ellaheinemann-blog

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DAY 30!!!! FEB 20th 2019

LAST DAY I DID IT! In the last blog post, I’m just going to kind of talk about my experience doing this 30-day blog challenge. At first, it was kind of fun and I could just talk about anything I wanted, but I think I did that a little too much. I did the word spitting for a little too long but that class when we got a talking to and was actually able to per review really helped with my direction. 

I didn’t actually think that this blog was actually going to lead to a topic that I would actually be interested in for RP3+4 but it worked! I was able to use my post about my car, which is something that I love, and was able to combine that with a random post about noticing my hand soap in my bathroom. This lead to the splurchase of car air fresheners.

I was then able to really focus my posts on the topic of scent and the background and research of air fresheners, their target market, and the products downfalls. This blog really made me look at my life in a different way and all the aspects that go into day to day life, that I just expected and never really questioned. Like seriously I am still stunned that air fresheners are even a thing, at least the super chemically ones. Overall this was a great experience even though not the funniest at times. 

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Collection part 4

For my last collection, I was inspired by a past post and how people use so many different products to cover up their natural body odor. So I thought I would collect pictures of everything I use in the daily life that I use to make me smell “good.” I have never really realized how many different products that I use in my daily life to cover up my smell. At the bottom of this post is also some articles I found while doing some research that I want to have in here for writing my paper. 

https://www.webmd.com/children/fragrances#1

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-18/scent-branding-101-why-do-fancy-hotels-use-such-powerful-fragances-

https://www.wellandgood.com/good-looks/ingredient-intelligence-what-you-need-to-know-about-fragrance-in-skin-care/

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DAY 29, FEB 19th 2019

My last post made me really curious in who air fresheners are marketed to and more specifically car air fresheners. They are marketed and designed more for people who are trying to get rid of unpleasant smells and who creates the most smell? Kids and animals, but the packaging literally say to keep the product away from kids and animals. Here are some quotes from different websites that discuss air freshener companies and their target markets. 

“Rise in demand for air care and increase in concerns over indoor air quality have led to a high demand for air fresheners worldwide. The demand is further fueled by the rapid growth in car sales, surge in number of pet ownerships, and increase in consumers’ willingness to use premium air fresheners. High disposable income and improvement in lifestyle of consumers present as lucrative opportunities for market development. However, high operational cost is expected to impede market growth. “https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/air-freshener-market

“Pet owners are key purchasers of air fresheners in the United States. Increased rates of pet ownership (and its accompanying odors) necessitate air freshening in many homes.” https://www.perfumerflavorist.com/fragrance/application/aircare/34358079.html

Most of these articles discuss how the number of pet owners is increasing which in turn means the need for air fresheners will increase. Why did the designers for car air fresheners make their product so that their target audience of pet owners make it so it's not pet-friendly? This is something I will definitely want to touch on in my paper and will be an aspect that will drive my redesign. 

Some other options that I might think about to make it more pet and kid friends is using more natural products. I am going to look into things like essential oils and oil diffusers. I might also look into and do research on even more natural alternatives like flower petals.  

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DAY 28, FEB 18th 2019

For todays blog post I want to do some more research into a topic I discussed in an older blog post. I wanted to do more research into what really goes into making car air fresheners. Like I said in other post, the packaging says that the liquid in the air freshener should not be touched. If it gets on skin, wash with water right away, if it gets in eyes rinse with water for FIFTEEN MINUTES. “Keep away from children and pets.” 

Who is this product even for then? People without kids or pets? But what are some of the most smelly things that people use air fresheners to cover up, kids and pets? Now, this makes no sense to me. How would someone design a product for costumers to use to mask scents like from animals and kids but those people arnt even suppose to touch the product or go near it. The design of the product is also in small packaging almost like it was perposly designed to attract small children to put it in their mouths. 

I found this article describing some of the chhemicals and effects of these chemicals in air freshiners. “Air fresheners contain phthalates and many other hazardous chemicals such as benzene, formaldehyde, propellants, solvents, benzenes, and synthetic musks, among others. These chemicals can be easily inhaled, land on the skin and be absorbed, or accidently ingested. Studies have shown long term exposure to these chemicals can cause damage to the lungs, liver, kidneys, and central nervous system and may alter the body’s hormones (hormone disruption effect), which may increase the risk of some cancers and the risk of reproductive problems.” http://ackermancancercenter.com/blog/the-dangers-of-air-fresheners How are these products even aloud on the market? Hohestly its crazy. I never knew.

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DAY 27, FEB 17th 2019

Today I am taking to myself to recover, both physically and mentally. My body is so incredibly sore from playing four games of volleyball yesterday, which was twelve sets. To recover physically I am and currently using a heat pack and switching it off with Biofreeze. To recover mentally I am actually going to be doing a bunch of homework, which doesn't sound like a rest but I have so much that I need to do that it is overwhelming me. My thinking is that I will feel better if I try to get most of it done. 

