WWWTP? Palmolive Edition
I happened upon this bottle in the store yesterday, and found the marketing statement quite curious:
Now wait just a minute...what does that even mean? Does a human contain "no unnecessary cells," or a delicious meal "no unnecessary ingredients?" Perhaps this is the Strunkian ideal* of chemophobic marketing:
So we have foaming agents, detergents, thickeners, stabilizers, fragrances, dyes, and water - a.k.a. every ingredient present in most dish soaps!
This feels like Kraft Mac & Cheese redux. Please understand that I'm not against informed consumer choice, and I certainly support labeling transparency** and product safety. But this marketing slogan is at best meaningless, and at worst drags popular punching bag "chemicals" through the mud. Again.
At least it can wash off with Palmolive Pure + Clear - Contains Necessary Chemicals.
*Except, of course, that the authors of this dish soap piece seem to have omitted a verb.
**Next up: Chemplex (TM) brand butyllithium: Contains 95% random C-Li bonds (and fragrance!)
Now wait just a minute...what does that even mean? Does a human contain "no unnecessary cells," or a delicious meal "no unnecessary ingredients?" Perhaps this is the Strunkian ideal* of chemophobic marketing:
"A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts." - Strunk and White, The Elements of StyleSo, what 'necessary' chemicals does Palmolive Free & Clear contain?
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| Source: Colgate-Palmolive |
This feels like Kraft Mac & Cheese redux. Please understand that I'm not against informed consumer choice, and I certainly support labeling transparency** and product safety. But this marketing slogan is at best meaningless, and at worst drags popular punching bag "chemicals" through the mud. Again.
At least it can wash off with Palmolive Pure + Clear - Contains Necessary Chemicals.
*Except, of course, that the authors of this dish soap piece seem to have omitted a verb.
**Next up: Chemplex (TM) brand butyllithium: Contains 95% random C-Li bonds (and fragrance!)
