Elephants
When TR was born, the hospital gave me a little tube of Lanolin to use for breastfeeding discomfort. That little tube came in very handy for quite some time. I bought another one when SW was born. Lanolin has a distinctive scent to it, not unpleasant, but very distinctive. I’m sure to many people it, of course, brings to mind flocks of sheep, or maybe a barnyard scene.
To me, lanolin smells like elephants.
Weird, isn’t it? All these years I never figured out the why of that. But now again, with RM, lanolin is definitely a staple in this house. First for the early days adjusting to breastfeeding. And second as a treatment for wool diaper covers to keep them nice and moisture resistant. Working with new, quality raw wool yarns I catch the same scent and the same memory of elephants. Every time I wash out and hang up a diaper cover, I think of elephants.
These days I have the internet at hand and all the research tools I want, so I set about to see if I could make any sense of my odd association. And what do you know, I discovered that many zoos use an “elephant shampoo” that’s rich in lanolin to condition the elephant’s skin. It makes perfect sense now, as I also have a memory of a girl scout trip to the zoo so many years ago, and seeing the elephants getting their baths.
It’s always nice to solve a life-long mystery like that. It definitely makes me feel a little less weird too.