 The heating pack that I am using is orange and is from the brand Aroma Home; sooth & relax. https://us.aromahome.com/collections/neck-and-body-warmers I was curious about what color of fabric they used for the different scents that they sell. I looked up the company and found that they only really have the scent of Lavender essential oils but the heating backs do come in different colors. I'm still curious about how different companies choose their colors for different smelling things. Or how do companies choose packaging to match a scent? 

I found this company that manufactures packaging and bottles for different fragrance products. they explain that the global fragrance market is estimated to be worth over $40B USD in 2016. On their website, they also explain the different types of packaging and bottles that they use for specific products. And at the bottom of the page, they explain “Packaging your fragrance product in a color container offers an interpretive way suggest to the consumer what scent they might find inside.” https://www.glassnow.com/blog/2016/03/21/fragrance-packaging-guide/

I also found an entire Pinterest page devoted to fragrance packaging: 

https://www.pinterest.com/preciousb/fragrance-packaging/?lp=true

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DAY 26, FEB 16th 2019

Yesterday on my way to work my car started to overheat AGAIN. So today I went into an Auto Body shop to get new antifreeze put into it. Right before the car started to overheat my car started to smell a little funky. I thought wow maybe I do need to start using the car air freshener.  I have never used one in my own car before (maybe it never smells because the windows are always cracked and fresh air gets in there all the time.)

I can only think of one person I know that uses car air fresheners. It made me start to think, how many people use this product in their cars. What are the companies target audience? What are the best-rated car air fresheners? Is there a favorite scent that is sold? How do people choose the scent they want their car to have? Do they switch it up or stay with one smell? 

https://www.savantmag.com/best-car-air-fresheners-reviews/

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/north-america-car-air-fresheners-market.htm

https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/air-freshener-market

I found a bunch of articles relating to some of my questions above. One thing that I found which was stuck out to me was that “Organic car air fresheners and innovative packaging and designs will boost the sale of these products in North America over the next six years.” Why is organic just now because so popular? What are the rooms for constituting something as organic or not? I feel like almost everything in stores is starting to be labeled as organic. 

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DAY 25, FEB 15th 2019

Today I was reading the packaging of the “Refresh your car” air fresheners. On the back, it reads, “CAUTION: Do not get in eyes. Do not get on skin or clothing.  If swallowed, call a Poison Control Centre or doctor immediately.” This made me both curious to see what really goes into the juice in the packets of these air freshener. Why would we be able to breathe in the air with these chemicals but not touch it? Is it actually really safe to breathe in this air? 

The back of this product does not even have an ingredient list. I also checked to see if there was a little piece of paper within the packaging that does give information about the product but there wasn't one. So I went to the internet. I found a very interesting blog post where the women think that air fresheners should be banned from some public places just like smoking it. https://www.meghantelpner.com/blog/ingredients-in-toxic-air-fresheners/

Meghan Teelpner, the author of this blog, also talks about how she was taking an uber someone and the uber driver had a branded Uber air freshener in the car. These companies that both make and use air freshening products are trying to tap into smell and memory when making and using these smelly products. She called this “capturing our scent memories.” But these products just simply cover up the stinky air and not freshen or clean the air. 

She also suggested alternatives to air fresheners.  Some of these included finding the source of the smell and cleaning it up, opening a window to get fresh air, using essential oils or oil sprays and even leaving backing soda out to get rid of the smell. 

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DAY 24, FEB 14th 2019

One of my friends used my deodorant this morning and said it reminded him of how his childhood house smelled and made him feel nostalgic. It is crazy how smells can bring you back in time. Would this happen as much if we didn't use scented products? I would see how that could happen with cooking food, and smellings cookies and thinking of your grandma's kitchen. But if we didn't use scented products on our bodies would the smell of BO remind you of a person? gross

I did a little research on smell and memory and found this website. https://www.bustle.com/p/the-science-of-scent-why-it-brings-back-memories-45852 I learned that the system for smell is closely related to our emotional brain centers. And the memories brought back from smell can go all the way back to infancy. Memories brought back by smell are also more accurate and vivid over word and speech associated memories. 

Some people will use the same perfume or deodorant or body spray for so long that I will start to associate that smell with that person. One of my roommates also claims that some perfumes will smell better on other people because it “works better with their pheromones.” I also looked this up to see if it was true. One thing that I found was an article and experiment explaining that everyone has a different and unique smell. This made me start to think why are we trying to put all of these different scents on our bodies to make us smell “good” and the same as a person who buys the same perfume when our bodies are trying to give us a unique smell.  http://www.bioedonline.org/news/nature-news/does-everyone-smell-different/

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crazy last few days

I know I am behind! I honestly have had a crazy last few days! Just got done with 12 hours of volleyball and remembered I haven't kept up with my blogs. I want to make sure I do a good job with these posts but I really need to get some sleep right now. I promise to catch up with them tomorrow with fabulous content!!!!!!!!!! 

