interesting and disturbing discovery

[firecat]

I ordered some cloth menstrual pads from saucytots.com. When they came, there was a free gift in the package - a couple of gumdrop shaped things made of wax. I asked the owner what these were and she said they were "wax tarts" and you melt them in a "wax tart burner" to release fragrance. (The scent I got was called "Candy Cane.")

Google turns up loads of these wax tart things. I never knew.

The disturbing part is that many of the web sites featuring these wax tarts use "fragrance" as a transitive verb. "With our wax tarts, in your tart melter, you can fragrance a very large area for many, many hours before changing your tarts."

Comments

[clawbug.livejournal.com]

Somehow this makes me think of the Danish company that exported 'tart bases' under the name 'tart bottoms' :-D

BTW, a lot of nouns have become verbs, transitive or not, especially products. It annoys me a bit

"Why don't you Photoshop that nose?"
"Meh, I can't be bothered to Xerox it all."
"Mommy, I just Googled you on the interweb!"

[firecat]

For some reason, it doesn't bother me as much when brand names get verbed.

However, I do wonder where the term "interweb" came from.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

If you can believe Wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interweb) "interweb" originated with derisive geeks and Babylon 5.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I would be very annoyed if a scented product came as a "gift" in a purchase of mine. VERY annoyed.

Tonight, I bought some waxed paper that has (for some unknown reason) a faintly perfumed air. I gotta go to a different store and buy some different waxed paper. Bah.

[firecat]

It was in a ziploc bag and the scent was barely noticeable until I stuck my nose right up to it, but some people are much more sensitive than I am, so I hear ya. I was very annoyed a while back when some magazine that one would not expect to have perfume ads - Business Week? - arrived with perfume ads in it.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Is it because of proximity to something else? If I buy fragrance-free dryer sheets at the store, they'll still have a faint fragrance from the other boxes around them. If I buy them from the delivery company, they're fine.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I'm sensitive enough to scent that unless they were *really* well packaged, I'd get a headache just from opening the box. I'd *definitely* get a headache after opening the "gift" to see what it was. And then I'd probably have to wash the pads that just came before even using them, which would annoy me. Sometimes it takes me two washings to get the fragrance out of things (for example, if my mom buys me something at a yard sale), and sometimes it won't come out well enough at all.

(I don't buy dryer sheets at all, because something in even the unscented ones gives me a rash.)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Well, generally, you're supposed to wash fabric items before you wear them to make sure all sizing, etc., is taken out.

I got an item from Making It Big yesterday and the Priority Mail packaging smelled faintly of spice of some kind. The top was fine inside, so I think the package must have been next to something smelly in transit.

[fattest.livejournal.com]

Tarts. Tarts. I find that part equally disturbing. Melting tarts. Ew.

[surelars.livejournal.com]

The disturbing part is that many of the web sites featuring these wax tarts use "fragrance" as a transitive verb

Well, it's a perfectly natural process, but I still get a jolt from each new one I encounter. This particular one doesn't sit well with me for some reason.

[brooksmoses]

Me, either. It's ... the sort of think I imagine being spoken by someone who is, in the words of a character in a long-forgotten book from my childhood, just "utterly too-too".

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Why does the term "wax tart" make me think of something that should be a figure at Madame Tussauds? ;-)

[firecat]

*thwap*

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Was the fragrancing impactful, though? That's the real question.

[firecat]

It was architected to fragrance a small area subtly.

[snippy]

I like using the wax tarts to perfume my home, myself.

[firecat]

Yes! See, a perfectly good verbed noun already existed.

Which kinds do you like?

[snippy]

Brands? I've only used the Yankee Candle. Liked them fine.

I like to change off between a pine forest-type and a spice (clove, cinnamon, vanilla) type.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with the teacher on The Simpsons who asserted that "verbing nouns weirds language." Fragrancing. Oy.

[firecat]

I first encountered "Verbing weirds language" in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon.
I added it to my quote file with the comment "Sometimes verbing just stupids language."

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Both of those work!

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Coinkindinkally, I just received two full-sized bottles of Pantene from a consumer-research panel I belong to. I'm supposed to use them for four weeks, not allowing my spouses to use them, so I can report back. Fuck that. If I used these things for four weeks, my head would be a mass of blisters. I've got to get them off my desk so I don't exacerbate my already aching head.

[firecat]

Throw them out, wait four weeks, and then send Pantene a lawyer letter about the blisters.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

You're *bad*. :-)

I'll answer their survey the best I can, but sogwife has new shampoo/conditioner for her new place. :-)