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So, let me give you a little background on this and on me so that this makes more sense. If you feel like this is turning into too much work, I assure you its worth it
I’m high functioning autistic with Asperger’s Syndrome, which means that my view on things is slightly skewed from the general population.
Neurotypicals, as those not on the spectrum, are called, make up the majority of the population. Thus the name. They’re neurologically typical. I’m not.
We’re kind of like mutants in the X-Men comic books—in a good way. Each mutant has their own power. As Dr Stephen Shore, a Professor with Aseprger’s said, “If you’ve met one autistic, you’ve met one autistic.”
We share similar traits but we’re different.
Back to the story.
I was in the shower the other night finishing up the idea for my Not Weird Just Autistic column. I had my two main elements but I needed something else that said, “keep doing it over and over.”
I looked up at my shampoo bottle and saw the words, “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.”
Boom, I thought to myself. That’s it. That’s the rest of your post. So my post became 5 things, with Lather. Rinse, Repeat being the last three. Awesome.
One of my autistic strengths, outside the box thinking, was just revealed and I finished a Good Men Project column based off the side of a shampoo bottle. I’m either a frickin’ genius or a complete moron.*
After the post was written my other autistic “gift” kicked in. The gift of looking at something very literally and saying, “Yeah? Prove it.”
The wording in question?
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I’m in the shower the next day when I look at the bottle again and this time it’s the logical, literal, too Sheldon Cooper-y. me. I read the three words yet again.
“Who the f*** signed off on this s***?” I loudly asked to a house empty except for my service dog. “Did anyone do any scientific tests? Is it KNOWN to be better for our hair if we rinse and repeat?”
I looked online for a solid half-hour and found only one reliable article, a Forbes magazine article that noted in the early days of shampoo, people put lots of goop in their hair, but hair care technology has made the two wash shower virtually unnecessary.
So the hair care industry is trying to scam us! If they tell us to use twice as much, we likely will. If we use twice as much, we have to buy twice as much, which doubles the profits for the shampoo syndicates.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the dollar bottle of Suave or the outrageously priced shampoo at your salon that’s basically Suave. They’re still taking you for your hard earned cash and it’s about time we did something about it.
I suggest going rogue and just washing once. Just stop the second one cold. In fact, it doesn’t take much to make a small start a movement. I mean, if I tell two friends, and they tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on and so on, we could be huge for one of the high, holy good hair days, Valentines Day.
In the words of the immortal Nancy Reagan, “Just say no.” Don’t repeat. It’s not worth it. It doesn’t give you the satisfaction of the first one, anyway. One is fine, two you’ve crossed the line.
So who’s with me on this? Who will follow a middle-aged autistic who obsesses over literal stuff way too much? Yeah. I didn’t think so. ‘’
At the very least, I hope I gave you something to think about the next time you’re in the shower and find yourself in need of something to read. If it looks like a conspiracy theory, and it sounds like conspiracy theory, it’s probably the shampoo industry.
*I’m still here writing so it must have landed somewhere above Complete Moron.
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