Sometimes "natural" just means "nasty"

Was Christmas really almost a month ago? 2011 is nearly 1/12th of the way through. How terrifying. Anyway...


Back at Christmas time, I got a pouffle in my stocking. You know, a pouffle, a shower puff, one of those things they use in shower gel commercials that isn't a loofah or brush on a stick. The label attached to it proclaimed it was "simply natural" and made from "100% natural ramie" (just looked that up- ramie is apparently a plant in the nettle family that doesn't sting. The more you know!). Hooray, I thought, now I can make my shower time a million times more foamy and feel like I'm scrubbing my arse with a cloud!

That was not the case. The damn thing didn't foam up and instead just got wet and slimy and then clumped. I tried to wring it out and hung it up to dry, whereupon the edged darkened to a weird rusty shade that made it look like something found in an abandoned submarine.

I haven't used it again because every time I look at it I think how much mould could grow in those folds and decide to give it a miss. A good two weeks after I first used it, it still smells... iffy.

There is a reason pouffles (do you pronounce that poo-full or like soufflé?) are synthetic. If you want to lather up with something "natural", grab some cotton yarn, learn to knit and go hack out one of the millions of washcloth patterns that are on Ravelry.

In the meantime, I'm tempted to dunk this in clay, fire it in the kiln and see what results. It's got to be better than keeping this bedraggled thing in my bathroom.