Posse! ‘Tis I, Musette! AGAYan! Because March is off having fun! So. Hi!
So. We’ve (at least I’ve) all fallen for those good-to-excellent-to-fulsome reviews… the ones that spark a major lemming and before you can blink! you’ve thrown your credit card down and DARED somebody to say sumpin’!!!
Yeah… been there (way too many times).
But…. what about scathing reviews? Not the ‘eh’ stuff but the “I had to take TWO showers with a Brillo pad” reviews that are like watching Godzilla stomp through a bridge in Tokyo. Dunno about you, but those? My weird patoot wants to try those even more than the fulsome card-throwing stuff. March agrees – there’s a perverse ‘ oh, c’mon….realllly??… how bad can it be?’ curiosity that … well. ya just gotta do it!
So I did! Not a perfume – a body cream. Now y’all know I am ALL about body cream/creme/slickery-goo, so when I read this Absolutely Scathing review of Trader Joe’s Ultra Rich Body Butter
Truth be told, I actually had to take a long shower after putting it on. The scent gave me an immediate headache, and I simply had to get rid of the sluggy slickness ASAP. Your mileage may vary, but I’m going to say this one gets a solid skip from me.
Um. Excepting my sister’s aversion to slick cream (she’s afraid of getting it on her clothes (???), I really don’t know (m)anybody who doesn’t want a cream to be rich and slickery. Okay. Maybe that’s just me. And March. But honestly – after reading this short-but-vicious little review, I had to make sure to grab a jar the next time I was near a Trader Joe’s. 
My review? It is fabulous! Greasy as undercooked bacon, almost- but-not-quite reeking of vanilla and Something Tropical, it’s perfect for my thirsty, aging skin. It’s a great creme apres-bain, slicking onto shower-hot, damp skin. Dunno what the kitchn.com reviewer was drinking but I will NOT have what she was having.
But this post isn’t about this particular product (it’s gone now anyway, in that irritating TJ way)… it’s about the weirdness of absolutely having to try something that someone on a legit, revenue-generating blog hated enough to actually diss! I don’t always do that – but it seems that the urge to try a Hate is actually stronger than a Love. What’s that all about, that Thin Line (between love and hate)? And do you ever fall victim to that reverse-hype? What’s the outcome been? I’m at about a 60% success rate, with my Perverse Curiosity spanning So Damb Many Thing (Frozen Pearl Onions! Who knew? They are FABULOUS! And I don’t have to peel them!)
I’ve done that. He last one I cannot for the life of me remember the perfume but it was something that the reviewer wrote of as just vile: super-stinky, old man armpit, old man who chain-smoked luckies while drinking unfiltered kerosene and Thunderbird in clothes he rode horses in, mucked out the stalls, and never washed but scraped them clean with rabid ferrets. Said it was Evil. Only a sick mind would conjure it up and a sicker one wear it.
So of course I had to try it.
All I could think was “you think THIS stinks? Oh, honey..”