Notebook manufacturer Magnus Ferreus recently launched a quirky new product – the Onion Note. True to its name, the notebook will make you cry every time you scribble something in it. Thankfully, it doesn’t stink like an onion, it only has the same effect as cutting one.
The pages of the Onion Note have been treated with allyl propyl compounds – the same ones found in onion oil, which are responsible for bringing people to tears. You don’t have to chop up the pages for the oil to work, though. The heat caused by the friction of writing on the page will evaporate the compounds, releasing tear-inducing gas into your face.
According to Thomas, the CEO of Magnus Ferreus, we all spend a lot of time writing in notebooks, but we’ve never been emotionally moved by them. So he wanted to change that by introducing a revolutionary product we could use to ‘make notes in a dramatic way’. And what better way to do that than with an onion?
He also pointed out that the notebook uses special paper that’s only 0.024 mm thick. “The Onion Note, it breaks new ground,” he said. “And we promise it will bring you a completely new sensation.”
The ads for Onion Note are really quite hilarious. One of them shows a young boy bursting into tears as soon as he puts pencil to paper. It appears as though he’s going to spill his guts to the notebook, the way he’s bawling, but he only ends up writing: ‘NY is a big city’. Another woman seems to be scribbling a deeply profound message in Japanese, while weeping profusely. But what she is actually writing is ‘There’s pudding in the refrigerator’.
I can think of a hundred uses for the Onion Note – it’s probably the best thing to get you out of class, or to make people believe that you’re an amazing writer penning a tragic story. Or, you could play pranks – just camouflage the cover, gift it to someone and watch them get flummoxed as the waterworks begin!
Pricing and availability date for the Onion Note are yet to be announced, but it looks like it will be hitting Japan first, as that’s where it was first showcased.
