If you’ve ad-blocked your way through all the commercials recently, you may not have realized that laundry detergent commercials haven’t changed much in terms of gender norms: More often than not, it’s a woman schlepping around a basket, fretting over stains, and breathing in the scent of clean clothes with ecstatic pleasure. If men appear at all, they’re enjoying the fruits (or should we say fruit-scent?) of the ladies’ labor. A new Kickstarter for a laundry detergent for men aims to change all that.
The dudes behind Real, Laundry Detergent for the Modern Man, want you to know guys wash their clothes, too. The problem is that bright green, red, and blue detergent bottles are apparently made for females, as are scents such as Lavender and Linen, Sunkissed Flowers, and Sweet Dreams.
“From the beginning we wanted Real to be much more than a laundry detergent,” the Real team writes on Kickstarter. “We hope to spark a change in the industry as well as a change in society’s view on household chores.” To be fair, Tide did recruit NFL player Drew Brees a few years ago, a move so novel it literally made Nightly News.
Real is basically “one of the most powerful detergents on the market,” with the creators’ proprietary scent added. Extrapolating from popular men’s colognes, they landed on a sandalwood base, with hints of bergamot (a citrus scent) and cinnamon. Though you’ll definitely get the full effect as you empty the detergent into your machine, the inventors insist only a light aroma will remain once the clothes are dry.It’s a scent that will appeal to a very specific kind of man, one who wears a tie and drinks scotch, is an adventurer but still professional, according to their branding. The Real creators think women might also enjoy the scent, or at the very least will be grateful that their male significant others are pitching in with household chores.
The project has nearly met its $5,000 goal, so there’s clearly some interest in the product. One of the smartest ideas about it is the subscription-based service, which will send the detergent to your door. For $27, you can get a one-year’s supply delivered, though it might only last six months if you wash a lot of clothes or have roommates who will “borrow” it from you
As fans of unscented detergent, it’s not exactly something that appeals to us, but if someone’s going to the gender-specific-product route, Real definitely beats pens made especially for dainty girl hands.
