IKEA Items Like The Toilet Brush Are Named After Real Places & Sweden Wants The Names Back
How would you feel if they named the trash bin after your town?
Have you ever been swimming in Sweden's Lake Toilet Brush Bolmen? It's apparently lovely.
IKEA's got a Swedish name for every item in its catalogue, and it turns out that those aren't the Swedish words for "shelf" or "chair leg."
They're the names of places in Sweden, and Sweden wants them back.
The Swedish tourism board has launched a new campaign to reclaim some of the towns that have inspired IKEA's various product names, because the associations are not always a great match.
The new campaign, dubbed "Discover the Originals of Sweden," highlights 21 scenic places that now double as mundane IKEA product names.
"In Sweden, we are proud of IKEA and in a way you can say that they helped us make Swedish places world-famous through the names they borrowed for their products," Nils Persson, Visit Sweden's chief marketing officer, said in a news release.
"Now we want, with warmth and a twinkle in our eye, to show the originals behind the product names and invite the world to discover the whole of Sweden."
It's pretty clear from the list that IKEA names its items at random. Kallax, for example, is a shelf in the IKEA catalogue and a seaside spot in Sweden that's "famous for its very smelly fermented herring," according to Visit Sweden.
OK so maybe IKEA is helping Kallax out a bit in that case, but other places are not so lucky.
Toftan is IKEA’s name for the bathroom trash bin, but in Sweden it’s a beautiful lake town where people love to fish for pike, according to Visit Sweden.
Lake Bolmen is also a stunning spot with freshwater fishing, scenic beaches and kayaking in southern Sweden.
But head over to IKEA and you'll see "Bolmen" written on the toilet brushes.
If you're in a trip-planning mood, check out the rest of the list on Visit Sweden's website.
Who knows? Maybe you'll be inspired to get off your Ektorp couch from IKEA and actually visit Ektorp in 2022.