New, but Not Improved

Cindy and I have developed a rather strong love/hate relationship with Costco over the past year or two... The love part is the same thing everyone loves about Costco - great prices on quality merchandise, and the smug ability to say "I got it at Costco... Oh? You don't have a Costco membership?? Pity..." Well, OK, not so much the smugness, but pretty much all Costco members agree that there is a lot to love.

However, I'm willing to bet that there's also a growing population that has been having the same problem that we do... Basically, as soon as we get hooked on a product, it either disappears completely, or is replaced by another product that is similar, but different enough to NOT be what we want.

A few examples:

• For centuries (or at least several years) Costco had a big plastic bear shaped container filled with animal crackers that were tasty, and at a really good price. Since we have a daycare running in our house, that was a regular purchase, and the kids loved them at snack time. About a year ago, it was replaced with Winnie the Pooh Organic Animal cookies. The jar is about 1/3 the size of the old one, yet the price stayed the same or went up. On the plus side, the new cookies are organic, and are crazy delicious, so we grumble softly and buy 'em anyway.
  
• Another long standing Costco staple, especially with the Daycare in mind, was their big ol' case o' PopTarts. Half brown sugar cinnamon, half strawberry, all frosted, all insanely full of yum. Unfortunately, the non-organic nature of PopTarts caught up with them, and Costco replaced them with a smaller box of Nature's Path Toaster Pastries, or some other completely un-fun name for un-good tasting poptart wannabes. Hoping for similar results that the cookies had, we bought them. The kids were NOT amused. The garbage filled up with toaster pastries with one or two courtesy bites taken from them. Oh, and the price stayed the same or increased slightly.

Which brings us to the real reason we're having this little informal chat...

The bottle on the left is likely recognized by everyone out there. It's the store-brand shampoo that Costco has carried pretty much since the beginning of time. The bottle on the right is, you guessed it, the new version. On first glance, I thought they pulled their usual "new, smaller packaging" trick, but despite the different shape, the new bottle still holds 40 ounces of shampooey goodness. Well, minus the goodness. Let's review what we have always known about Costco's generic shampoo:

• Smells Good, like Shampoo Should
• Leaves hair feeling clean and fresh, for bouncin' & behavin' hair

The new version has the following attributes:

• Smells like play-doh. Oh there are shampoo overtones, but it smells like play-doh.
• Leaves hair feeling stripped, like you're in the Tri-Cities without a water softener.

Way to go, Costco. At this rate, there are so few things we really like about you, we're considering not renewing our elite membership, and just doing our bulk shopping at Cash 'n' Carry. I mean, even Fred Meyer's been beating your gas prices on a regular basis!

Oh, almost forgot. There is still one thing the two Shampoos have perfectly in common:

Don't leave them unattended in the upper reaches of your shower, or they'll decapitate themselves while you're rinsing the lather from your hair!!