Baked goods in bulk would. Making cookies/cupcakes/brownies for a bake sale or a school party, I’ve seen my mom use a whole bag of sugar.
I’ve been trying for almost twelve years to convince my wife of this concept. Every time she’s sick and a friend of hers recommends some name-brand cold remedy she buys it, not realizing (or maybe not believing) that it’s exactly the same formula as the half-dozen other cold formulas we’ve accumulated in the medicine cabinet. So far I’ve yet to win that battle, or the related one about the store-brand medicine containing exactly the same active ingredient and dose as the name brand that costs much more. <sigh>
I guess I can sort of understand her skepticism, in a way— why would there be 235 brands of the same freaking medicine, after all?
A friend of mine is always proud to point out that when taking a tour of the factory that makes Oreos, the conveyer belt split off near the end into 2 seperate lines. One line was being packaged in “Oreo” packaging, the other in store-brand packaging. It’s the same freakin thing!!
I don’t buy all the pro-vitamin amino protein bullshit they put on shampoo and conditioner, I just care whether it washes my hair and makes it less tangle prone and doesn’t smell like fucking flowers (I’m a dude with long hair). Pantene works for me. They keep changing the packaging though, that’s irritating.
I know nothing whatsoever about shampoo production, but I do know that in the pharmaceutical industry they call something a “pro-drug” when it is not actually the active ingredient of the drug, but gets metabolised or otherwise converted into the active ingredient in your body. Examples include aspirin (metabolised into salicylic acid in the body, which is the real pain-killing item; the acetyl group that makes it aspirin is just there to protect your stomach) and L-DOPA, which can be carried into the brain across the blood-brain barrier, where it is then metabolised into dopamine (which can’t be transported across the blood-brain barrier due to excessive polarity) and is used to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. (This is all info from a ‘Medicinal Chemistry’ course I took, please don’t bite me if this isn’t 100% accurate, it was only a 3rd year University subject!)
So my guess would be that a “pro-vitamin” is a compound which, if ingested, would be converted by the body’s natural processes into an actual vitamin. Of course, this isn’t going to work if you apply it to your hair, unless the water in the shower does it. Seems to me they’d be better off including nanobots to rebuild your hair follicles 
Oh, no, actually and yes, I realize you’re talking about the other dishwasher soap, you know that clog of solid soap which forms on the opening of the bottle if you don’t close it right?
Now they’re selling that, at least in France. So we’re back to the same solid soap my great-grandmothers used, only now it’s made with rock-oil instead of pig-fat. I’m expecting that for the dishwasher machines they’ll start selling it in toothpaste-style tubes any day.
You know when your Mom told you carrots had vitamin A? What they have is pro-vitamin A. beta-carotene (which gives carrots their color) is two molecules of vit-A stuck together at one end; they get absorbed into the body, separated and used.
Ah - but the store brand ones are stored unpackaged in a giant warehouse for 18 months.
Perfect description, and good examples. The only way the “pro-vitamin” will really make a difference biologically is if you drink the shampoo. Yum!
I wondered this myself. I use Dove, the one that advertises soft pits, but only because it smells like candy. I like my armpits to smell like a freshly opened pack of Sweet Tarts. I am not worried about softness. I doubt very much anyone else is worried about the softness of my pits, either.
wavy imagination lines
“Hey, I heard you and Sharon broke up.”
“Yeah. I had to dump her. We really hit it off at first. She was gorgeous, great personality, and filthy rich.”
“What happened?”
“I went back to her place on the third date, and when things got hot and heavy. . . she took her shirt off . . . and - I just can’t say it! It’s too horrible!”
“What? Horrible disfigurement? Rancid B.O.?”
“She had dry armpits! They were totally flakey! You could scour pots with those suckers! I just couldn’t do it. I told her I just remembered I had an early meeting the next morning and bailed.”
I bake, so I keep stocks of sugar on hand. But that’s not the point…the point is the sugar companies seemed to quietly change from a 5-lb bag to a 4-lb bag. What could be the reason for that, other than to raise the price without being obvious about it?
I heard or read somewhere once that a lot of store brand products are actually big-name brands that they buy (or at least have bought the formulas/recipes for), including the right to repackage them as their own.
Then again, plenty of store-brand products (the foodstuffs, anyway) are utter crap that don’t compare to the “real thing,” so I guess that’s not always the case.
You know, the other day I was wishing to myself that my grocery store carried a different brand of pesto sauce. As far as I know, they just have the one. Then I realized that I like the brand they carry, so why would I want another one? I lamely justified myself, “Well, then I could buy whichever one is cheaper…” Then I realized that I am obviously willing to pay the price for the one they sell now, because I do buy it.
I should just be grateful that this one purchase is made simple for me. :smack:
Oh, like Mexican food!
Can’t be that simple. An Oreo cookie has the name molded into one side. Surely they wouldn’t allow that logo on a store-brand cookie.
<Checks the kitchen>
Yup - my store brand cookies have “Kid-O’s” stamped on them. (King Soopers brand - a Kroger chain).
I had to pick up “pads” for my wife last night. Hey, I was out anyway and it certainly doesn’t bother me to do this. But here’s another example of marketing gone wild.
There must be 100 different variants of these things: with wings, without wings, overnight, panty liners, scented, unscented, adhesive strips, individually wrapped, light days, medium days, heavy days! And all packaged in pretty white and pink packages with flowers and butterflies and swirls and curls.
Last time I bought these, the same ones were in a package of 16, this time a package of 18; the exact same brand and type. In fact it seems every time I’m asked to buy these I get confused because they have undergone a packaging change since the previous time. I swear they get re-branded every 3 months or so.
If men had to wear these things we’d buy them in a plain brown carton, packaged 100 at a time for $20, and we’d get them at Home Depot.
Don’t Oreo cookies have the Oreo logo molded in the cookie part? How would that work for the store brand? I think your friend might be embellishing.
Whoops, I see now that Belrix already beat me to this!
Hey I am on your side here, I was commenting on this sentence
The menu at my preferred Tex-Mex dive proudly offers n! combinations— and “no substitutions.”
To come up with a “substitution” request that isn’t already offered somewhere, you’d have to get really creative or just bizarre. Like “can I have a burrito, but in a taco shell?” or “instead of the enchilada, chalupa, rice, and beans, can I just get a giant platter of rice?”
Funny thing is, I’m pretty sure they would do it.
“Looks both ways” … Harleys, you have to buy Harleys. If your about 40 and male you must absolutely buy a Harley, and then add 5 grand in accessories so you can look cool like your buddies… At least thats what the Voices in the adds say.
Fry (hoping none of my coworkers sees this)
Yeah, yeah, whatever on all the griping.
But I’d so love to have five minutes alone with Mr. Whipple.
A Charmin 4-pack. That’s what I want to see on store shelves. No 87-pack that I can’t fit into my tiny apartment, much less carry home on the trolley. No extra sheets quilted teddy bear picture daffodil-scented fluffy bunny stuff. I’m not going to make a beadspread out of the stuff. I’m going to stick it up my ass. That’s all.
Honestly, is the basic 4-pack too much to ask? Because if so, I’m just going to switch to newspaper.