3-in-1 Shampoos

I grew up in a country where 3-in-1 shampoos were not that common.  So when I visited a tourism resort there in my hometown, they offered 3 different types of liquids on the counter in the bathroom, each in small bottles:  Shampoo, Conditioner, and Body Wash.  We even got to grab some extras, and use it for a few months after we went home.

And it was... a lot of fun.  So, let's do a routine drop!  But this time, with a big twist — I'll tell you stupidly trivial things that one should not do with these products, and what I learnt, rather than commanding a specific set of products like all the girlbosses on social media do.

First, as much as I wish to, I'm not Rapunzel (who, ironically, would not even need to do any hair hygiene as hers is magical), so conditioner was mostly irrelevant to me.  But still, I frequently touched it, and end up misapplying the correct liquid.  Back then, even the 40 or so seconds required to put something on my hair, rub it, and wash it down seemed long, so reapplying something else was annoying.  This annoyance lives rent-free in my head for the rest of the night, but next time I learnt to be more detail-oriented and careful.

Things were... way worse!!! ...when I applied body wash.  The body wash makes my eyes really really dry and sore when the soapwater flows down my eyes, compared to the Shampoo which is much more lenient on the eyes.  So, I'd have to suffer if I used body wash.

When we ran out of Shampoo earlier, because I liked the specific brand of the shampoo that resort uses so much, I even used an empty bottle and mixed a bit of water, body wash, and a tiny bit of conditioner along with some scraps of soap.  It smelled funny but not bad, it was still usable, and it was a fun project, even though it still kind of hurts my eyes.  It gave off a fun aesthetic, overall.

❄

Nowadays, when I'm in the United States, people just buy 3-in-1 shampoos and all you gotta do is rub it, like you rub a lamp of a genie, and all your washing troubles are gone.  But with it, went all the manual mixing of different liquids, and with it went all the times when I use the wrong thing.  With it, went all the fun.

Yet in the last few years, people are just shifting to this exact trend:  consuming mass media about current events without actually piecing opinions together by themselves, only caring about filling out an answer on a test without actually studying or learning more about the topic.  Caring about the results and the superficial laughs more by saying 6–7 (I'm guilty of this) rather than making friends with people in the hallways...

So a few takeaways here:

1. You just miss out on all the fun when you try to just do the bare minimum and then try to embrace the outcome; you simply won't enjoy it.  Just like a warm embrace needs trust, you need to actually do something nontrivial for yourself to enjoy your own result, too. [0]
2. If you find yourself trying to get something you enjoy done fast by skipping steps, then let it go (tm) when it comes to enjoying your life.  Seriously.  Be like Elsa, and take all the time you need to build a beautiful ice palace on a mountain.
3. Shampoos should follow the Unix philosophy, and do one thing and do it well (tm).  But this is more a specific observation, and not applicable to general thing.  Sorry for the programming joke.

Footnotes

[0] Good old Goodhart's Law (Wikipedia) applies here.