# English and FRENCH on U.S. shampoo bottles. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2002, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466 "2002-08-18T13:58:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/1 "2002-08-18T13:58:52Z")
Why, for the love of pete, is the trend in directions on shampoo bottles to be written in both English and French( of all lanquages). Certainly French is not the second most common language spoken here, it may not even be the fourth most common language. Wouldn’t Spanish be a no brainer? I don’t even recall seeing a bottle with spanish writing on it. WTF? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/2 "2002-08-18T14:02:44Z")
The product is probably sold in Canada as well and is required to have the instructions in French. ---
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/3 "2002-08-18T14:10:21Z")
Yeah but… Your missing the point. Isn’t there an economic incentive to include spanish on the label? Why would Proctor and Gamble, for instance, ignore a few dozen million potential customers in the United States? I mean, really, isn’t it time to take those people with those outrageous french French accents a little less seriously? ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/4 "2002-08-18T14:27:48Z")
So, you are saying that if you couldn’t read the shampoo directions, you wouldn’t buy it? Have you not used shampoo enough to know how to use it? I’m just saying this because I’ve actually noticed a trend towards leaving directions off shampoo completely. Anyway, the answer is, in order to be sold in Canada, it must have French on it…in order to be sold in the US, it doesn’t have to have Spanish on it, so the shampoo companies make one bottle to sell in both countries, and it saves them money, which then saves us money. Jman ---
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/5 "2002-08-18T14:39:13Z")
Yes,I would say that if I was visiting Mexico and went to look for a bottle of shampoo, the one that I could read would catch my eye first. When I was in Indonesia, I had the same problem in the drug store. Guess what, I bought the products that made sense to me. otherwise I’d be putting god knows what on my hair. How “put out” can a company be by putting 1/10,000 th of a pennies worth of ink on a bottle? Oh yeah, the cost of actually setting the type would be negligable too. My question was not “Are Mexicans to dumb to know how to use a bottle of shampoo?” My question was “Why is spanish not even considered?” ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/6 "2002-08-18T14:44:19Z")
It probably won’t be long as the Hispanic population increases and becomes the “majority” minority. ---
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/7 "2002-08-18T14:46:54Z")
isn’t it? (language wise) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/8 "2002-08-18T14:58:15Z")
> [@](#): > > It probably won’t be long as the Hispanic population increases and becomes the “majority” minority. I thought I heard last year that Hispanics made up the majority of the population in Los Angeles. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/9 "2002-08-18T15:09:56Z")
One possibility is that some people view English-only (or English/French only) labels as more classy than those that include more languages. It’s the same reasoning that leads to some French restaurants using French-only menus. Also some people would take the Spanish marking as a sign that it’s sold in Mexico, and (consciously or not) associate that with a low-end low-cost product. I hope there aren’t many people like that, but maybe there are more of them than there are Hispanics who don’t read English. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/10 "2002-08-18T16:20:41Z")
It also may be a matter of distribution. The Canadian and U.S. population centers are near each other, so it make sense to make one product for all. Mexico’s population centers tend to be much further away - there are a bunch on the border, yes, but they’re dwarfed by Mexico City, Monterrey, etc. Transport to those markets may add significantly to costs, making it more attractive to build factories there. Plus, Mexico’s that much closer to Spanish-speaking Central and South American markets. And culturally Canada and the U.S. are still pretty close, so I’ll bet there isn’t much difference in preferred scents, etc. WAG is that Mexicans (and other Latin Americans) may like significantly different types of personal-care products. ---
**Author:** ![OldBroad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@OldBroad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldBroad)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/11 "2002-08-18T17:22:21Z")
Actually, some of the products I buy DO have English/Spanish labels. My WAG is that the language combination depends on where the major distribution points are for the items you purchase. ---
**Author:** ![Sivalensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Sivalensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sivalensis)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/12 "2002-08-18T20:29:12Z")
Also, the cost of rearranging the design, and using more ink wouldn’t be negligible (sp?). Sure it might just be a couple of cents per bottle, but when you sell a million bottles, that’s a lot of money you’re losing. So pretty much, they have to decide between which second language they want (if they want one, and if they don’t, they can’t market in canada) due to cost factors, and that probably comes down to mostly which they are mandated by law to use (canada again). ---
**Author:** ![im2evil4u](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5ac83/32.png) [@im2evil4u](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/im2evil4u)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/13 "2002-08-19T00:17:27Z")
In my local 99c stores in NYC, everything from tooth paste to insect repellant is in two languages (english-spanish or english-french). Yet, the same product (with only english printing) is twice or three times as much across the street at the ShopRight. At first I thought it was over-stock from Canada & Mexico sold cheaper to these retailers. Then I figured that it’s cheaper to make these products in other countries, and they reqiure they are printed in both languages for distribution and then sold to stores in the US. Just a 6th beer guess - after all ---
**Author:** ![honkytonkwillie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@honkytonkwillie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/honkytonkwillie)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/14 "2002-08-19T05:44:46Z")
For a long time, I used to think that having product labels in both English and French was a cheap attempt to manufacture pretentiousness. It took me a while to figure out that the goods were also destined for the Canadian market as well. ---
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/15 "2002-08-19T11:20:04Z")
I don’t think that it would add a couple or few cents to a bottle to add the spanish type. I think It would add a couple or few Milli-cents. But, who am I to tell them how to do their bidness. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/16 "2002-08-19T11:56:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by honkytonkwillie \* > \*\*For a long time, I used to think that having product labels in both English and French was a cheap attempt to manufacture pretentiousness. > > It took me a while to figure out that the goods were also destined for the Canadian market as well. \*\* That’s okay. We’re _full_ of manufactured pretentiousness. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/17 "2002-08-19T13:17:00Z")
The “style” factor is definitly a part of it all IMHO, I know in the UK and Ireland Ferrero Roche (small “exclusive” chocolates) deliberatly released a tv-ad which was dubbed in an excruciatingly obvious manner. This was to give the impression that the product was “foreign and european and all classy like”, and people happily brought them as gifts when visiting people. Once this floodgate opened dubbed-ads were all over the place, right left and center as the company realised that one add was cheaper than 15, just dub away. In the same manner, shampoo and some other products here have the ingredients/instructions printed in norweigen, danish, swedish and finnish. Why do 4 print runs when you can do one? Also then if the product starts doing badly in Denmark you can easily sell the rest in Sweden until it starts going better and more product is needed etc… ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-and-french-on-u-s-shampoo-bottles/124466/18 "2002-08-19T13:23:35Z")
**Weeks** , I work for a big company that makes shampoo. A lot of it. **OxyMoron** is closest to correct here. It’s mainly distribution costs. For my company we make shampoo in Iowa, North Carolina and a place near Mexico City that I can’t spell correctly (for North American distribution). IIRC we don’t produce any shampoo in Canada. But shampoo that is sold in Canada must have French and English labels. If we want to be able to sell it anywhere then we produce English/French/Spanish labelling. If just sold in Central and/or South America it has Spanish only labelling. Many of the goods sold in US/Canada have labels on one side in French and the other in English. So we have to balance out distribution costs (where is it going to ship and who will buy it) versus the trickiness of sticking multiple languages onto multiple bottles. In Europe and Asia this plays out a bit differently. In Europe you have to list ingredients/instructions in multiple languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, etc). So usually the bottle gets all of those, then might have one or more languages on the labels. If necessary it gets restickered for a specific market for the major label. Most consumers don’t complain or are not bothered that extra language instructions show up on their shampoo, but might be turned off if their primary language didn’t show up on the shampoo.