Mood: cheeky
Topic: Rants
It occurred to me recently that two of my most favorite product lines on earth have completely hokey premises and are encased in packaging, or promoted by propoganda, which are complete bullshit. I love them anyway. I'm talking about Philosophy skin care products and tea by The Republic of Tea.
The whole Philosophy thing is, of course, Piper's fault, since she originally turned me on to their White Chocolate Hazelnut shower gel. I have since succumbed to their entire skin care line, not to mention their Amazing Grace line of fragranced body products. The stuff is good quality and makes your skin nice, but the packaging is unbearably encrusted with pop-philosophical pronouncements (Philosophy, get it?). For example: amazing grace is the person who lives in a state of love, forgiveness, and total compassion. it is the person who is not afraid to be wrong and doesn't need to be right. it is the humble spirit who lets others shine and helps those who cannot find their light. it is the person who prays for others and not oneself. it is the person who has let their self out and the spirit in.
Forgive me, but when it is six a.m. and I am squinting at these words preparatory to scrubbing my body with perfumed goo, the words that spring to mind are, and I quote: WTF???????
The Republic of Tea is no better. Their tea is supernaturally awesome, so much so that when I recently ran out of Ginger Peach black tea, and I tried replacing it with some Twinings Peach black tea, which is some good quality stuff, the Twinings tasted like a cup of warm dog pee by comparison. Yet I don't want to like the Republic of Tea because, like Philosophy, they just take their whole concept too far. To give you an example, their website is now offering for sale a Zentrepreneur's Idea Log and Workbook,, to which I again reply: Huh? Please, don't spring this sort of stuff on me before I've had my first cup of tea. I mean, zentrepreneur. I ask you.
Can't a good product stand on its own anymore without a silly concept to sell it? Has consumerism really gone that far? Worse, these upscale products are selling themselves with angles clearly designed to appeal to a liberal, forward-thinking, spiritual type of target audience -- exactly the sort of people who, I don't believe, would like to think of themselves as consumeristic and advertising-motivated. It's a strange, inside-out sort of thing.
Fortunately for me, I refuse to think that hard unless I'm being paid for it. So back to the legal database with me, wherein I will ask and answer the question When a debtor has fradulently understated the value of an asset in his schedules, can he later amend his exemptions so as to retain a higher share in that asset after the inaccuracy is discovered?
Shit, perhaps I'd have been better off as a zentrepreneur. Whatever that is.
Posted by Gretchen
at 8:43 AM PST
Updated: Monday, January 24, 2005 9:55 AM PST