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A few weeks ago someone from a PR firm contacted me with an offer I probably should have refused. They would send me a free sample of a new product by Febreze. All I had to do was try it out and write about it on my blog.

Now, I have to assume that the person who contacted me might not be a regular reader. If she was, she would be aware of my tendancy towards snarkiness, hyperbole, irritability and sarcasm and she probably wouldn't have asked me to review a product. Either that, or she reads often enough to know that I am in possession of this:

This is Chloe. Chloe is my dog.

Chloe stinks like ass.

In case you're unfamiliar with the particulars of Basset hounds, they're not only absolutely darling, what with the droopy ears, droopy eyes, droopy face and general droopy droopiness, but they stink. Badly. All that stinks in the world manages to find its way into the netheregions of those floppy ears, instantly turning into something that stinks like nothing has ever stank before. We're talking wallpaper-peeling, eye-burning, will-to-live-destroying stink. It's a blend of dog, the great outdoors, and old shoes that have been used as a storage vessel for even older cheese.

To gain that description, I just approched my sweet snoozing Basset. I lavished her with a hug, buried my nose in her neck, and have been fighting my gag reflex ever since.

When Chloe has been laying down for several hours - another feature of the Hound o' Basset - I can be several rooms away and I know when she gets up. I know. Do you know how I know? Because I can smell the hours of collected stink as it escapes from her body as she moves, that's how. Sometimes I wonder if the neighbors can smell Chloe when she moves.

This is Murphy. Murphy is my snakehound other dog.

Murphy just stinks like dog. And failure. B. says they don't make a product to remove that particular stink.

In the almost-seven years since we procured Chloe from the Basset rescue group, I've been on a mission to clear the houndstink from my life. If there's a stink-removing product on the market, I've bought it. And chances are, I've disliked it. I'm not a fan of most scent-creating products. Scented candles, I like, but I'm a total snob. I like Soy Candles by Sharon, followed by Yankee Candle. That's pretty much it. Anything else scented gives me the willies, along with a headache and occasional waves of nausea.

I guess I should have told the PR person that upfront. I probably also should have mentioned that I have a super power; I have a supersonic sense of smell that renders me capable of smelling rotted items that have been out of the house for three weeks. Seriously. If I come to your house and open your fridge, I will tell you what item in your fridge has gone bad. There was the time I was drinking a can of soda at Kara's house and could tell by the way the can smelled that something in the fridge was amiss. And the time at my parents' house when I kept smelling rotten celery every time I got a glass of water from the fridge door. That was five years ago; I still smell that celery every time I visit.

Since B. is hard of smelling and can smell nothing, we strike a good balance.

So, today I went to my porch to fetch the mail. Of course I recognized Jen's name on the return address on one envelope. The other large envelope bore an address from NYC that I didn't recognize. I picked it up and the scent hit me instantly.

First verdict on the new product: they picked an appropriate name. Febreze NOTICEables. Yep, when you can smell the product through its packaging, a layer of bubble wrap, and a padded envelope, NOTICEable pretty much sums it up.

It's one of those plug-in oil warmers, but it shifts between two scents of oil. My little freebie pack included two oil packs. One of them contains Morning Walk and Cleansing Rain scents. The other, Calypso Breeze and Hawaiian Paradise. With my supersonic smelling and my blood sugar issues, sweet aromas tend to make my blood sugar rise, so I opted with the walking rainy one.

Most of the unused outlets in my house are covered with those little plastic thingies that prevent my child from electrocution. Which presents a problem - my child would just love to play with this new gadget. Must find an outlet that's both out of the kid's reach, but able to conquer the Stink of Hound. She spends 22 hours a day snoozing on the couch. There's a socket behind the couch. Bingo! We have a solution.

Except now my couch sticks out about six inches from the wall. The Febreze thingie? It's a bit bulky.

There's a little switch to adjust the amount of scent the thingie puts out. Because I'm obviously not very smart, I set it to the high setting, momentarily forgetting the curse of my superpower. Five minutes later, I was sitting on the couch when it hit me. Literally, waves of aroma - I could see them, wafting from the gap between my couch in the wall - came over, and without so much as an introduction, smacked me in my face.

So I turned it down a smidge, but it still seemed pretty strong. Ever-present, even. Like the scent had burned off my nosehairs and taken up residence in a sinus cavity. But again, the super power. I have a feeling that's probably just me. Because when B. arrived home a few minutes later, he couldn't smell it at all, but he could smell the onions I'd sauted two hours earlier.

The smell continued to follow me. Mind you, it's not an unpleasant smell. I'm not sure if it was the rainy one or the walky one. It wasn't bad, but it has that ... tang ... to it that all the oil-warmer thingies have. Or maybe I'm the only one who notices that.

Really, had I been able to chose, I would have gone with X-ray vision for my superpower. Not supersonic smelling.

But the smell ... it just wouldn't go away. I went from room to room, and it seemed to be following me. So I did the polite, delicate thing: I took a big ol' whiff of my finger. Sure enough, some of the oil had gotten onto my hands.

I washed my hands in unscented soap. Still there.

I washed my hands with scented soap. Still there, overpowering the soap.

I opened two cans of tuna for the casserole I made for dinner, splashing tuna juice on my hands. And still the oil pervaded.

Many obsessive-compulsive handwashings later, I put my finger in my mouth and I could taste the scent.

I'm expecting the oil to hit bone matter by Wednesday afternoon.

Each side of the warmer has a little green light to indicate which scent is in use. This light has taken over my life tonight. I keep hanging over the couch, looking to see which side is in use. Because honestly, I can't tell a difference between the scents. I can't tell the difference between walky and rainy.

The final verdict: it's not a bad product, really. If you like the oil warmer thingies, I'd say this is better than the ones you can get at discount stores, but not quite as good as the ones from specialty stores. It's gadgety, which is always a perk. And currently, Chloe is lying next to me, and I can smell the walky/rainy aroma over her pervasive deathstink. That's something.

Clara Jane thinks something smells fishy.