More Ambulance Than Ambience

While pootling around a supermarket recently, it struck me that the world of household air fresheners seems to have gone a bit weird, with Glade and Ambi-Pur etc. having to develop more and more elaborate names for their scents. Gone are clichéd labels like Summer Meadow and Autumn Spice in favour of increasingly specific labels like Indian Massage, Oriental Secret Garden and the odd-sounding Festival in Tuscany.

I have no idea what a festival in Tuscany is supposed to smell like, though presumably Glade are unlikely to promote an air freshener that smells of sweaty old locals drunk on Grappa. Maybe there are corresponding fragrances in Northern Italy called Festival in Glastonbury where Italian nostrils are assaulted with odours reminiscent of hash, regurgitated cider and human excrement.

While we’re on the subject, there’s an ad on TV at the moment for a plug-in air freshener that doubles as a light, filling a room with both puffs of scent and soft illumination, delivering an alternate red and green glow. What the manufacturers seem to have overlooked however, is that, while filling the room with floral aromas is appealing, not many people want a shitty-looking plastic light in the corner of the room drawing attention to itself like a malfunctioning emergency light. I’m no market researcher, but in the Venn diagram depicting the appeal of a) pleasant smells, and b) a shitty plastic light, the circles would barely intersect.

There’s a similar product from some other company which flickers like a candle when you turn it on, creating the faux-ambience of a naked flame. No doubt because everyone knows how expensive and difficult-to-light candles are…

If I want to buy an air freshener, I’ll buy an air freshener. If I want to buy a lamp or candle I’ll buy a lamp or candle. They’re hardly luxury products out of the reach of most people. These air-freshener/light combos are reminiscent of sporks (the spoon/fork hybrid popularised by Spud-U-Like which, while purporting to be serviceable as two separate items of cutlery, actually fails to be useable as either).