A Matter of Facial Soap

Zene’s been obsessing over his face for a few days now, because this weekend after the use of much sunscreen, his face had little bumps all over it for a day or so. They are gone now, but he’s determined to now keep his face clean and presumably perfect.

Last night when I was tucking him into bed, he asked me to go to his closet and get his Playbills—they were in a large manila envelope labeled “Playbills,” and contained only the official Broadway (including touring shows) plays that we’ve been to. He looked through them quickly, found the one he was looking for, and turned to the middle page.

He showed me the Clinique ad on this page, and told me this was the facial soap he wanted me to get for him. It’s a green bottle with a pump lid.

As is not usually my custom when the kids request something more than $5 and it’s not a special occasion, I went to Elder Beerman today to look for the soap. I looked at all the soaps while the sales lady was busy, and started to get a little nervous because I figured I’d end up telling her my young son is looking for this soap, and he really is too young to be washing his face regularly, but he really wants to get in the habit—I would need to tell her this because I needed the gentlest soap available. Briefly, I looked at the men’s products, but decided against them—they weren’t what Zene was going for, and they were probably for rough man faces anyway. I’m sorry to say that also briefly, I imagined telling the sales lady I was looking for my daughter instead of son, because what the heck does she know, and it’s none of her business anyway. But I thought that would betray the cool, openness of our family—you like what you like, and your gender doesn’t matter.

When the lady inquired as to what I was looking for in a soap, I told her it was for my young son. She got all weird for a minute, and said “we have men’s soaps available…” I told her I wasn’t interested in them, my son was interested in this particular line, and plus his skin is very sensitive.

Anyway, I bought the soap. Spent way too much on facial soap for my 9 year old, but he is going to be SO excited. I can’t wait to give it to him!