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pictures of splurchase

*forgot to add these to my post below!!

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DAY 23, FEB 13th 2019

SPLURCHASE DAY!

Today I finally made it out to buy my splurchase Idem. After my classes today, I went straight to the target. I was thinking about how I could be a little different with my splurchase and wanted to go to a car shop or auto parts shop to do my splurchase shopping but being a busy college student I didn't have time. So I went to target where I could do my grocery shopping and my splurchase shopping all in one place.

I did my splurchase purchase first so that I could get a good video of me entering the store and walking around till I found what I wanted to splurchase. I knew I wanted to go to the car section of target, which is something I don't think I have ever gone before. I was excited to really analyze this experience. But as soon as I got to this section I saw someone there who I did not want to run into (it's a whole thing and I don't really want to get into that right now) and got so flustered it distracted me from my shopping experience.  But it made me think. Store designers and companies can try to control so much about someone's shopping experience but they can't control everything. The people you might see in a store or get distracted by something on your phone cannot be monitored by stores or companies trying to sell their products in the store.

I got so flustered I grabbed the first thing I saw on the eye level shelf. I splurchased a car air freshener. I thought this would tie in very well with my car topic and even the scent topic I discussed in a past blog post. I didn't even read all of the scents but trust me there are many, I saw one with lemons and limes on the front and I know I love citrus scents so I got one. I have never had a car air freshener, mostly because I never thought to spend money on something that I don't really need, my car doesn't smell.  But some people definitely need car air fresheners to cause some cars STANK. Who are the people that buy them? How do they pick the sent they want their car to have? Do they always buy the same scent or so they like to switch it up? 

I took a video and pictures of my experience. I will post the pictures below. 

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Collection Part 3

For this weeks collection, I decided to focus on the theme of reusing things/ fixing things instead of throwing them away. So I decided to collect pictures of my insane jean collection, which yes I am embarrassed about how many I have. More specifically I collected pictures of all the jeans I have that are broken and are in need of repair. I decided not to throw any of these jeans away even though they have holes in them that make them unwearable. A hole would appear in them and I would tell myself, “Ohh I will just fix them, they will be fine.” Yet some of these jeans have been sitting on the bottom of a pile broken for a good year at least. 

The amount of times I say I am going to do something but never do it for a long time is out of control. I feel like this happens to a lot of other people as well. We create a long list of things we mean to do but keep pushing them off and off. Now that I have realized this problem I should probably do something about it. 

Side note, why do I have so many freaking jeans. WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY FRICKIN CLOTHES? I honestly feel like I have enough clothes that I could make a new outfit for every day of a month. The jeans that I love but that are in desperate need of fixing are Levis, which are supposed to be nice quality clothes but they are bought from a thrift store for about five dollars each. With this new trend of “thrifting”, I wish there was a way to track all of the past owners of clothes. How did this trend become so popular when getting hand-me-downs from siblings was the absolute worst thing even when we were kids. Like at least you were wearing clothes from a sibling or family members that you know, but when you thrift you are buying random people old clothes. http://time.com/5364170/thrift-store-history/ 

Don't get me wrong I think it is a great way to give old clothes a new life and a great way to get cheap clothes, but with clothes that are coming out today are terrible quality and get ruined right away, you can't even give them a second life and right into the trash they go. Why do companies who make cheap clothes like forever 21 or H&M make such low-quality clothes? Some even that you get one use out of and they get ruined and need to get thrown away? 

WOW that was a really random rant that just went on and on. But here are the pictures of first my jean collection (also not all jeans are pictured) and then pictures of my broken jeans that are in need of fixing. 

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DAY 22, FEB 12th 2019

For the first time this whole year, I actually read the hand soap in my bathroom at my house. The bottle reads “smells like the ocean.” First off I have washed my hands in this bathroom at least three times a day and have never read the bottle. Why are there so many things that we do that we don't even notice on our day to day basis? Does this pertain to only Americans, or maybe just a generational thing?  Does it really matter if we read a hand soap bottle though? Maybe you might only read the bottle if you end up really liking that soap and want to know what it is to get it yourself.

How would soap companies get people to stop and actually read their soap bottle? Get the customers to like it and want to buy it themselves? So how do they do that? Try to create an eye-catching packing? Probably most important to catch the users attention, the smell of the soap! What is the most popular soap scent? Why are there soo many different scents for soap, like honestly, it's insane how many things have so many different smells? Why? Candles, shampoos, deodorants, perfumes, air fresheners.

