Turn left at Dairy Manor
THIS WEEK: Supermarket off-brand brands, Aveeno Baby Care Moisturiser
THING: SUPERMARKET OFF-BRAND BRANDS
If I could be reincarnated as anything, it would be as a fake Lidl/Aldi product. No need to pretend to be anything I’m not, because I would already be something I’m not. But which one would I like to come back as? Kromfort fabric conditioner? Captain Gorgon rum? A bottle of Jack Spaniels? The list is endless.
Still, in these troubled economic times, you’ve got to love a brazen, off-brand supermarket dupe for a fraction of the price. I mean, sometimes you CAN’T EVEN TELL, CAN YOU? 👀
But my favourites are the supermarket own brand ranges that are so generically named, they slide away from your brain the minute your eyes alight upon them. Like Harvest Morn. Deluxe. Village Bakery. Valley Spire. And…
Ah, DAIRY MANOR. A house made of butter with cheesy floorboards and milk coming out of the taps. At Dairy Manor, everything smells a little bit sour, and lactose intolerant visitors are shot on sight, so if you go through that gate, be careful. Oh hang on, though…
Here’s another gate! A gate made of wood! Except this one is slightly open. (Ominous!) This gate takes you to a beer garden at closing time, where cider and warm rosé are put in a big bucket with the odd wasp and fag end and transferred into a can.
Whatever you do, though, don’t get Woodgate confused with WOODCOTE, because this is where all the Lidl chickens live in various states of existential distress.
But ALSO, don’t confuse Woodgate or Woodcote with:
Birchwood is a little hamlet not far from Dairy Manor, just around the corner from the Village Bakery (do keep up). If you’re looking for bleeding pork shoulders, it’s easy to get there. Just cross the bridge at Crownfield (turn left at the lascivious panda)
However, don’t mix up Crownfield with Ashfields, where there are even more traumatised chickens…
Anyway, if you get to Birchwood then carry on, past the coastal towns of Milbona and Freshona, you’ll reach Lighthouse Bay, where the dead prawns flop happily in the sunlight…
And if you’re really lucky, you might spot one of these bobbing in the surf!
(Don’t confuse them with penguins, though.)
VERDICT: A Lidl bit off
AVEENO BABY DAILY CARE MOISTURISING LOTION
If you want to know where I’m at in life’s journey, I’m in the baby aisle looking for moisturiser that won’t turn my middle-aged, stressed out old lady face into a relief map of Mars. I bought this the other day thinking that somehow it would help, despite not being a newborn child with eczema. I mean, you have to admit that probiotic colloidal oatmeal sounds pretty amazing, like some kind of sexy porridge asteroid whooshing through space. However, my smugness at beating the system and saying goodbye to the tyranny of expensive moisturisers soon turned to dismay.
IT SMELLS OF EGGY FARTS.
I mean, honestly. This stuff honks like a sulphurous Icelandic hot spring. Have I bought a weird one that’s gone off, or is this what people are putting on their babies these days?
Anyway, back to the drawing board. If anyone has a baby and wants this, I can arrange to have it couriered to you in a locked lead-lined box, carried by someone in a Hazmat suit.
In the meantime, if you have any recommendations for a moisturiser for sensitive skin that won’t give me a red face and acne like Gripper Stebson from Grange Hill, OR stink like Satan’s guffs, let me know. Maybe Dairy Manor does a dupe I don’t know about?
VERDICT: Egg on my face
A friend of mine is stealthily introducing Lidl's fake products into her general shop to see if her son notices... she's 8 products in so far, and it's gone undetected, except one comment about the Caramel Wafer bars rebranding... but he still thought they were the same product! 👏 👏 😂
Lucy I think you've just revealed Meghan Markle's plans for American Riviera Orchard - with such a bland meaningless name, she must be aiming to cut a deal with Lidl!
As for skincare, have you tried jojoba oil? I've been using it for a year (I'm 50) and it's helped my skin a lot.