The other day I was sitting in the waiting area at my doctor's office. As usual, I seem to fixate on odd things. For a while, I was mesmerized by a or several yellow jacket[s] that kept flying into the window. I next noticed a bottle of hand sanitizer on one of the tables. In big, bold lettering, it announced that it had a fresh scent.
This got me to thinking, what exactly IS a fresh scent? I know what fresh baked cookies and bread smell like. I can easily recall the aroma of fresh-cut flowers. I can imagine the stench of a fairly fresh kill, but, in each of these cases, the freshness is defined by the being or object itself. What would just freshness -- removed from anything else -- smell like?
Beyond that, how could a hand lotion smell fresh if it was manufactured weeks, months or years ago? When I think of the word, fresh, I concurrently think of the word, recent. If someone gave me a loaf of bread that had been baked in July, I don't think either of us would describe its scent as fresh. If someone gave me an arrangement of daisies or roses that they had picked last January, I don't think either of us would describe the fragrance as fresh. So, how can hand sanitizer manufactured far away and long ago be of a fresh scent?
Finally, since the smell of freshness is a rather subjective thing, who got to decide that this hand sanitizer smells fresh and what was this determination based on?
Like I said, I fixate on odd things! ;-)
This got me to thinking, what exactly IS a fresh scent? I know what fresh baked cookies and bread smell like. I can easily recall the aroma of fresh-cut flowers. I can imagine the stench of a fairly fresh kill, but, in each of these cases, the freshness is defined by the being or object itself. What would just freshness -- removed from anything else -- smell like?
Beyond that, how could a hand lotion smell fresh if it was manufactured weeks, months or years ago? When I think of the word, fresh, I concurrently think of the word, recent. If someone gave me a loaf of bread that had been baked in July, I don't think either of us would describe its scent as fresh. If someone gave me an arrangement of daisies or roses that they had picked last January, I don't think either of us would describe the fragrance as fresh. So, how can hand sanitizer manufactured far away and long ago be of a fresh scent?
Finally, since the smell of freshness is a rather subjective thing, who got to decide that this hand sanitizer smells fresh and what was this determination based on?
Like I said, I fixate on odd things! ;-)
This remind me of the Chinese popo who complained about the fish in the market to her grandson. "Look, they're fresh," he said. "They're not fresh," she said. "They're dead."
ReplyDeleteAnd what's with all the hand sanitizer everywhere. I never use it and I rarely get sick.
I think a fresh scent is a scent that has a clean smell, like a dove soap. It doesn't make your head hurt or cause you to sneeze a lot. It's a smell that is lingering but not overpowering. I used to use dove soaps for my uniforms back then working for my boss, but now I am my own boss selling import export goods..no need for uniforms since I work from home.
ReplyDeleteWell thanks for this post, Ta wan and trey...You guys are just awesome. Baroness...any new posts for this year?:)
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