The never-ending quest to find the best lip ointment led me to discover a delightful — but silly-named — balm called: “Blistex Lip Infusion Cherry Splash.” The great thing about this Blistex sheer liquid balm is its giant ball-bearing applicator that glides over your lips like a whisper of butterfly kisses. You are not only soothed, but besotted as well! There is, however, an odd smell embedded in the Blistex lip infusion. It is advertised as “Cherry” but it has a more familiar tang to it than just plain fruit. There is something medicinal about the cherry aftertaste. It tends to leave a bad aroma in your mouth. Oh, if I could only place that old-time familiar smell…

Then.

Yesterday.

As I applied my sheer cherry liquid balm for the umpteenth time — it hit me right in the jaw like a barrel of fruity monkeys: I Knew That Smell! The “Blistex Lip Infusion Cherry Splash” … smells like a urinal cake!

A urinal cake, if you are lucky enough not to know, is a pinkish soap thang encrusted in plastic and tossed into urinals so men will aim to pee on it instead of on the bathroom walls. Peeing on a urinal cake is supposed to release a pleasant, “fruity, scented, odor” blend of a hospital cafeteria during dessert time instead of the hissy ammonia stank that emanates from us all — but urinal cakes fail at faking the nose.

The mind remembers. The body repels from the recognition. Urinal cakes are the original lipstick on a pig!

Oh!

The scent of memory was awful! I was drowning in a mix of urine-soaked Bing Cherries and it was flushing all over my lips and teeth and gums and tongue and throat and… and all I could do was wonder… Why Blistex chose to put the aromatic blend of a urinal cake in their fantastic liquidy balm is beyond all human reason.

The idea of soothing my chapped lips by rubbing a urinal cake across my mouth ten times a day suddenly invokes the terror of a never-ending gag reflex! I’m waiting for the moment some drunk guy comes up to me on the street and begins to pee in my mouth.

24 Comments

  2. Yipes! That’s one think we don’t have here: Official Public Peeing. You get arrested for that sort of thing in the USA.
    NYC is trying to get urinals for the public — private ones — installed on street corners. A French company builds them. But they can’t figure out how to keep the homeless from using them for shelter. They tried charging 25 cents per use but that didn’t prove an effective enough deterrent.

  4. The link you provided on the stuff site comes up unavailable for me here.
    I do like your title, though! 😀 Just make sure your urinals are empty before snapping them! 😆

  6. David!
    I know what you mean!
    Not literally, but close!!!
    I tried “root-beer” once, just out of curiosity and after the first sip I thought I drank a liquid form of Iodex (a pain balm essential for a medicine cabinet in India)!!!
    http://shopping.yahoo.com/s:Medicine%20&%20First%20Aid:4168-Brand=Iodex
    It smelt exactly the same!
    I am clueless how a pain reliever and a soft drink can smell identical and now I know what to offer to any of my Asian friends in case I want to make their life/taste bud miserable!

  8. I kind of acquired the taste now and I prefer it over Coke/Pepsi but I really like root beer float…that tends to reduce the strong Iodex like flavor…
    Sorry about your experience of the lip-balm! 🙁

  9. Katha! Ah! The Rootbeer float! An American classic! You’re right the ice cream cuts down on the strange root taste.
    It’s a great lip balm! Blistex makes a similar one without the cherry smell but it has a sort of strange, acidy odor to it. Not a delight to paint on your lips.

  10. Yes! Root bear float is a great and delicious innovation – no question asked!
    I used a “Body Shop” fragrance free lipstick once that had an idiotic rubbery smell – just hated it, even if the lipstick was great.

  11. Katha!
    Yes, I have come to believe anything we put on our lips requires some sort of pleasant flavoring taste and odor in order for us to wear it. The young teenage girls seem to have a fashion sense for what works with style, taste and aroma when it comes to picking the right lip gloss!

  17. Hi Deep!
    It’s a pleasure to meet you and I thank you for your fine comment.
    Do you have urinal cakes in India — or do you call them something else?

  18. Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes!
    Interestingly enough, a lot of Japanese really strongly dislike root beer because it was introduced so late on in the 20th century. I have a Japanese friend who loathes the taste of it – he says it’s worse than medicine.

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