Yesterday I did something that made me feel very, very naughty. I was buying groceries and looking for our usual laundry detergent. They were out of All: free and clear, the kind I usually buy, and I was forced to look around and consider the possibilities.

We have sensitive skin in our family, although I have noticed great improvements with Maggie over the past year. My in-laws use a detergent that used to make me itch, but either I’ve become accustomed to it, or Tide changed the formula, because I can use it now, and suffer no bad consequences. So I bought a bottle of Tide.

The part that made me feel like I was breaking all of the rules, was the fact that I bought Tide with a “touch of Downy”. We don’t do fabric softener. It can be irritating to sensitive skin, really bad for the environment and your dryer, and when I was first married and in college we were so broke that the thought of dropping THREE WHOLE DOLLARS on a bottle of blue stuff with no sanitizing value was just too much for me, and it stuck.

The thing is, I love the smell of Tide mixed with Downy. My mother in-law smells like this. My friend Cori smells like this. I could sit in between both of them all day, squished in a little smell-o-riffic cocoon of yumminess. (I am extremely smell sensitive, and I will noticed how you smell. I am forever weirding people out by telling them how good they smell. I’m learning to keep myself in check, especially where random men are concerned- but seriously, some people just smell good enough to eat.)

So I convinced myself that it would be ok, just this once, to buy something with just a dab of fabric softener. I’m such a rebel. Could this be a slippery slope? Will I be buying economy sized jugs of straight fabric softener a month from now? Quick! I need an intervention!

and they open- like so:

Nifty keen, no?