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Chemical imperialism

First of two parts

I don’t know how it all began ­ gradually at first, to be sure ­ but soon enough the evolution became explosive.

Biologists have a term for it: radial evolution. It’s what happens when a particularly successful parent species rapidly evolves into a myriad of closely-related species to fill up a wide range of vacant ecological niches.

Did you think I was talking about the usual theme of endless diversity among living things? Still clueless about the title of this piece?

I am talking of how manufactured goods meant for daily consumption ­ like processed food and drink, soap, toothpaste, pharmaceuticals, tissue paper, even office supplies and fuel ­ are now classified and packaged for sale.

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To an increasing degree, these commodities are carefully tailored and promoted, no longer simply by brand, or quantity, or mechanics of packaging, but by subtler or even subconscious differences such as scent, flavor, color, texture, manner of consumption.

In this arena, chemistry combined with ad and PR campaigns reign supreme. I am talking about a totally new field of evolution ­ that of artificial, uncontrolled, biochemical diversity.

The idea is to satisfy (or is the right term “to generate”?) a whole array of consumer preferences and lifestyles.

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The idea isn’t new. Trade names or brands are one of the birthmarks of modern industrial capitalism, when Company A had to differentiate its product from a similar one made by Company B, even though both brands had exactly or nearly the same ingredients. At least the distinctions were straightforward: I made this brand, which makes it excellent; the other guy made that brand, which makes it lousy.

Early on, each maker also tried to satisfy more practical consumer needs, such as offering a choice of size, color, and specific design/function features or models. This approach was a basic adaptation in the textile, apparel, footwear and decorative industries, then gradually picked up by other consumer industries.

But product engineers could only play with so much variation on gross physical features and combinations.

In the processed food and beverage industry, there was a naturally wide range of consumer tastes to satisfy. But, for a long time, immense technical limitations prevented firms from diversifying their products. Until now, for example, that famous Philippine brand of ginevra remains mainly limited to three packages based simply on container size and shape­ bilog (the round bottle), lapad (the flat flask), and kwatro kantos (the four-cornered one).

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The next step in the evolution came when advances in technology enabled competing companies to race each other in adding more and more “new, improved” features to their respective brands.

By itself, this was not so bad when it resulted in real and substantial improvements in the product’s main function ­ soap bars that cleaned better, light bulbs that shone brighter and lasted longer, powdered milk that contained more nutrients.

Pretty soon, however, this approach increasingly led to very superficial or incremental changes being advertised as “leaps in technology.” After all, in the 1960s and 1970s, the major detergent brands then (Tide and Breeze were the main rivals) were already claiming immaculate whiteness and unparalleled cleanness in clothes (as advertised ­ I still have clippings from those years). The biochemical revolution of the 1980s and 1990s produced countless enzymes and other biochemicals that were supposed to remove every sort of imaginable stains and greases. If so, what higher degree of whiteness and cleanness would consumers still seek in newer generations of detergents?

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The same thing is true for the various brands of bath soap (“kills 99% of all germs, gentle on your skin”), shampoo (“conditions your hair, protects your scalp”), and toothpaste (“makes your teeth whiter than white, removes plaque and bad breath, strengthens the enamel”).

The same ad themes have been replayed again and again, from the 1960s up to now, down to the “medical expert” in white coat praising the product after testing it under lab conditions. I have this nagging suspicion that the “new improved features” are just being recycled over and over again from year to year, from one decade to the next. The ads are merely freshened up by better computer graphics and a younger batch of pretty models.

I challenge the product engineers of the giant multinational conglomerates Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, and Procter & Gamble to publicize the actual changes in the chemistry of their products each time they claim a “new improved” version, and describe how exactly does it work to improve their product.

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The obsession ­ not just with more cleanness and fragrance, but with more whiteness and smoothness ­ has become too ridiculous. Just try to count how many times a commercial for hair shampoo or skin whitener or deodorant is played on primetime TV each night. (Once I tried it and counted up to 20x, before I got tired, went to sleep, and dreamt about lovely maidens with milky-white, fragrant armpits smiling at me as they shook loose their shimmering, silky black hair.)

Then compare it with the frequency of a public service ad about helping street children being aired on an average evening. One would think that the nation’s #1 problems are sticky hair, split ends, dandruff, dark skin and body odor ­not malnourished children left for dead on our streets. #

Second part

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