eau de pier1

used the chandrika soap and now i smell like pier1. the old pier1, that is, before pier1 went all martha stewart. pier1 used to be like that store in the mall that sells the hermit crabs only pier1 was even more like that than that store is like that. firstly, we didn't really have malls back in the day. we had strip malls and shopping centers, little nuclei of retail. these days retail is completely jacked up and our entire economy depends on our buying things and our entertainment and socialization is built around purchasing.

but i digress. back in the day, pier1 was located in a sort of warehousey type space, very raw with rough exposed wood bins holding loose shells, brass elephants and incense dishes stacked on upturned crates, fishing nets with blown glass globes hanging from the walls, and the ubiquitous carved sandalwood buddhas grinning grinning grinning above their fat little bellies. pier1 was a hippy store.

some of my first solo shopping was at pier1 b/c around the time i was 12 or so, riding my bikecycle to the local library and retail, pier1 was the edgiest store around. there was an aura of counterculture wafting about with the incense fumes. i am sure it was all very tame, but to a 12 yr old it felt like the kind of place there would be Drug Deals Going Down. i mean, incense was invented to cover up the smell of pot, right? such a risk taker i was, shopping at the pier1, coming home with a bag of shells and incense cones i'd never light.

the tie between this soap and pier1 is the patchouli. there's patchouli in this soap and nothing, i mean nothing, says freaky hippy retail like the scent of patchouli.