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Strap on your thinking caps: bath salts based on popsicle based on soup go on sale

Casey Baseel May 31, 2013
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We’ve talked before about how Gari Gari-kun, the popsicle/shaved ice hybrid, is among the most refreshing treats produced by modern society, especially during the hot, humid summer months.

But Japan is a country where a daily bath, as opposed to just a shower, is a way of life. Since most people bathe at night, this presents a problem if you’ve just cooled yourself off with a nice after-dinner Gari Gari-kun and don’t want that feeling to go to waste from soaking in a pool of hot water. Thankfully, toy manufacturer Bandai has a whole lineup of Gari Gari-kun themed bath salts, based on the some of its most popular popsicle flavors, such as soda (really a mix of apple and citrus), pear, and corn…wait, corn?!

Perhaps we should start at the beginning.

See, while the soda variety of Gari Gari-kun is always available, manufacturer Akagi Nyugyo always offers one or two other flavors alongside it, usually for a limited time. They cycle in and out, usually with fairly conventional flavors such as cola (this time playing it straight and tasting like actual cola), orange, strawberry, and as of right now, kiwi. A new one pops up every couple of months, and I honestly thought my wife was kidding when she came home from the grocery store one day and said she’d picked up a corn potage Gari Gari-kun.

But she was dead serious, or at least as serious as someone can be about chilled snack foods with a freakishly large-toothed mascot. When it was first released last year, many people bought the corn potage Gari Gari-kun for the novelty, but it turned out a popsicle that smells and tastes exactly like a cup of corn chowder, complete with little kernels of corn mixed in with the shaved ice, actually wasn’t half-bad. Due to popular demand, Akagi Nygugyo brought it back to stores this March, where the first shipment sold out in just three days.

▼ Translation: corn potage-flavored ice cream, corn potage-flavored shaved ice, and straight-up corn

▼ Out of the package

Now toy giant Bandai is adding corn potage to the Gari Gari-kun bath salt line that it launched in 2007. The salts are styled into a bar, making the product look just like its edible inspiration, and their menthol content creates a cooling tingle on the skin. Each pack comes with one of seven key chains attached to the stick that reveals itself as the salts melt away.

Gari Gari-kun popsicles are famous for their long-running promotion where sticks with a special mark on them can be exchanged for free popsicles or T-shirts. Appropriately, lucky bathers who find a winning stick underneath the bath salts receive a Gari Gari-kun bath towel. Pretty cool!

The revamped product line, officially called “Gari-Gari-kun Bath Salts Cooling,” goes on sale at major Japanese drug and toy stores for a price of 263 yen (US$ 2.63).

Sources: Esuteru, Sankei Biz
Top image: Rikunabi
Insert images: Gigazine, Yahoo!, Esuteru