Helpful Hints from joeeze: The hunt for blue Febreze

Not Red October, to be sure, but nearly as elusive.

This superb laundry odor eliminator is harder to find than an Hermès Birkin bag.

I'm talking about the liquid in the blue bottle (above), a capful of which you add to your wash water — not Febreze spray, which is everywhere.

They're two different products.

I've never been able to locate an online source for the precious liquid in the many, many years I've been using it, though I do try perhaps annually to do so.

Today was this year's attempt.

At first I thought I might be on to a fresh lead, what with this February 14, 2005 blog post about this great "impossible-to-find" product.

My crack research team drilled down into the comments and found this one, from jenifir: "I work for the company which manufactures Febreze Laundry Odor Eliminator under license from P&G. It is NOT the same formula as Febreze spray. If you're having trouble locating the product locally (we are working now to expand its distribution), you can order it online at www.newfebreze.com. Currently, we have a $2 coupon you can use for an online order or download and use at your local retailer."

Could this be the long-sought breakthrough?

The team instanter headed over to www.newfebreze.com to buy some.

Good news, bad news — mostly bad.

The good news is the site is still up: seeing as the reference to it is over three years old — an eternity in internet time — that's saying a lot.

The bad news is that when you click "Add to Cart" the page that comes up says "Product not found!"

They don't have to be so excited about disappointing us, do they, using an exclamation point to drill home the news?

Of course that tantalizing tease only intensifies with the offer of "A full case of 8 bottles!" along with a picture (below)

to make it crystal clear what we'll be missing — clicking on that link takes you to the same "Product not found!" page.

So I guess it's back to the old bricks-and-mortar approach, buying up every container on the shelf when I happen to see some in Kroger or Giant.

My record, I think, is 12 or 14 bottles in one visit.

So, who wants to be famous?

Send me a link to a working site that sells the stuff and I'll feature your name in the headline of a bookofjoe post.

Promise.

Or your money back.