Science? Or marketing BS?

my soap and bath bombs

So we sell this product and a few others like it at work, it's a Scientific Explorer Spa "Science" Kit (the quotes around science are mine.) Now I'm a bit conflicted with this, on one hand it's perhaps a way to interest girls in science and chemistry by having them make something they enjoy. On the other it reinforces the idea that if a girl is going to interested in science, it better be the science of making her pretty, because that's really what matters. Now don't get me wrong, you all know I love making stuff like this, recently Jen, Colleen, Jack and I all made our own cold process soap, bath fizzies (which I left in the plastic bag instead of taking them out to finish drying so they all expanded and stuck together which is why they look like blobs, they still work though), and body butters. I bought a bunch of fragrance oils and I made different scents, I love this stuff. But I'm not sure that these kinds of kits are really about science or girls learning science. I even opened one at work to see if there was any actual science inside, and there was, a bit. In the instructional booklet there is a paragraph about how the olfactory system works, not too bad, and a survey the child can fill out about of how the scents affected them, (basically aromatherapy) which is an experiment I guess but seems a bit iffy scientifically to me. Mostly the text went on about yummy smells, pampering, that sort of thing. I read some reviews on amazon and it seems I'm not alone in feeling these toys are in fact sending the wrong message. Most of the other science kits are fairly gender neutral and usually have both a boy and a girl on them doing science-y things, only one bothers me though, it's a chemistry set and the boy on the front is looking into a microscope at a bug (that's sounds like biology not chemistry but whatever) but the girl is looking at some sparkly rainbow pinwheel thing and the caption near her says "It's chemistry! Make beautiful ornaments!" While his caption says "Perform tons of activities and experiments!" Hmmm... Now I don't have any kids but what do you all think about this? Gender bias and weasel marketing or no big deal?

The other product that really bothers me is this Plaid iron on transfer for babies. It reads "Does this diaper make my butt look big?" Really? I mean I realize the babies can't read the damn thing but what disturbs me is that people think it's cute and funny. I don't think is either of these things, is anyone else as disturbed by this kind of thing as I am?