crimson tonight

hello


more adventures in personal and sentimental hygiene, then, look you see. although i am partially happy to advise that i've found a product which, generally, i am most (and unexpectedly) happy with. so, if for some reason, be it obscure or obtuse, you are interested in what sort of shampoo i have been using of late, please do read on.

i had gotten to a stage, quite recently (as opposed to soon or in the near future) where i felt that it was time to purchase some more shampoo. a bottle of wheat based one that i was using (very unsatisfactory) was about to finish, and i had just the one tube of that most splendid frizz busting one left. experience of being in countries facing impending uncertainty tells me that invariably haircare products are the first victim, so i find it prudent if not wise to have a few weeks of hair washing potential available to me.

off i went to Poundland, then. without doubt they have become the supreme shampoo suppliers to the nation. other than their varied, exciting ranges, the cost is at a constant, if not the size of bottle or tube one buys. it is highly unlikely that i shall ever buy shampoo from any other place, except the other shops that sell them.

this is what i found, then. as you can no doubt see very clearly in Commodore 64 mode, it's a crimson orange and mint "blend" shampoo off of someone called herbal essences or something. no Timotei, then, for that seems to now truly be almost as much of a relic of the past as i probably am.

what, other than pricing, appealed to me about this? a couple of things. firstly, it is following the current trend of non-coloured, or if you will transparent, hygiene liquids. quite a few shower gels these days are just straight see through, and now shampoo is doing the same. probably something to do with reducing plastics or similar, whatever products are used to make the colours in such products that end up in the ocean and silly dolphins keep eating. secondly was the name. if an audible aesthetic is actually a thing, then one cannot help but to be pleased with how "crimson" sounds.

should those two factors not have been enough, the "win" is that the shampoo is superb, as in the finest non-citrus infused one that i have ever used, except the for the blueberry and kale one linked above. but, for now, time to address the title of this post.

yes, i have indeed borrowed the title from the obscure, badly thought out, ill-conceived, barely released and generally flawed when not plain disappointing Crimson Tonight "live" EP off of The Stone Roses. many of you, i suspect, will have noted this anyway, or maybe been drawn to this by one of them google things. well done if so.

what was Crimson Tonight? a better question might be what was the point of it all. this was, presumably, an attempt by Geffen to push and generate interest in Second Coming, the second album off of The Stone Roses and one that Geffen had invested considerable money in. to do that it might have been an idea to showcase the best four songs off of the album. instead, it include Tightrope plus three songs which are not even in the best 50% of the album. also, releasing it in places other than Japan and Australia, for only those two nations got it, might have helped interest.

back, for now, then, to the shampoo. the thing which impressed me the most was the scent, or if you are more hardcore and can handle direct speak the smell. it is very difficult to capture the sense of a colour with smell alone, but my word this does it. it has a distinct smell of darkly roasted blood orange; one which immediately evokes a sense of the colour crimson. well, for me, anyway. nice one.

look, there you go, it says "free from silicone". well, a plural of that, one which my spell checking thing here says does not exist. presumably this silicone business is bad, either for we people or them dolphins or whatever it is that people are getting all excited about being stupid and eating things that they should not.

smelling splendid is all well and good, of course, but how does it function as a shampoo in terms of cleaning and maintaining hair? excellently so, dear reader. when i have completed showering and washing hair (and various other parts of the anatomy), occasionally my eyes make contact with my own in the mirror. i do not like what i see, of course, and do wonder for what reason i am compelled to continue with this inane, stagnant existence, bereft of point or purpose, and curse the natural instinct which appears to make all living forms believe - tacitly - that existing is worthwhile. other thoughts come to mind, certainly, in particular the subtle subconscious sounds of You Belong In Rock And Roll, for one cannot look in a mirror and not think of Bowie doing the same and shaving in the promotional video for the song.

ever since using this shampoo, however, my thoughts have been a bit different. normally it is a contemplation of adding some gel or other such "product" to my hair to give it style, meaning or at the least a decent appearance. not so. this shampoo makes my hair feel as good as it smells, and so i just leave it be, and try to get on with things as best as i can.

should you bother trying to locate a copy of Crimson Tonight? not really. whereas the live version of Tightrope really is superb, it is not like the album version does not do the job. true, this is one of the few rare official live recordings of The Stone Roses. if that is what you seek or what you crave, then i would point out that the (usually cheaper) I Wanna Be Adored CD single has a splendid live cut of Sally Cinnamon on it.

but, now that i think on, there is of course a weirdly specific faction of Stone Roses fans who would consider Crimson Tonight to be an essential purchase. this is of course the percentage of the fanbase who believe the group actually only really started - and ended - with Robbie Maddix on drums. i have no problem at all with Robbie, but also i am not in the extremist "f*** Reni" camp, far from it. so, anyway, this is but one of two (that i am aware of) "official" recordings to feature Robbie; the other being the hastily put together three (and a bit) minute version of Love Spreads on the Help! charity CD.

the shampoo, however, is a definite oh yes. as strange as it feels, recommending a shampoo over a Stone Roses recording, well, here we are. whilst in no way, shape or form being able to detect the mint which it is claimed is in the mix, i say go for this shampoo. or, at the least, it works for me.

anyway, then, that's that for this. off i go, possibly to wash my hair once more, bathing it with the crimson.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!