More of Consumer Reports Does Fragrance

I drew ten times my average daily readership yesterday due to Sunday's post. It was about an unsettling Consumer Reports article on cosmetics safety published by AOL. Please, have another helping. My favorite sentence in the report, which alludes to perfumes, reads, "We bought Happy, Poison, and Beautiful in both the U.S. and Europe, and found the E.U.-banned phthalate DEHP in all the samples." Surely the article's author had some fun with word juxtaposition on that turn of phrase. While I admire audacity, I'd suggest Christian Dior, maker of Poison, consider "Young," "Powerful," or "Rich" as more on-message options for a name.

But I'm not really playing to my new-found audience now, am I? The visit counter suggests that my most avid recent reader works for a large firm that produces cosmetics (one with its whole own ISP). Perhaps a bored employee is dropping by, or a chemically-sensitive one, but I'm guessing that someone is actually getting paid to read my little foot-stamping missives from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity land. I don't know whether that's creepy or flattering. It is definitely annoying that being on the right side is so seldom as financially rewarding as being on the wrong. If anyone wants to pay me, please step forward.