If You Have Smelly Friends, This Site Is For You

What a simple yet brilliant idea.

It is almost a certainty that everyone has at least one friend who might have a personal hygiene problem, either because of poor habits or natural physical disposition. It would not be presumptuous to state that the choice to highlight these personal issues to such a friend is fraught with perils – a pinch, a smack, the dissolution of a friendship or worse the culpable body part being rubbed onto the messenger.

There are some things which social conventions dictate cannot be freely said, such as, “Your feet really stinks. You really should do something about it.”

A new service Oops…I Wanna Say is here to help avoid the awkward situation that could arise when a caring gesture meets a wall of denial, embarrassment and defensiveness. The service will help drop an anonymous mail to the afflicted friend, informing the recipient that the sender knows of the problems and is concerned enough to do something – like send a letter and pay for a package of products that might help ease the discomfort if not cure the affliction.

I suspect, and here lies the true genius of this idea, most people know of the problems they have. Somewhere in-between total denial and total resignation is where most people stand, unsure how to proceed to deal with the supposed ‘malfunctioning’ of their body, paralyzed by inertia born of a lack of knowledge. The concept of ‘Oops…I Wanna Say’ anonymous mails help provide an impetus to do something while allowing people a chance to be exposed to and try new products that they might otherwise not know about.

Conceiving a simple mechanism for friends to let each other ‘get the message’ without bruising any egos while providing quality products could make this simple idea become more than a marketing gimmick.

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