… which is why, I suppose, design-hungry Americans will happily hand over $20 for a bottle of liquid hand soap, because the design of the bottle and cachet of the foreign copy on it instantly render your bathroom indistinguishable from a chic French apothecary.  (I can’t help but think that if the makers of the ubiquitous le Chat and la Parisienne doubled the price and updated the packaging of their products, they’d be sitting on a veritable gold mine, although products made in eastern Canada don’t quite carry the same associated whiff of Provincial lavender that one associates with the Marseille-fabricated stuff.)

Most of the bottles of shampoo and body wash in our shower are in the cheaper, but decidedly less exotic (and visually cluttered), bilingual packaging that you find across Canada. In the kitchen, you can just place the French side of boxes and cans outward, which (as previously mentioned) can change the personality of your food item, or give it a fresh dose of class.  Most products are, after all, branded as “NOUVEAU!”, and it took me about a month to realize that Pete’s can of Hormel chili was not merely being pretentious when it labeled itself “CLASSIQUE.”  Bath and body stuff isn’t designed in the Janus-faced symmetry of food cans and boxes, though, and more’s the pity.  Can you  imagine the impact that a container of Canadian-sourced St. Ives Apricot Scrub would have in your sophisticated French-style tub caddy?  Désincrustant à l’abricot.  I love the imagery evoked by the French translation: you aren’t “scrubbing” or “exfoliating” your face in the morning, but “disencrustifying” it.  Nothing but pure class in the Jejune household.

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