Mourning the Loss of Usenet and Bubble Bath

[lydy]

Many, many, many years ago, I happened upon a brand of bubble bath that I really liked, Bellmira Herbaflor.  They did a variety of scents, and my favorite was rosemary.  There were also other very nice scents, their lavender was particularly nice, and the chamomile was lovely.  They had, for a brief period of time, a spectacular black currant that was instantly hard to find.  But the one I loved best was rosemary.  They discontinued the rosemary, but I managed to score old stock from Soap Opera some years ago.  My last bottle of Bellmira Herbaflor Rosemary is half-gone, and I have looked to see what is available, now.  In the interim, Bellmira Herbaflor itself seems to have gone away, so that I can't even find other scents.  I have bought a number of other bubble baths, but none of them feel as nice, and of course, none of them have this really marvelous rosemary scent.    

I so miss Usenet.  Were Usenet still a thing, I would go to alt.skincare.bubblebath (or whatever) and post about Bellmira Herbaflor, and twenty people would pop up with information about possible old stock, why they also loved it, who makes stuff similar, why this bubble bath feels nicer on my skin than others, what sources of really nice rosemary scented bubblebath existed, and an in-depth discussion of the various ecological hazards of baths and bath bubbles.  

Instead, I am reduced to whining on my DW that my favorite bubble bath has gone the way of all flesh, and I know of no comparable replacement for it.   

Comments

[brooksmoses]

This place still has 11 bottles of the lavender in stock: https://www.thesoapopera.com/product/herbaflor-bellmira-straub-aromatherapy-herbal-bath-lavender/
And a dozen of the rosehip:
https://www.thesoapopera.com/product/herbaflor-bellmira-straub-aromatherapy-herbal-bath-white-bottles-rosehip-rosehip/

Also this place in Canada claims to have stock of the lavender:
https://villagevitaminstore.ca/products/bm-herbal-bath-lavender-500ml

I regret that, as far as I can tell, the places that claim to still have Usenet in stock are providing a completely inferior product that bears little resemblance to the proper article.

[lydy]

I suspect that the rosehip would smell of...rose. Which is very rarely a scent I like. Might go for some of the lavender, though, thanks.

[green_knight]

_alt.bath.bubble.bubble.bubble_, surely?

(I miss usenet, too <waves to brooksmoses>)

And I feel you, because my all-time favourite favourite shower gel has been discontinued and I'm almost out.

(I think I may have encountered the Rosemary in Germany, and if so, it was probably from Aldi..)


Sigh. _Baths_. I have fallen in with a tribe of shower-takers, who have no bath tubs in their dwellings, and I will forever remain bitter about this.

[lydy]

Ok, that is almost certainly the correct name.

I am ok with showers, and it really is the easiest way to wash my hair. But I've been taking baths because of aching muscles due to cycling, and have remember just how much I love a good, hot bubble bath. Not having a bathtub in ones dwelling does seem to be a significant error on their parts.

[green_knight]

Showers are practical, but baths used to be my prime reading time - bubbles, paperback, and half an hour of uninterrupted time - and I've lost that.

If we ever move, or have enough money to remodel the bathroom, I will SO SO SO insist on a tub, but right now, it ain't happening. And with the current moratorium on travel, even hotels are not an option, so... yeah. Not the happiest of bunnies, here.

[bibliofile]

So one place that carries a ton of stuff from Germany is the Merz Apothecary in Chicago. Their brands list doesn't include Bellmira, but it might be worth an inquiring email or phone call.

https://www.merzapothecary.com/

(See, DW isn't Usenet, but we're not completely useless!)

[lydy]

They do have a lot of very nice looking items. Including Kniepp products, and that is a name that often comes up when I search for Bellmira Herbaflor, which leads me to wonder if they bought Bellmira, especially since they both use the subtitle Aromatherapy, which, yeah, I don't believe in, but it sure smells nice. Thanks for the link!

[julian]

I miss Usenet, too, mostly for ridiculous comments about comics. But it was *important* *stuff* about comics.

(Also, Whole Foods has some good Rosemary conditioners, which indicates to me they might have good bubble baths, too.)

[dewline]

rec.arts.comics.* was a place for international fandom to have a phase of growth, wasn't it?

We had fun, we had pain...and to read Wikipedia, it's still a place to go to...?

[julian]

Yeah. Good stuff, really.

And -- is it? I haven't read Usenet in... a long time. (Actually, I confess that once UNC's news link was decommissioned, I thought Usenet was basically unusable. Shows what I know.)

[green_knight]

Once ISPs stopped giving everyone usenet access, the easy influx of new people stopped, so only die-hard usenet fans hung around, and some of those left naturally, and some of them were hounded out of groups where people with too much time on their hand could take over (and invite their friends, so that instead of one crank opinion you now had five or six, which made it even less likely for new people to WANT to join in). Many groups were thriving on having fresh blood with fresh problems that everyone could talk about; once that stopped, Usenet dwindled.

[lydy]

Also also, the thing that made Usenet utterly useful and fun was a decent newsreader. I was rather fond of Pine and Elm, back in the day. I have zero idea what kind of newsreader would run on my MacBook Air...I mean, I could probably find out. But the stories coming back to me from the people that still sometimes access Usenet are not entirely encouraging. And the loss of the archives...fuck Google with a rusty spoon is what I'm saying, here.

[julian]

Wait, Google *nuked the archives*? I somehow missed that. WTF!

[lydy]

IIRC, Google ate the archives, created Dejanews, failed to do any sort of reasonable maintenance, and the whole thing is now just a fucking mess. Last time I tried to use Dejanews, I uttered my entire monthly allotment of the word "fuck" and I would just like to say that I allot me a lot of fucks.

[julian]

Oh, OK. If it's still in the unsearchable but extant mess that it's been since the creation of Dejanews, that's ... still sucky, but at least it's still in *existance*.

(But yeah, any time I've tried to search out a specific thing, there's been a lot of cursing Google's mother.)

[mrissa]

You might actually ask the other forum we're on together? The person who runs it knows of some herby bath product places and I bet some of the others have opinions.

Not the same, I realize, but I am no use here directly.

[thewayne]

We have a similar problem with The Body Shop. Find a product that we like and don't expect it to exist for more than 3-4 years. And Jäson products? Twits added something to one of their shampoos and I had to stop using it. I have a very sensitive nose and occasional hyperosmia, and it added enough scent to it and that pushed it over my limit.