“There's something wrong with someone who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after they have only measured water in it.” - Emma Bombeck

When I first arrived in Switzerland, I purchased some laundry soap to wash my clothes. I didn't smell the soap beforehand and found out later that it smelled weird. John and I were thrilled when we finally used all of it up. We spent several minutes choosing our next detergent at the store. In fact, someone at the store with a little girl said that we must not have children in order to be able to spend that much time smelling laundry soap. He was correct.

We purchased one we both liked and have been very happy with the results. The combination of the soap and the fabric softener sheets my mom brought over was almost like home.

Yesterday we went to buy a new bottle, and I read more closely what the bottle said. Apparently for the past few months, we have been using fabric softener (twice). The fabric softener section is bigger than the detergent section, which seems counterintuitive to me. But, with a quick search on Google Translate, it was confirmed.

We were tempted just to keep using it since our clothes smelled so much better, but, in the end, we decided soap is important.

This is the newest member of our family:

We reconsidered our decision when we later got to the produce section of the store and someone smelled horrible. We call it the "Europe smell". We have decided it has three causes, which in the trifecta combination create something nasty.
- Less frequent showers
- No deodorant
- Less frequent clothes washing (or maybe they only use fabric softener....)