Let me start this post by posing a question: Which of these two bottles is the new and improved re-design? The answer may surprise you. In fact, it is the bottle on the right-hand side that is newest. Improved, let’s leave that to the eye of the beholder. And the beholder, in this case, is me. I love this hand soap, it is an amazing product. Friendly to my hands and the environment as well. The fragrance is divine, the perfectly soothing scent and lather is just what my hands need after a long day spent on the mouse and keyboard.

Now it’s story time. A few weeks ago, I ran out of EO hand soap. I went to Whole Foods to purchase a replacement and couldn’t find it on the shelf anywhere! After staring at the shelf for five long minutes, I found the re-designed bottle. You can imagine my disappointment as I gazed upon this new design, complete with twenty different typefaces, gigantic-sized new logo and label, along with lots of useless information that I don’t want to view from my sink everyday (including the tagline shoved right up against the logo). I didn’t purchase the soap that day. Instead, I went on a quest to find a new lavender hand soap. Yes, I decided not to purchase the soap, not because of a poor quality product, but because of a poor quality package design. On my quest for new soap, I realized that nothing matches up to EO’s formula. So a week later, I went back to Whole Foods and made the purchase.

I like the simplicity of the old design. I like reading the copy, set in italics, that just rolls off the tongue, “with pure essential oils and organic herbal infusions.” This is a lot more romantic sounding than a listing of all the special ingredients staring me in the face—daily. I like the smaller sized label which allows the lovely blue plastic bottle to shine. The simplicity of matching serif roman and italics is sophisticated. And I like the white space, a place for my eyes to rest.

I considered using goo-gone and removing the ugly label from the pretty blue bottle, but I haven’t the time/energy. However, I want you to know that I won’t buy this new bottle design again because a good friend presented me with a brilliant solution: purchasing EO hand soap bulk online and re-using the old, well-designed bottle. Not only is this easy on my eyes, but it’s better for the environment. Sure, I will need to fork over $65 to purchase one gallon of soap, but hey, this supply should last me at least five years!