What is it with vanilla lately? Or I should say, "vanilla" everything. I saw an article on a website (promoting vanilla products) that nowadays "vanilla is anything but plain," and is making a big impact because it's more "complex" now. Bull. If that smell that's nauseating me every day, everywhere I go, is really real vanilla that's gotten more "complex," then someone needs to start spraying Madagascar with paraquat, or something. Unless some clever scientist figures out how to reverse breed vanilla back to what it usd to be. 'Cause this smell is awful. It's in candles, it's in fabric softeners, it's in the latex gloves that my dentist wears when she drills my teeth, and it's emanating from people on the train that sit down next to me. It literally makes me gag
The worst, besides some of the perfumes (let's hear it for the ladies at Macy's with Russian accents), are the fabric softeners. Especially the Downy "Simple Pleasures" vanilla and lavender. I like lavender. But after my wife bought this stuff, I have to rewash my clothes if she uses it. I swear.
I've always been sensitive to smells, and now that my hearing is fading into a constant ringing (from age, or maybe from too much loud music in the 60's and 70's, I don't know), smell is about the only sense I've got that works well. I've always been nearsighted and now I'm on bifocals. So a smell that cloys is just torture for me. I suppose I could claim I've got "Multiple chemical sensitivities" like those people who wear silver underwear because they live near power lines, or insist that the formaldehyde "outgassing" from their houses is making them sick. But I won't dignify this by calling it a medical condition or claiming that I'm protected under the ADA. I just can't stand that smell.
I'm a person who used Dial soap since I was a kid, and when they changed the smell in the 80's (making it more "cheap-after-shavey"), I stockpiled all the old Dial I could find, until there was no more to be found. I used Zest for 15 years until I found they had more or less restored Dial to its old self.
Anyway, vanilla. It was bad enough when that sickly sweet artifical vanilla scent only showed up in a few things, like Carmex and cheap store brand sweets. My kids learned early to mock me mercilessly by imitating me saying, "Ugh! Someone's wearing Carmex!" But I could usually avoid that artifical sickly smell. I even loved vanilla ice cream, as long as it's real vanilla. Black cows had always been one of my favorite treats. That is, until the root beer makers started throwing in - you guessed it. I'd always hated butterscotch candy as a kid, but then as an adult I discovered that butterscotch is really supposed to be just butter and brown sugar. I developed quite a taste for that as a topping for my oatmeal. So now I figure that the old candy I hated as a kid was loaded with that "vanilla" flavor.
So I guess it's really vanillin, the artificial vanilla, that I can't stand. But whatever it is, it seems to be everywhere these days. So I'd just like to ask people to cool it. It really does make me sick, and people are using more and more of stronger and stronger fragrances with it.
That reminds me... something I need to mention to Greg Hall from Goose Island Brewing, next time I see him. Greg! What's with the vanilla in the root beer? AND the orange soda? Let me tell you about how I felt about Dreamsicles as a kid...
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