Watashi Wa Kososenzai Arerugi Des

Allergies. Gah. Since I came to Japan, I've had the worst excema I've had since I was a kid. My arms are covered in little itchy red bumps, and I'm secretly quite glad that, since Iain's dad is visiting, I'm not seeing Iain much for the next week. It would be pretty nasty, sitting scratching away in class, but everyone else here seems to have excema too. I reckon it must be my old enemy, biological washing powder, so I nip down to the supermarket to get some soft non-bio that won't leave me looking like an extra from a horror film. I wander up and down the supermarket aisles until I realise there are no cleaning products anywhere. How am I going to ask where to find non-bio washing powder? Luckily there is one bag of washing powder beside the counter. I pick it up and say, kososenzai ne? Biological washing powder, right? The girl at the counter nods, and I make a show of putting it back. She natters at me for a bit and I nod, hoping we're still on washing powder and she isn't commenting on how much I smell. The only thing I manage to pick out is 5. Fifth floor? I didn't realise there was a fifth floor. Why put the supermarket in the basement and the cleaning stuff at the other end of the building? I'm sure I must have heard her wrong, but wander up there just in case. A whole floor of cleaning stuff, fantastic. Unfortunately nothing's in English and there no helpful pictures of babies or white packaging to help me tell the soft stuff from the hard stuff like I had with my Babimild in Thailand. I feel quite the moron wandering around the supermarket with a dictionary in one hand and a phrasebook in the other. The best I can do is 'I want to buy washing powder. I'm allergic to biological washing powder' and hope that they will figure out I need them to actually put the stuff in my hand, though the phrasebook might be a pretty good clue.
Eventually a nice lady natters at me in length about a range of products in white bottles, and there's even one that says 'no additives' in English. Hooray, I have managed to get my point across and it only took me half an hour to get what I want. I should just about be able to have a conversation by Christmas.