This photo contains SPOILERS for some of our relatives, but they never visit this site. Lucky me!

I don’t know if your local strip malls have Bath & Body Works stores, but ’round these parts they’re the uncontested champions of creating and marketing soaps, shampoo, shower gels, lotions, sprays, and other assorted cleansing liquids in imaginative flavors, scents, or made-up poetic themes. You can’t buy just one B&BW item in a given kind such as Juniper Breeze, Country Apple, Twilight Woods, Midnight Pomegranate, Dancing Waters, or Warm Vanilla Sugar. You have to collect the entire set or else your bathroom cabinet contents won’t match and all your showers and baths will go horribly wrong. Other customers can just tell, and their concerned glares will heap shame upon you and your failure to treat hygiene as pretty-smelling Serious Business.

The women in my wife’s family love, love, love their B&BW products. Every one of them has a favorite flavor or scent from the vast catalog of personal cleansing products. Amazingly, my wife has memorized the favorites of every single relative so she’ll know exactly which stocking stuffers to buy. I’ve never once seen her swap their gels by accident, nor vice versa. Somehow they all have a system and it works for them. This sort of thing doesn’t have to be divided among gender lines, but my son, my brothers-in-law, my nephews, and I are united in our befuddlement while this part of the annual gift exchange goes on. We figure as long as we’re clean, or at least clean-ish, we’re good to go.

If you’re at your wits’ end in these few remaining hours before Christmas Day and are desperate enough to buy anything for your quote-unquote “loved ones” just so you can say your Christmas shopping is finished at last, you might check out their offerings at your nearest official B&BW outlet. If you want to save a few bucks, or you don’t have time to think hard about it, or you just don’t trust online store locators, you could also drive to your nearest flea market, street-corner dealer, counterfeiter’s kiosk, or patent office waiting room and pick up one of these unproven, experimental, potentially damaging varieties that you’ll never, ever find on sale in a real, licensed Bath & Body Works store, not even in the discontinued clearance bins:

Rhubarb Savannah
Spider-Monkey Sunrise
Batter-Fried Begonia
Dandelion Ennui
Muffler Daydream
I Can’t Believe It’s Just Butter
Fermented Newsprint
Condemned Pizzeria
Purple’s a Fruit
Sweatpants Shimmer
Durian Breeze
Pan-Seared Pop-Tart
Baking Solder
Splenda in the Grass
Forgotten Salmon
Nondenominational Holiday Anti-Scent
Kim Jong-Unctuous
Bulbasaur Potpourri
Gossamer Pistachio
Shark-Repellent Bat-Scrub
Humble Piehole
Arctic Hootenanny
Low-Carb Biscuit
Sesame Streetcar
Zoo Cafeteria
Chia Groot
Everlasting Hobgoblin
How to Get Away with Mustard
Month-Old Lasagna
Seeping Beauty
Goodwill Cashmere
Vuvuzela Polish
Spruce Goose
Raxacoricofallapatorian Berry
Caramel Sinkhole
Vogon Latte
Cottage Cheezits
Peroxide Prairie
Abercrombie & Fig
Autobot Musk
Oatmeal Whispers
Effervescent Pug

Remember: the more you buy now, the sooner your shopping’s done and you can get to the best part of Christmas where people hug you and tell you they love you no matter how much your gifts stunk.

[Order now! Operators standing by! All products unapproved by FDA, which means they’re even cooler because they’re not endorsed by The MAN. Manufacturer offers no free samples, warranties, safety labels, refunds, or antidotes. For a complete list of possible side effects and symptoms, consult WebMD.com and assume everything listed is possible. Merry Christmas!]