A plastic bottle of shampoo got dropped in a bathtub. I suspect it is a fairly common occurrence. In this particular case, however, the bottle had a pump on the top to dispense the shampoo and the top of the pump broke off. Of course the shampoo is still usable in the old bottle, but without the pump it is messy to dispense it. When you unscrew the top, you remove the entire pump that has been submerged in the shampoo and it drips as you pour from the bottle. So I found another pump bottle and transferred the shampoo into it. Problem solved.

Then, I thought, I should label the new bottle so that people would know what is in it. That is when I read the label on the old bottle. I guess I should mention that I didn’t buy the shampoo in the first place. I think our daughter bought it for her son when she was visiting our home last year. Here is some of what the old shampoo bottle has printed on it: “Raw Sugar Kids Shampoo + Conditioner Watermelon + Apple Infused with Dandelion Flower Clinically & Allergy Tested Made with plant-derived ingredients Free of sulfates & parabens/vegan”

Outside of the obvious lack of punctuation, the label left me scratching my head. I’m not sure what constitutes a raw sugar kid. Our grandchildren are sweet, but even their grandparents know not to feed them too much sugar. According to the web site food insight.org, “raw sugar, also known as turbinado sugar, is light brown in color and comes in crystalized form. It is primarily sucrose and a small amount of molasses.”

I like the word turbinado. It isn’t in the spell checker on my computer. But our grandson could be described as a turbinado. Sometimes he has the energy of a turbo charged tornado. Oxford online says turbinado is similar to demerara but with larger crystals. My spell checker doesn’t have demerara in it, either.

I know what shampoo is and I know what conditioner is and I know that they are sometimes combined in the same product. I do not know, however, what watermelon, apple, and dandelion flowers add to the cleansing properties of soap for washing one’s hair. Interestingly, on the back of the bottle is a list of ingredients. There are lots of fun chemical words. It turns out that the shampoo actually contains Citrullus Lanatus (Watermelon Seed Extract), as well as Pyrus Malus (Apple Fruit Extract), and Taraxcum Offinale (Danedelion Leaf Extract). It also contains Potassium Sorbate (not to be confused with sorbet), Tetrasodium Glutamate, and Disodium Laureate Sulfosuccinate. Like I said, fancy chemical words. I checked. The brand of shampoo I use also has a list of ingredients. I don’t think I’ve ever read them before. I don’t plan on ingesting any of it. I just rub it into my hair, rinse and repeat. OK I don’t repeat, but I don’t have that much hair really. My shampoo doesn’t have any fruit or flowers that I can discern from the ingredient list. I don’t know what sodium xylenesufonate comes from but it does seem that both types of shampoo contain a sodium and I know that in general I am supposed to be aware of and avoid too much sodium in my diet. Then again, I’m not going to eat it. My shampoo doesn’t say anything about being Vegan, like the kids’ shampoo.

I think I’ll make a label for the substitute shampoo bottle that says, “Kids Shampoo.” I thought about having it say “Turbinado Kids Shampoo” just because I like the word turbinado. I’m thinking that if the fact that it has watermelon and apple in it is important someone with a sensitive nose might detect the aromas in the shampoo. I think that the fruit is added to make it smell less like soap and more like food, but I’m not sure.

I’m glad that our daughter bought the shampoo for her son, because if she had asked me to pick up children’s shampoo from the store, I suspect I would have never come home with “Watermelon + Apple shampoo + conditioner infused with Dandelion Flower. “ I think that when our kids were little we used Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. I remember something about a “no tears formula.” I don’t remember, however, that regular use of the shampoo meant that there were no tears in our family. It seemed like there was always someone crying at our house. Once, when Susan’s sister and her family were visiting, we had all 5 kids crying at the same time. Sometimes when there was no kid crying, one of the mothers was crying. I still say when I’m around someone who apologizes for crying, “It’s OK, I’m waterproof.” Maybe I shouldn’t put too much weight on what it says on the bottle of shampoo. I bet, however, that shampoo is just like a whole lot of other products in the store. I go expecting to see one or maybe two brands and there is a whole section of the store devoted to dozens of brands of the product. When that happens to me, whether it is shampoo or snack crackers, I sometimes am immobilized by having too much choice and can’t make a decision at all.

I do like the idea of children’s shampoo being in a pump bottle. I know I dropped the cap of the shampoo bottle in the bathwater dozens of times trying to wash the hair of a wildly squirming child. Those little critters get really slippery when they are wet. Then again, we have at least one grandchild who can dispense a significant amount of hand soap onto the bathroom counter from a pump bottle. I sometimes wonder if she succeeded in getting any of it on her hands.

Mostly, I like living in a house where children visit regularly and where we have all kinds of kids products around. For the most part they don’t play with lego bricks in my bedroom, so I haven’t stepped on one with bare feet in quite a while. I don’t mind picking up toys after the kids have visited. And I don’t mind reading the ingredients of children’s shampoo. It is all part of the fun of being a grandpa, and that is fun that I certainly don’t want to miss.