, when we'd be at the mall with Mom and we'd wander into Bath & Body Works to stock up, I had to pick something out that I could live with. Early on, I settled on Freesia, because it was pleasant but not overpowering. It didn't have the fruity girliness of Sun-Ripened Raspberry or the stinky citrus wallop of Orange Blossom. Well, around eighteen months ago, all that went away.

See, the thing about Bath & Body Works, especially to someone like me who just needs one item, is that they're always running this Buy 3 Get 1 Free deal. Which means that the last time I had to buy any shower gel from them was in the first Clinton administration. I bought three bottles of it, and got one free. As a result, many winters had passed before I needed to return to BBW and stock up again. When I did, imagine my shock! Freesia had been discontinued! The only thing I could find was a bottle of body spray on clearance, and the rest of the line was already gone. I had to switch to Juniper Breeze (and make a three-bottle commitment) because it was the only other thing even remotely tolerable. (Apple Nutmeg?? Come on!) How could they go on without it? Had they ignored the monumental sales statistics I'd racked up? Four bottles (for the price of three) in five years... that's a powerful product! To me, Freesia was the signature scent of Bath & Body Works. Without it, what set them apart from such unscrupulous imitators as the Body Shop and Crabtree & Evelyn? Despondent, miserable, alone, I vowed to make my single bottle of body spray last forever, as a tribute to the fallen fragrance of Freesia. (And don't think I wasn't disappointed by that transgression. It's one thing, as a guy, to be washing with a scented bath gel; it's entirely another to be dancing through a cloud of body spray like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News.)

Well. Came the day that the Juniper Breeze ran out and my backup bar of Dial which had been waiting patiently in its box since college gradually began its metamorphosis into that telltale sliver of soapy submission that impelled me back to BBW to face certain shame. What next? Juniper Breeze was gone, too? My only choices were Fruity Boysenberry and Rabbit Urine? I am happy to report that a lot can change in three years. (Well the Buy 3 Get 1 deal was still on, so not too much.) Freesia's back! It's Sheer Freesia now, and it's clear instead of blue, but it's the same basic Freesia. (If anything, it's a little more muted, which is fine by me. I'll take my public vituperation for running like a high-heeled Bette Midler in Big Business, not smelling like a flower.) You can believe I grabbed my four bottles – and, thanks to the hard sell by Michelle the counter girl, a Freesia candle to complete the set.

See you in 2007, Bath & Body Works! Keep Freesia alive!

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