When I set foot into a store, I find that products tend to give me a lot of laughs. Today I was shopping for body wash, ok, I’ll admit, yes, I use a loofah. I think they are fantastic, the lathering, the scrubbing, I feel unsullied. I’ve noticed in the past few years that health and beauty companies are targeting men, with men’s shampoo, body wash, face lotion, face soap, etc. Apparently we men are suckers, who somehow think that shampoo designed for women is any different than shampoo designed for men.

The last time I had to pick up some body wash, I went with Old Spice Classic Scent, not because I like the way Old Spice smells, but that classic scent gave me a laugh. I don’t want anything to do with Old Spice cologne, but if I can get that old man smell for an hour after I hit the shower, I find that to be humorous. That joke got old after a week and I was glad when today came and I needed to find a replacement body wash.

So there I was, looking at an entire wall of Men’s Body Wash. That’s when I saw Zest Marathon, which provided an immediate laugh. When did marketing departments start using descriptions for products that have nothing to do with the smell, performance, or taste of the product in question?

Gatorade does this all the time. Can someone please tell me what “Rain”, “Frost”, “X-Factor”, “Xtremo”, “Fierce” and “AM” taste like? Those adjectives tell me nothing, I have to look at the color and make an educated guess. Ok, “Rain” is purple; I’m going to assume it taste sort of like grape. The other funny thing is they still have “Lemon-Lime” in the roster, the lone holdout from the days of when the drink name was suppose to be descriptive of the taste.

Ok, back to Zest. “Marathon”, once again, “Marathon” is not a proper qualifier for this product. I can only infer a few things, such as it will reduce my time in the marathon by five minutes, or that it will keep me feeling fresh for exactly 26.2 miles worth of running. It didn’t explicitly state that on the bottle, but why else would you name your product “Marathon”?

So of course I bought it. I got home and realized that I didn’t even smell it before buying it; I smelled it and used it today in the shower after my 8 mile run. It’s a fine product and the best part is that I don’t have to take my next shower until 18.2 more miles of running!