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It’s time we finally realize Bath and Body Works is total garbage
We can — no, we MUST– want better for ourselves
by Amanda Ross
What scent were you? Sweet Pea? Cucumber Mellon? Warm Vanilla Sugar? Perfumed Toilet Water? Oh, wait — that was all of them.
Look, as a woman who came of age in the early-to-mid-00s, Bath and Body Works will always hold a special place in my heart. I’ll never forget the way their heavily-perfumed lotions would sit, unabsorbed, on my leg in the morning, or the way I’d douse myself in the ‘body splash’ sprays after PE with a lil extra spritz on my cleavage because, honestly, I’ve been a hoe since Day One.
But now, as a grown woman out in the real world, it’s time to let go and see Bath and Body Works for what it really is: floral-scented trash. We deserve better, we must demand better for ourselves than wearing what’s really just the female version of Axe Body Spray in lieu of a real scent.
Much like Victoria’s Secret, BBW has failed to evolve with the times. At any mall in America, you’ll find the same strange picnic basket exterior wrap-around you’ve been staring at since you were stroller-bound. But it no longer holds the same excitement. We’ve glo’d up and traded our C.O. Bigelow mentholated lip glosses for Kylie Cosmetics (why it’s not spelled Kosmetics, I’ll never know) and swapped out the glittery, plastic zebra-shaped car air fresheners for something more subtle.
Bath and Body Works, though, continues to peddle the same cheap fragrances and greasy lotions we use to shellack ourselves in. Weave your way through the lucite cash wrap displays and find yourself face-to-face with the same cake frosting lip glosses, penguin-shaped hand sanitizer holders perfect for backpack-clipping, and those miniature bottles of ineffective shower gel of which you’ve accrued thousands.
There are still a significant portion of us who try to hold on to the glory of what once was, and I admit sometimes even I’m seduced by the siren song of a 2-for-1 coupon and a whiff of Warm Vanilla Sugar.
But this is my line in the sand. From this day forward, I refuse to be seduced by their sickly sweet scents that give me Vietnam-style PTSD flashbacks of getting fingered in my first boyfriend’s car. We can never go back.
OK, except for the candles. Those candles are fucking excellent.