To learn all you need to know about science you just need to watch advertisements. The best science brains of today are all trying to find the most effective protein for hair strengthening, and, fortunately for us, the Pantene Foundation provide the public service of keeping us up to date with this research. For truly radical science, though, you need look no further than S.C. Johnson’s Glade Scented Oil Candles.
At first glance, the advert (or commercial, if you prefer) on TV gives us nothing new: you light the candle, the wax melts into an oil and your house stinks like a tart’s bra for three weeks (or, more specifically, ‘Dewberry Dream’). There’s a lot of guff about a specially designed cotton and metal wick, and a hot plate, but the truly revolutionary new technology is saved for the end (they know how to build tension, these advermetising fellows) when the voice-over giddily tells us that ‘when the oil is gone, the candle goes out’.
They’ve done it! Who would have thought that it would have been a commercial smell company, rather than NASA or someone, who came up with the world’s first NOT-EVERLASTING CANDLE. If only they’d had this technology in the Middle Ages, they could have avoided all that expense on snuffers, and avoided all that misery they’re so famous for (although those dreadful snuffing unions would have no doubt tried to get them banned).
Now that S.C. Johnson have released this technology into the public domain, there is no stopping it. I guarantee that by this time next year Subaru will be bringing out a car that when the gas is used up, the car STOPS RUNNING! I, for one, cannot wait.
(Incidentally, I noticed on the Glade website that they have trademarked the phrase ‘Scenterior Design’.)
Have you seen the ad for ‘Scent Stories’? Absolute madness.