Today, I needed a bottle of chlorine bleach. Now I know that there is only one active ingredient in same, namely sodium hypochlorite (in concentrations of 3 to 8 or so percent). The only difference between one brand and another is the concentration and the addition of perfumes. I went to my local superstore and looked at the bottles, trying to find which product had the highest sodium hypochlorite content. None of the brands told me. That offends me--almost as much as the concept of bottled water. But they all told me their product would make my whites whiter. How hard would it have been to just put that one little concentration number on the label?
It reminds me of when I first left home for university--and had to, for the first time, do my own laundry. At that time, in contradistinction to my left-wing political philosophy, I was very conservative with regard to dress. I wore nothing but white shirts (with pants, shoes, socks, and underwear, of course), and sought a laundry detergent that would clean my shirts. After reading the ingredients of box after box, I found that they all worked by magic or at best by a secret formula. They did promise to make my whites 'whiter than white' whatever that means (sounds like something Gene Wolfe might write). Gosh, I hate marketing, and those that cheerfully do it for a living.
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