Uh Oh... Nope. False Alarm.

I had a “kiss of death” moment the other day. I thought they had discontinued or (perhaps worse still) reformulated my Noxzema. I think we always had some Noxzema in the house. I remember it being scooped out of a blue jar and slathered on sunburned shoulders in the summertime. When I was a preteen or teenager I began using it as a skin cleanser and a moisturizer. I liked it. I stuck with it. So I’ve been using it in one way or another for nigh on half a century.

Hang on. That concept made me a little woozy...

O.K. Where was I? Right. Noxzema. It actually is one rare example of my trying a new version and liking it. No, really! Back in the late 1980s or early ‘90s they came out with Noxzema pump bottles. It was a more liquid version of the original in the jar. I tried it and found it was a little silkier and more easily absorbed. I didn’t like the price and tried making my own by adding water to some original from the pot. That did not work at all. So I began buying the pump and never looked back.

A few days ago, we were in a store and I headed over to the shelf where my Noxzema normally lives. It wasn’t there. Some other blue containers were there. The labels said Noxzema but they looked completely different. O.K. maybe not completely different. But at the time it felt like they were completely different. Most importantly to me (and this is all about me after all) there was no Noxzema in a pump. We quickly regrouped, went to another store where we found the exact same situation! While Chuck rummaged for some smelling salts, I tried to control the urge to scream.

But on a visit later that evening to the Noxzema website I saw the message “New Look! Same Great Products!” Phew... Of course I won’t breathe a truly deep sigh of relief until I can restock. (I wonder if I should rent a U-Haul truck?) Most importantly, the pump is still featured on the website and it actually looks remarkably unchanged. They probably have no idea how much that means to me.