When did we get so wanky?

This blog is not intended to be ranty kind of blog, more of a ponderous kind of blog. Having said that:

WARNING: This post could get ranty

Right. Now I have that out of the way, let's begin.

I took myself off to the shops to buy some groceries. Nothing special about that - 500 litres of milk, 20 loaves of bread, the usual.

Usually I have the kids with me when I shop, so I just throw random things in the direction of my trolley and hope something useful lands in there. Today though, I went on my own. It was BLISS. I didn't yell at a single person. I didn't have to apologise to any complete strangers. Lovely stuff.

However, I actually had time to notice some of the products on the shelf.

The thing that really made me raise my eyebrows was a particularly expensive packet of baby wipes. I could just about buy the aforesaid 500 litres of milk and 20 loaves of bread for the same price as a couple of packets of these wipes. 

These wipes claimed to be 99.9% water and .1% fruit extract. I'm not kidding. 

Firstly - would this not make the wipes a liquid? According to me 99.9% + .1% = 100% liquid. Which, clever marketing genius of scammy wipes, means they aren't actually wipes at all. They are just water with a drop of juice in them.

Secondly - are people falling for the crap? If so, why? I'm not sure that I understand why you would spend a week's groceries on a packet of wipes when you can just buy ordinary priced ordinary ones. 

I get that there are kids with sensitive skin - I have one of those. I spend way too much money on wanky sensitive skinned soap free organic soaps etc for Captain Destroyer (it appears that ordinary soaps etc are his kryptonite). I stick to soap free, extra moisturising wanky products in his case, but have never had to resort to 100% liquid solid products.

For those people whose kids who have even more sensitive skin than my boy. You have my sympathy - spend away on natural products.

But I can't help wondering whether we've gone so far in favour of natural and organic that we've actually just gone a little bit too far. 

In my mum's generation, they weren't even using wipes. If they existed, they were restricted to rich people. My mum used cotton balls and a bit of water. If she was feeling out there - maybe a damp face washer. Get out!! You mean she actually put the water on the cotton balls herself?!! Because if we're paying all that money to essentially put a bit of water on a tissue, could we not just damp a tissue ourselves?

I don't limit this disbelief to parents. I just think we might have gone a bit overboard with the consumerism thing.

If we could just damp some cotton balls (thanks for the tip Mum), we could save a bit of cash, borrow less from the bank, pay less interest and put less in the pockets of the big nasty evil minds behind big banks and "natural" products.

Well now. I think it might have gotten ranty. Sorry about that.