Move over, Gwyneth Paltrow. There’s a new lifestyle brand in town, and it smells like, uh, chicken?
KFC, the bird-in-a-bucket emporium you know and love (or just know), is now offering apparel, accessories, and home goods just in time for the holidays. But the crown jewel among KFC’s non-edible offerings is undoubtedly this: Its chicken-shaped, chicken-scented bath bomb specially designed to leave you and your bathtub smelling like a bucket of Original Recipe.
Photo: COURTESY OF KFC
KFC’s chicken-shaped, chicken-scented bath bomb.
Is this a crime against the pantheon of Southern food? Yes, it is. Fried chicken means something special in the South. Contests are waged over it. Prizes are bestowed upon it. Recipes are guarded more jealously than a family’s fortune. But just like Robin Hood or Bonnie and Clyde, KFC obviously believes that sometimes a crime needs committing.
Smelling good enough to eat is a goal many have reached for, but few have attained. In 2015, Burger King Japan released a flame-grilled, meat-scented body spray, Flame by BK. A year later, Cheetos debuted “Cheeteau,” which retailed for $18.99 and, as Cheetos explained, was “crafted from hand-extracted cheese oils taken from only the rarest Cheetos and carefully mixed by hitting the blender’s ON button.” And you can still buy “Que,” a scent from Pork Barrel Bar-B-Q that promises “an intoxicating bouquet of spices, smoke, meat, and sweet summer sweat.”
You’ll find more refined, and more successful, food scents at Aftelier Perfumes, which offers chef’s essence sprays to recreate the smell of herbs, spices, and kitchen essentials like basil, cardamom, and coriander. And New York-based Demeter even offers a full scent library, including aromas from flowers, spices, foods, and cocktails for customers to build their own custom bouquets. For example, mix Dirt, Magnolias, and Gin & Tonic and call it “Second Semester, Senior Year.” Let life be your inspiration.
But even Demeter can’t combine the 11 secret herbs and spices to leave you smelling like Extra Crispy. For that, there is only the KFC bath bomb. And that’s where the bad, err good, news comes in. As you’d expect from any great publicity stunt, supplies are limited. KFC only made 100 of the bath dunkers, and they’re raffling them off through a Twitter contest. In Japan.
So no, you’re probably not going to soak in a bath that looks and smells like a vat of chicken grease tonight. But you can always pull out the cast-iron skillet, drop in some yardbird, and—if you’re feeling up for it—have a drumstick in the tub.
