My husband mentioned that a version of this thread did not take off on a message board he frequents, so I’m hoping that it’ll have better luck here.
What are some little-known or unpopular things that you absolutely adore? To give an example, one of the things that was mentioned on the other message board was LaraBars, a really good snack bar with all natural ingredients.
I’m also a huge fan of the whole-bean Bay Blend coffee at Trader Joe’s. I’ve never found anything better, even at twice the price.
Certain-Dri deodorant. I used to have issues with heavy perspiration, and finding this stuff was a freaking miracle. It is about as powerful as you are ever going to find, and what it does is actually close off your underarm pores so they are incapable of sweating (the perspiration is then redistributed over the rest of your pores, which barely impacts anything at all since you have so many.) I have always sworn by Secret, the more popular brand, but there are times when I need to use both, and the Secret serves as nothing more than a moisturizer.
My 18 month old loves Lara bars! They’re great toddler snacks (and my husband likes to bring them to work for a mid-morning bite to eat, too).
One of my favorite “obscure” products is Charlie’s Soap, particularly the laundry powder. This stuff is great (gets your clothes really clean) and a tiny bag lasts for ages.
For coffee, I like Larry’s Beans El Salvador Dali blend. They’re a local company to me and they do the whole fair trade, shade grown, organic thing. That particular blend is very mild and I can get a good cup every time in my coffee maker, which has never been the case with other coffees. Hmmmm, I think I’ll go make a pot.
Ah, the dreaded Brand Decay…As time goes by, a brand’s core market ages and withers, first through old-fogey image, then plain simple demographics. If the brand isn’t a super-huge perennial like Coke or GE or Band-Aid, they’ll be bundled off to the cheapie category, often thru corporate takeovers where they become the redheaded stepchild.
A FOTF* used to be pretty high up at consumer products hydra Unilever, which had acquired so many trademarks over the years they’d lost interest in not only the marks, but the products behind them. He and a partner put together a deal to buy off several of these for a new company, and are apparently doing pretty OK with them. One was Sunlight, which has appeared on various soap products for something like 150 years.
Well, there’s always Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, which were probably made a little less obscure thanks to a column by Unca Cece. After reading the column, I found it at a local health food store and bought some. I loved it and soon returned to the store and stocked up.
I’m a musician, and several years back I found a smaller manufacturer that made exactly what I was looking for in an electric guitar. Brian Moore Custom Guitars are amazing. I used to have a collection of Fender Stratocasters, Gibson Les Pauls and other higher-end guitars that I’d play in different situations. I sold them all, save for a rare color EBMM Eddie Van Halen model I couldn’t part with, and play pretty much exclusively on three custom Brian Moores I’ve picked up over the years. I’m fiercely loyal and I recommend them to every guitarist I know who will listen.
I just read that as “solders on.” And was thinking, ‘How neat! Consumer electrical products that are still easily user serviced.’ Then I realized what you’d actually said.
Nowhere does this happen more quickly than the world of high fashion, as once-hot names like Tommy Hilfiger and Mossimo Gianulli make their way from the runway to (literally) the Wal-Mart in a space of years, not decades. That’s a meat grinder of an industry right there. :eek:
As a guitarist, I also cringe when I see Fender buy up old, once-respected brands (Guild, DeArmond, Charvel, Jackson, etc.) and use them to sell their bottom-end, made in Korea junk instruments.
Lizano Sauce. I pimp it at every chance possible. It’s just too delicious. I’ve had maybe 3 plates of nachos without Lizano in the last 10 years. That good.
Wow, I had forgotten about that stuff. It was always the brand of choice for janitorial staff at my schools growing up, but my mom used Comet. We must have been rich or something.
Resistol hats. I refuse to wear a freakin’ Stetson, Resistol makes a better fitting and looking hat. And, most important of all, my granddad wore Resistol on the range, so that’s good enough for me.
