Bathe with 11 herbs, spices

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/11/2017 (3172 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It turns out that I am a big fan of Japanese culture.

This has nothing to do with the fact that I frequently eat my own weight at our neighbourhood sushi restaurant. It also has nothing to do with the fact I start every day by spending at least an hour in the tub soaking in scalding hot water until I emerge looking like a boiled lobster on steroids.

It has everything to do with my intense desire to smell like meat, especially the kind you can obtain at fast-food restaurants.

I became aware of this meat-related longing the other day when our city editor sent me a shocking news report along with the following comment: “This has your name all over it.”

This news report announced that the nice folks who run KFC’s operations in Japan have just introduced a product I am dying to get my hands on — a bath bomb that leaves you, your bathtub, and most likely your towels, smelling like fried chicken.

Seriously, KFC Japan has come up with “Chicken Smelling Bath Powder,” a fizzy bath bomb shaped like a finger-lickin’ chicken drumstick that you plop into your bath in a sincere and humanitarian effort to ensure you emerge from the tub emitting the unmistakable aroma of the colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices.

It goes without saying this is the kind of innovative bath product that will divide readers along gender lines as follows:

Typical male reaction (weeping tears of joy): “I can die happy now in the knowledge that my greasy remains will carry the fragrance of the colonel’s secret fried-chicken recipe.”

Typical female reaction: “Ewwww! I think I’m going to be sick.”

So apparently this limited-edition offering from KFC Japan is not for everyone, but it is definitely for someone like me, the sort of greasy-snack-loving guy who, as a child, had a poster of Colonel Sanders tacked to his wall in the spot where a standard kid my age would have tacked up photos of Farrah Fawcett or Bobby Orr.

The tragic news, however, is the fact that people like me may not be able to get our greasy mitts on a package of the KFC bubble bath, because it is only available in Japan under a set of strict guidelines. Produced in partnership with the famously quirky Tokyo-based general store Village Vanguard — also responsible for creating soup-scented bath products — only about 100 of the chicken bath bombs are being given away each day until Nov. 22.

To win, you’d have to not only speak Japanese, but also retweet that day’s version of KFC’s contest Twitter post, then beat out other Japanese fried-chicken freaks in a contest.

So I’m not holding my breath, so to speak. While we’re on the topic, I will point out this is not the first time I have been compelled to write an insightful column about a KFC product designed to leave the user smelling like the colonel’s signature bucket of goodness.

Last year, I bravely informed readers that KFC had introduced a line of edible nail polishes that, according to the chain, tasted just like fried chicken. The lickable nail polish came in two flavours — “Original Recipe” and “Hot&Spicy.”

“To use, consumers simply apply and dry like regular nail polish, and then lick — again and again and again,” is what KFC chirped in a statement.

What you need to know, however, is that this is not the first year that Japanese consumers have been able to sport a meaty fast-food fragrance.

In 2015, Burger King dished up another product I wish I could soak in — a cologne that allows the wearer to smell exactly like the fast-food giant’s signature burger, the Whopper.

The “flame grilled” fragrance was on sale for one day only — April 1 — and only in Japan. For about 5,000 yen (around C$56) customers received the bottled burger scent in a handsome black box, along with a fresh Whopper, so they could compare the two, um, fragrances.

The general idea was for the scent to seduce new grilled-beef buffs in Japan. How did it smell? I personally don’t have a clue, but here’s what the newspaper Stars and Stripes had to say of its odiferousness: “Instead of spritzing on an expected liquid smokiness, the cologne hit the olfactory senses with a strong, spicy cumin smell that was followed by something like onions. Instead of smelling like a flame-broiled patty, it was like the last call on curry at a bad Indian restaurant that happens to have an onion farm out back.”

So this scent wasn’t for everyone apparently. But that’s not the delicious point. No, the point is that, for cultural reasons that are beyond my limited understanding, these meat-intensive products are only available in Japan.

As a proud Canadian consumer, I am deeply concerned that Japan is leaving us in the dust in the vital area of meat-scented grooming products.

If we do not take action on this trade imbalance immediately — and I am thinking something along the lines of bacon-scented underarm deodorant — then I fear our entire economy is going to land in hot water.

Which I personally would enjoy, but might be a touch uncomfortable for the rest of you.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca