4 ms·

Near the end of 2015 I joined a startup and was relocating from Victoria to SF. The startup was in a Haight Ashbury house converted into multiple units. So this

Near the end of 2015 I joined a startup and was relocating from Victoria to SF. The startup was in a Haight Ashbury house converted into multiple units. So this made it extra convenient to sleep in the office until I found a place to rent. Also, my family didn’t plan to join me for a few months. There were a couple other non-local coworkers who regularly shared the space in the early days. Dr Bronner’s Peppermint soap was in the shower. Not knowing any better, I did a good lather. When I started feeling a tingle in my critical region, I didn’t know what to do. Thankfully, rinsing off kept me from becoming uncomfortable. This lead to some cautious conversations with the coworkers, and as we confirmed a similar experiences this contributed to a very different experience to bond over. There is additional backstory, where the Peppermint was bought be accident to replace a previous blue bottle that had generously been left there. The purchaser of the replacement had been equally surprised by the effects. Since then I’ve gotten to enjoy rotating to the peppermint or tea tree oil soap from time to time.

bch 7y ago
> Not knowing any better, I did a good lather. When I started feeling a tingle in my critical region [...] “a breath mint for your balls.”[0] [0] https://gizmodo.com/lessons-learned-from-a-year-living-in-a-van-1695536542 https://gizmodo.com/lessons-learned-from-a-year-living-in-a-...
bayareanative 7y ago
Then you used too much. A little goes a loooong ways. It's quite concentrated. A few drops is all that's needed.
meej 7y ago
> a previous blue bottle that had generously been left there. Sounds like that might have been the baby unscented variety instead of the peppermint. Both have blue labels but the peppermint one is a darker shade.
- joveian 7y ago
  Also the unscented is sometimes placed in the baby section (at least Whole Foods does this) that makes it even harder to notice that there are two with blue labels. Also the peppermint goes on sale much more often than any of the others. I once met someone who wrote a song about the tingly effect (probably not the only one...). Since I am commenting late I'll mention here that I suspect the main reason for the current popularity in the US is that it became a universal feature of health food stores and co-ops before they were all that popular. When Whole Foods took health food stores mainstream they sold it and when supermarkets responded with natural products departments they started selling it too. So now it is not only a good quality soap with a relatively short ingredient list but very widely available.

bch 7y ago

> Not knowing any better, I did a good lather. When I started feeling a tingle in my critical region [...] “a breath mint for your balls.”[0] [0] https://gizmodo.com/lessons-learned-from-a-year-living-in-a-van-1695536542 https://gizmodo.com/lessons-learned-from-a-year-living-in-a-...

bayareanative 7y ago

Then you used too much. A little goes a loooong ways. It's quite concentrated. A few drops is all that's needed.

meej 7y ago

> a previous blue bottle that had generously been left there. Sounds like that might have been the baby unscented variety instead of the peppermint. Both have blue labels but the peppermint one is a darker shade.

joveian 7y ago
Also the unscented is sometimes placed in the baby section (at least Whole Foods does this) that makes it even harder to notice that there are two with blue labels. Also the peppermint goes on sale much more often than any of the others. I once met someone who wrote a song about the tingly effect (probably not the only one...). Since I am commenting late I'll mention here that I suspect the main reason for the current popularity in the US is that it became a universal feature of health food stores and co-ops before they were all that popular. When Whole Foods took health food stores mainstream they sold it and when supermarkets responded with natural products departments they started selling it too. So now it is not only a good quality soap with a relatively short ingredient list but very widely available.