We all must be obsessed with smelling good and have every part of our lives smell good too. I was reading this article ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201509/you-smell-and-thats-good-thing ) and in it is talking about how Americans have gotten too obsessed with getting rid of anybody odor but also how it affects us and our environments. Funny quote from the article, “During World War II, it is said, the Russians knew the Yanks were coming because they could smell the soap.” The article also talks about how everyone has a distinct body odor that can help you detect family members or even tell if someone is a stranger to you or not. With everyone trying to hid their smell we lose a part of ourselves.  

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DAY 21, FEB 11th 2019

I’ve been talking to my dad about getting a new car after mine has completely dead (got back from the shop but very so much on its last leg). 16 years is a long time to have a Land Rover. Honestly though why do car companies even make cars that are so expensive and honestly super wasteful? And why are the cars that are so big and eat up gasoline like cookie monster eats cookies, are the ones that are “in” and everyone has as their dream car.”

How did these car companies like Land Rover and Jeeps get everyone to want that specific car and brand? I guess everyone probably has different favorite car brands. But most people I ask what their dream car is, I swear its always a Jeep Wrangler. Even this article says women rank the Jeep Wrangler as their dream car: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/01/11/whats-your-dream-car-survey-finds-favor-american-vehicles/1025564001/ But then again most of the people who have that as their dream car is a female in and around my age. So then the question becomes why do young adult girls want Jeep Wranglers. What other cars are popular for other age groups in the US? What about in other countries? Honestly though with the new Dog Mode, the Tesla has, that's probably everyone's dream car. 

OR maybe the question even becomes why do people even have a dream car? Why do Americans own more than one car and sometimes ones they store in the garage and only cruise around in one? Don’t we just need something to get us a place to place, which is the real purpose of cars? But honestly having my car and dealing with all its troubles, I do one hundred percent agree that having fancy features in my car would be ideal. But have we gone too far with all these crazy features? 

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DAY 20, FEB 10th 2019

Tonight for dinner we had a feast! One of my roommates, Kate, her dad insisted that he come over and make us a home-cooked meal. He made pot roast and salad and crescent rolls and also bought half of a blueberry pie and an entire strawberry rhubarb pie. While over he asked, “Guys when was the last time you had a home cooked meal.” I actually had to stop and think about the last time I did. Last time was Christmas.

We don't make a lot of homemade meals in my house, even though my grandma got me a fancy spice rack for Christmas. I wish that a cooking class was required at high school so that when kids went to college they had the knowledge to be able to make meals. The class could include how to pick out the best ingredients in stores, and how to cut and prepare them, and maybe even have a recipe book.

This would even be a good thing for grocery stores and farmers because then more college kids would be able to confidently buy and make for fresh produce. And of course, it would be good for college students to get better food into their diet. Maybe other high schools offered a class like this, but mine didn't and a greatly wish they did.

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DAY 19, FEB 9th 2019

Today I consumed going to an Aggie basketball game with my roommates Emma and Sophia. Emmas dad and grandpa came to the game as well and drove us. Emma’s grandpa brought up Tesla and a new feature they are going to start including in their cars. That company and its designers really thought about empathy when creating this new feature. 

The new feature is Dog Mode. It is used when there is a dog in the car and the owner has to go into a store. Instead of leaving the dog in the car in unpredictable temperatures and alone, the car in dog mode will keep a steady temp. in the car while the owner goes inside. The screen in Tesla also reads something along the lines of, “I am Okie, my owner is inside but the car is keeping me safe.” This is perfect for when people pass by and worry about dogs being left alone in a car. 

This idea actually came from some of the Tesla customers. This is a great example of a company listening to its clients to produce better products. It is also a great example of empathy design and not in the boohoo dogs could die, but rather the designers put themselves in the shoes of their customers and added a feature to better the lives of Tesla users. This design feature really stuck out to me in my day and I couldn't wait to write about it in this blog. I even wrote it down in my phone right away so that I didn't forget. 

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DAY 18, FEB 8th 2019

Today I consumed hanging with an old high school friend. She goes to Drake in Iowa and just came home for the weekend. When she got to my house she was carrying a big reusable grocery bag from Lunds. Inside there was Pringles, a bag of mini Reese's peanut butter cups, two bananas, and chocolate covered pretzels. She loves snacks, especially chocolate. 

My house has reusable grocery bags too, we even bought them this year and try to use them. Somehow we always forget to use them so we have a collection of both plastic and paper bags that we try and use around the house. I know some people store their reusable bags in their cars so that they have them when they got to the grocery store. But that's a problem for me because I can't keep anything in my car because people will go through all my things in the car at night because it doesn't lock.  

Trador joe is a place where there are people who will judge you for not using reusable bags but somewhere like sams club people wouldn't care. How does Trader Joes attract those type of customers and sams club not? Obviously there are going to be some outliers but for the most part, a certain type of people goes to trader joes and others to sams club. What sticks out to customers that attract than to the different places, and end up building a customer base.