De-Funky Degunkify

I used this shampoo at someone else’s house and now I’m addicted to it. It’s like industrial degreaser for your scalp, especially good for behind the ears. It smells nice — supposedly that is the “icy pineapple and cotton leaf” smell. WTF is an icy pineapple? I don’t know, but it looks like lime Jello. The bottle also claims it has Tingling Deep Cleaning action and contains “Tingling Potion”. It’s like it’s going to reach its little lime jello tentacles down into the cartoon-drawing roots of each hair shaft and scoop out fingernails-full of scurfy disgustingness, all with the magic of BRIGHT GREEN SMELLY TOXIC WASTE.

Gosh, it’s great. I love chemistry and magic potions!

When I use it, it is only mildly tingly, but it definitely degreases. As I wash my hair I get the song “You’ve Got to Funkifize” in my head. It’s a peppy, complicated funk classic by Tower of Power, and you can buy it on Amazon mp3: Tower of Power’s Bump City. A very perfect hair washing song. So, now the smell of “Icy Pineapple” and Funkifize-ing are inextricably linked for me.

What, you don’t believe me that it’s a good song? For 99 cents you can buy it off Amazon MP3 and give it a spin.

Let’s look at the ingredients! It has the usual Sodium Laureth Sulfate sort of things. And Citric Acid (guaranteeing that it smells like a Sweet Tart as so many soapy things do.) Annas Sativus, which sounds mysterious but is just the Latin name for pineapple. Gossypium Herbaceum, a freaking fantastic name. That is the cotton leaf. (See what I mean about the industrial waste - somewhere, a heap of otherwise useless cotton leaves is being recycled into shampoo vats.)

So one more thing about this shampoo. Clairol Herbal Essences used to be one of those shampoos I would buy when I was poor and yet wanted something vaguely “natural” seeming. It had a faux-fancy feel to it. It was like the giant tub of your grandma’s cheap, good-for-you-herbal, boring shampoo that would stick around in the shower forever, not getting used up, as I moved on to more exciting things. So, some packaging genius got a hold of this product and jazzed it up. Now it is all teenagery with 8 million playful fonts, an asymmetric curvy bottle that looks like candy and a sexy glow stick and a vase you might buy from Ikea for two dollars on impulse. I think they have hit on something here.

What I do most often is use the degunkify on the parts of my scalp and neck that are super greasy. (If only it also exfoliated…!) Then I do the actual hair washing with another shampoo depending on what I want to smell like.

In a pinch, Herbal Essences Drama Clean Degunkify Tingling deep Cleaning Shampooalso works well as an all over body wash. It’s cheap, and available in pretty much any drugstore or grocery store.