Posted by marie on Dec 27, '07 12:00 PM for everyone Two pesos and fifty cents. That was all it cost..
So we bought 40 of these empty plastic bottles.
It was the 2nd Christmas season in Joey & my marriage.
My "mad scientist" husband had been tinkering with chemical formulas in our factory next door and together with his team had come up with:
1) a toilet bowl cleaner ,
2) a laundry liquid detergent and
3) a liquid hand soap.
All pretty good.
When you come from a family as big as mine (Antonios), Christmas can be pretty costly. That's when creativity kicked in.
Hmm... I mused, "This year we will give personalized gifts."
Each sibling will get his/her own set of soaps and cleaning products!
So we got in touch with a plastic bottle supplier and
told him our need for empty bottles.
Unfortunately, they had a minimum quantity (300 pcs and up)
which was way over our needs and budget.
They did have some spare bottles that were someone's "rejects".
We gladly got them at two pesos and fifty cents a piece, sight unseen.
Words can't describe the colors of those cylindrical bottles when they arrived.
The plastic top was a virulent shade of absolutely fushia pink and the bottom was an insult to the color violet.
Now combine them together and you had our bottle.
Undettered, Joey began mixing and filling these containers with his concoctions while I began the laborous process of labeling each and every bottle, letter by letter, using transfer graphics.
( Now for those born after this prehistoric era: transfer graphics or "letrasets" were these sheets of abc's. You rubbed each letter carefully until it "transferred or stuck on your chosen area. If you made a mistake, you had to scrub it off and start again.)
So bottle by bottle, I balance those letrasets and rubbed on each white font, one laborious letter at a time..." M-a-m-a-'s T-o-i-l-e-t B-o-w-l C-l-e-a-n-e-r." "R-e-g-g-i-e-'-s H-a-n-d S-o-a-p... "J-e-n-n-y-'-s L-a-u-n-d-r-y D-e-t-e-r-g-e-n-t."
I ended up doing 3 bottles per recipient which we bundled up in cellophane and tied with a ribbon.
Christmas Day arrived at the Antonio Family home and
here we came laden with our Violently Violet bundles.
Everyone gave the appropriately polite "oohs and ahs"
as I, the youngest, gave out our gifts.
Many, many years later, when I was in my mom's place, I had to go get something from her bathroom cabinets. As I dug around, I saw some familiar shapes gleaming in the dark.
Lo and behold, it was the Violently Violet Trio! Still untouched!
It turned out, my mom was too scared to use them.
They ALL looked alike (really ugly) on the outside.
She had thought, "what if Marie made a mistake in labeling and instead of washing my hands in hand soap, I washed in toilet bowl cleaner instead?" Haha! I was scared to open the bottles myself, because several years had already gone by and I might unleash a Toxic mushroom cloud.
The irony is, these same formulas became popular Barclay products
(a company we once had).
We designed much prettier packaging and labeling
("Clean Scene" Toilet Bowl Cleaner; "Happy Habit" Hand Soap, "Bright Days" Laundry Detergent) they became nationwide best sellers even.
My mom happily used those Barclay products
but never the ugly though identical purple ones.
Which goes to show you the importance of packaging. The inside is what's important. But to the world out there, what they see on the outside sort of sells what's on the inside.
 | haha cool story. and very good lesson too. :) |
 | i love hearing about your life. those bottles must have been some sight! you & joey make a wonderful, creative team! happy new year! |
 | a lesson on marketing and on life.... good one! |
 | I would like to see those purple bottles! =) Oooh! Aaah! =)
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 | loved those bottles - thanks for the memory - |
 | haha... i enjoyed reading your story |
 | Marie! your stories are always FUN, and what makes it more interesting for me is that they are TRUE STORIES! they really happened! you and joey, to me are like guy & pip (haha, sorry to the younger ones who don't know them anymore!) makulay ang inyong daigdig!!! love you, my friend! |
 | Enjoyed your story!! I remember those barclay products...bought some from friends who became part of the company. :) |
 | So very true...if you claim to be a christian...and you are very grouchy...it will be a poor show of what you have inside....people gravitate to people who are naturally high...(joyful with no chemical substance to assist) |
 | hi tita marie...hahahaha! i really enjoyed reading this! :-) |
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