Let's talk about Harry Potter jellybeans!

Don't kill me if this seems OT, because its really not...

Two days ago I was at Borders buying a Martha Wainwright album, and standing in line at the coffee counter I saw these "Harry Potter's Jellybeans"

I had seen them before, and thought they were some regular jellybeans with some odd sounding names, just to make money.

I looked at the "flavors"... Black Pepper, Soap, Dirt, Vomit, Spaghetti, Grass, Earthworms, Sardines, Rotten Eggs, Bacon, Earwax, etc.

Well, guess what...they all taste EXACTLY like their namesakes- They're manufactured by Jellybelly, which is notorious for its dead-on jellybeans (buttered popcorn- my favorite!)

But anyway, back to the tasting. Dirt, tastes like dirt, very sweet soil, yet strangely delicious and I kept going back to it.

Booger...well, imagine you are sick, and the stuff you are coughing up, that's the ticket. EW! accurate but I don't think I need to eat alot of them.

Earthworms... not bad but I don't think I know what worms are supposed to taste like, so I cringed as I ate them.

the only one I had to spit out was Sardines...ughh. totally dead-on.

But I got to thinking about synthetics in fragrances, and the way these jellybeans were probably created using the same processes.


Have any of you tried these? They're a trip for your nose and tastebuds. A very cheap thrill.

I wonder how a company goes about deciding what a certain fragrance (or flavor) consists of and then recreates it synthetically. Looking at the ingredients on the box, I think the only unusual natural flavor that stood out was black pepper.

It just made me think about the supposed "natural vs. synthetic" thing that pops up every once in a while.

I really hate the smell of sardines and would never eat one. I did try to eat the sardine jellybean, because I told myself that it was a synthetic approximation. Yet I gagged and spit it out all the same.

How did they go about deciding on the flavoring of a booger? Headspace technology? (heh-heh). I find the whole thing very entertaining and in a way, it allows you to experience a true novelty, which as we get older and cross more things off our lists, there are fewer new things to try- Probably why people turn to kinks, but anyway...

I was really grinning to myself that these weird offbeat flavors would make it to the shelves in a vehicle as innocent as candy. I don't think I have to try hard to argue the case that modern perfumery and candymaking have crossed paths in a way. I hate the way that all the new designer scents smell like candy (Aqua di Gio, Z Zegna, Dunhill Desire, Be Delicious etc- I will exclude A-men from the cull, on grounds that it is a classic). Its just a drive to "smell good" in the same way that candy's sole purpose is to taste good. I'm not saying I don't wear cologne to smell good, but I think the general direction in perfumery is bad.

Case in point. Last night I waited on a table of three professionals. two men and a woman. Very nice people by the way, very polite, the gentlemen were wearing suits. BUT the one guy was wearing Aqua di Gio, and way too much. I thought, "you know, what a waste...this guy is wearing a nice suit, going out to dinner, a decent looking guy, probably would KILL if he would wear a decent scent. This dude would have made an unforgettable impression on his colleagues if he wore something like Passage D'Enfer or Dzing or even Himalaya. But he went with "Aqua di Beaten Path".Imagine any interesting actor you can think of. And by this I mean someone with more character than looks, like Adrien Brody or Jeff Goldblum. Imagine meeting this person and they smelled of boring old Aqua di Gio. Its really ANNOYING how popular this scent is, especially when people wear it with suits in business situations. So yes, I think that AdG smells "good", but I f-ing can't stand it. Its popularity is almost fascist. Really.

I know, I know I'm ranting here, but the point is that life doesn't always smell like "a Pixar, idealized version of good"(Aqua di Gio), usually it's messy and not always so squeaky clean. It must be a recent thing. I'll bet people didn't find Kouros at all offensive when it came out, because the world wasn't yet the antibacterial, three baths a day world it is now.


So I just want to marvel at how at least someone in the candy world is keepin it real