You've heard about bath salts, obviously. They're so hot right now. Everyone is (talking about) doing them. By "them" we mean the drug known as "bath salts," which in actuality we've never really seen in person, but because of all the news stories about how they turn you into a cannibal or whatever, everyone we know is cracking jokes about bath salts on the regular. This, sadly, is doing more harm than good to the legitimate bath salts industry.
As Headline News reports, local outfit the San Francisco Bath Salt Co. is even trying to transition to the name SF Salt Company. They're seeing a slump in sales all of a sudden, and they recently had to change the name of one of their products, Tranquility, because that's actually one of the street names for the drug. Hope nobody tried to snort that scented stuff! But we bet they did!!
Just to clarify, there are no actual bath salts in the drug the term "bath salts" was over time one of several used to refer to what is more like synthetic cocaine, but is still legal in many states and therefore sold under several legitimate-sounding names, kind of like how poppers were always sold as "video head cleaner" or "room deodorizer." The drug typically contains one of two psychoactive chemicals: MDPV (also known as Methylenedioxypyrovalerone) or mephedrone, both of which are synthetic versions of a natural ingredient found in the East African khat plant.
The drug can cause hallucinations and some pretty extremely psychotic behavior, as evidenced by the recent spate of cannibal crimes in Florida.
Actual bath salts, meanwhile, are just a pleasant means of enjoying some aromatherapy in the tub whilst cleansing one's skin and listening to a little Phoebe Snow and trying to forget all those terrible people at the office.
Whether or not this confusion will really put a dent in the bath and shower product sector remains to be seen the SF Salt Co. says they've still "been growing 20% on average every year" for the past decade, so they're not really hurting yet, they just think they might have grown more were it not for all this bad PR. But the president of another company called Saltworks says that she's been left messages in the middle of the night, likely by crazy elderly people trolling the internet, saying "you should be ashamed of yourself" for peddling these horrible products that make people eat other people. All we can say to that is: Ha!
[Headline News]
[HuffPo]
