At various times throughout my life, I’ve found myself under the influence of a lot of different substances, some of which have inspired me to do some admittedly ill-advised things.

Take, for instance, the time I drank 18 shots of tequila and wandered around on a beach in Mexico looking for someone, anyone, who might have some pot for sale. Had I been less hammered during my little weed-hunt, I like to think I would have noticed the official-looking badge, uniform and hat the federale I approached was wearing. Luckily, the officer had a good sense of humor – and low bribery demands – so I didn’t wind up in a jail cell for any longer than it took to sober up and pay the ‘fine’ he demanded.

Getting hopped up on drugs, alcohol and/or household cleaning products is one thing, but it sounds like it’s nothing compared to being under the spell of a social media influencer. From what I hear, people will do all sorts of stupid shit just because someone they follow on Instagram suggests it – including, evidently, paying $43 for a jar of dirty bathwater.

Now, to be fair, the cosplaying influencer chick selling these jars of tub-soot, Belle Delphine, is kinda hot – albeit in a youthful-looking-Japanese-cartoon-character-to-whom-it-makes-me-profoundly-uncomfortable-to-masturbate kind of way.

But, really? 43 bucks for a jar of ‘gamer girl’ bathwater? Honestly, it sounds like even Belle herself didn’t expect there to be such a purchase-run on her little jars of Desquamate Soup.

“So my bath water SOLD OUT wtf,” she wrote in a follow-up post a couple days after she began selling the jars. “I will be making some more soon but its been honestly a weird couple of days taking SO many baths LMAO. I didn’t expect this many people to be so interested, but if you wanted one…. they will be back soon!”

In this context, I’m tempted to think the first three letters of ‘LMAO’ stand for “Liquifying Melanocytes Again” – except I’m not sure what the O would represent. Do wacky, anime-obsessed internet kids spell “oh yeah!” as one word, by chance?

Apparently, some Instagrammers have described Belle’s bath water promotional as “disgusting” and “gross” and “weird” and “the stupidest thing” they’ve ever seen, but I think our attitude should be more celebratory of her innovative thinking – not to mention her clear commitment to the principle of “reduce, reuse, recycle.”

Hell, if I were the head of the EPA, I might even consider asking Belle to become a spokesperson. Who knows, since people are buying her bath water, maybe we can get Belle to take a dip in the residential water supply of Flint, Michigan and create an enthusiastic market for that stuff!

Screen capture image via Instagram/Belle Delphine