A PET PEEVE: DISCONTINUED PRODUCTS

I don't know what insane idea takes place in the heads of some retailers when they decide to discontinue a perfectly good product that seems to be selling well, leaving you to depend on a worse (or less effective) one.  The only thing more frustrating than that is when a company "improves" a product by making it worse... but I digress.

IT WAS GREAT TEA, THEN WAS DISCONTINUED

A few years ago there was a tea label that had this excellent Vanilla Maple black tea that flew off the shelves. It was a flavored blend of mellow tasting black tea with the right mix of vanilla and maple -- very addicting. Their Apricot Ginger flavored black tea was excellent, also. Full of flavor, mellow, and the black tea used was full flavored and not bitter at all.

Celestial Seasonings makes excellent tea. For a few years they produced a line of excellent black teas like the one pictured above. The Vanilla Maple was released in this same series of teas.

Both flavors of black tea were big sellers. After two years or so -- discontinued. There were other flavored black teas that only lasted a year or two -- then gone.

Another tea company (whose name I've forgotten) had a Nilgiri black tea in tea bags that was excellent. Some of the mellowest, full bodied tea ever to come from a tea bag. The local grocery store that carried it couldn't keep it on the shelves. After about six months: discontinued.

 Celestial Seasonings' "Fast Lane" tea -- another flavored black tea that was very good. It lasted about two years?

One reason for these teas being discontinued was that there was a green tea craze that took over the tea trade, due to some news articles on the health benefits of green tea. Consequently, some tea companies switched from producing black teas to producing green teas instead. However, when they junked some of these black teas, it was a sad time for black tea drinkers. And to a black tea drinker, most green tea tastes like grass clippings.

....AND THEN CAPSAICIN LIQUID BECAME HARD TO FIND

Now for a newer case in point: Capsaicin liquid. Capsaicin is a byproduct of the cayenne pepper, and is used by people who have tendonitis, or used after workouts. For a few years I've been using a form of Capsaicin that comes in a small bottle with a felt applicator. I use it on sore muscles after workouts, and I also have a muscle tendon that acts up now and then, and the capsaicin really helps.

Now, capsaicin products aren't for everybody. The first few applications will really burn for up to a half hour or so. Usually it's best to use a very small amount of capsaicin cream or liquid and then work your way up. 

The Capsaicin liquid that I have been using is in liquid form, and absorbs readily into the skin, and leaves very little mess behind afterwards.

This product works terrifically. But it has been discontinued.

The label has been blurred because my point isn't to slam the drugstore chain -- perhaps they had valid reasons (Low sales nationally? Supplier issues?). It's just that when a good product becomes discontinued, it's frustrating.

The national drugstore chain where I used to buy this useful Capsaicin liquid product decided to yank it about a month and a half ago, which left me to depend on weaker Capsaicin creams that stick to the fingers; don't absorb through the skin as well; don't wash off easily -- and if you rub your eye or touch it by accident, it will burn for half an hour 'cause you didn't get all of the Capsaicin cream off -- because the stuff really sticks to your hands.

A LUCKY FIND

After searching through the pain relief sections of several stores I finally found another Capsaicin liquid available, at a local box store (part of a national box store chain) -- the liquid was probably made at the same factory as the one pictured above. My only other alternatives were the creams and buying the product online.

Kroger brand Capsaicin liquid. Works the same as the brand I used for a couple years that was discontinued at a different store.

It works great. So I got lucky.

I know there is probably some valid reason that some products get discontinued from stores. It doesn't make it any less frustrating to have to change products, though.

Ball Cat disapproves!! :-)

Have a great day, and here's hoping your favorite product isn't discontinued soon.

CC