Along the same lines, a handkerchief or tissue held over the nose and mouth sends much the same message and is even cheaper. Mr. J is right that the key here is group participation.
Maybe it’s just you, but it is quite possible to become more sensitive to smells like this, so they are increasingly bothersome if not downright dangerous. I did this to myself with Opium–I liked it, I bought some, I nearly asphyxiated myself. I could not get home fast enough to wash it off. Then it turned out washing it off was not good enough, it was in my head, it seemed like I could smell it even in the capped bottle. I had to put it outside until I could give it away. Then some months later I had a coworker in the next cubicle (and these were pretty big cubicles) who wore it. Wearing it was bad enough, but when she actually put it on in her office my eyes would start running, I’d start sniffling, then gasping. My skin would get red first on the side closest to this coworker, noticeably red (as mentioned by other coworkers), the scent got into my hair so that even after she left the office I was still afflicted–it got worse and worse so that even a whiff on somebody at the bus stop would get the reaction going. Fortunately Opium went out of favor.
After that there was another one that got me for awhile, and I don’t know its name. It ruined a perfectly good jazz concert for me, but only the second half. I think the lady next to me hit it a little too hard at intermission. I traded seats with my husband, she traded seats with her husband–nothing helped, it was like I could smell it from blocks away, for awhile. This smell actually did trigger migraines. And (unlike Opium) that one didn’t even smell good. Bug spray would have been an improvement.
I’m just saying I understand your reaction. Until I went through that Opium thing I would never have guessed in a million years how threatening a mere scent could be. And ironically, before that I myself was probably a Perfume Offender. (That is irony, isn’t it?) I’m not anymore.
It looks like no one has responded to this. I don’t have a definitive answer, but I feel the same way and my theory is that it is because men’s aftershave is alcohol-based while women’s perfume is usually some kind of plant-based gunk that smells like soap to me.
You might actually be allergic to one of the oil components in the perfume - I have a very dear friend who is very allergic to eucalyptus. The miniscule amount in my hair conditioner is enough to trigger the whole red eye, runny nose, sniffle/snorfle/volcanic sneezes in her. I try not to wear it when i am going over for a visit.
I use eau de cologne, a weaker form of perfume and in very small amounts. I have 3 or 4 that I rotate through [today is cool citrus basil by bath and body works.] I hate strong perfumes, so I go fairly minimal on myself, and I rotate scents so i can always smell myself=)
I just wanted to mention to the people in the thread who wear perfume in public and are absolutely, positively sure that their perfume is too light to offend anyone, let me assure you that you are indeed offending people throughout your day. If you come in contact with anyone with a nose as sensitive as mine*, you are bothering them, regardless of how lovely your perfume is, or how lightly you think you put it on. Imagine your pretty scent about 10 times stronger, and that is how the lightest perfume smells to people like me.
And that’s just the super-smellers. You are also bothering the asthmatics, allergics, and anyone else who happens to hate your particular brand of stinkum. (We have a lady in our office who loads on the bug-spray perfume, too. Her nickname in my head is Stinky.)
I wish you the best of luck in your battle, BMalion. I can truly sympathize with having to endure smelliness.
*I figure my sense of smell is making up for my bad eyes and hearing. 
Most perfumes, unless it’s pure perfume, has some alcohol in it as well.
One of my favourite co-workers sometimes wears a perfume that smells to me just like bug spray. I’ve never told her that, and it doesn’t bother me that much, but obviously she doesn’t smell it the same way (nor do her husband or son - they would have informed her in no uncertain terms if so).
Not really the same issue as the OP’s problem, but the only time I was ever bothered by office perfumes was when I started working (30+ years ago). I worked in a mailroom with several other employees, one of whom was an woman in her late fifties or so. She was a sterotypical Eastern European immigrant, dowdy appearance, faded print dresses, thick accent and all. She used to apply what seemed to be gallons of cheap perfume every time she went to the washroom, returning in a cloud of the stuff. Nobody liked working next to her because of it. Nobody ever complained about it either - the first thing that new employees learned from the supervisor was the meaning of the number tattooed on the woman’s forearm and why it bought her extra leeway in a lot of matters.
Fucking hell! I am a smoker, I fully expect people to think I reek. I work with children and after my smoke break I always have a breath mint, I am in no doubt that they can still smell smoke on my clothes/hair BUT I TRY to negate my stink.
In the same way I apply deoderent. I trust you ALL do that. Deoderents smell BUT they smell better then smelly armpit!
Perfume is about choosing a scent that smells good to YOU. Yes hopefully it also smells nice to others but if it doesn’t then TOUGH TITTIES! I’m sure there is a day just around the corner when the smelling of anything at all will be illegal because people will be offended. When that day comes we will all have to sniff our pits and just hope they pass muster!
UNTIL that day comes some of us will enjoy ONE spray of perfume on the wrist and hope we don’t run into the frightfully-over-reactive-nasal types.
Jeeeeez people GET A GRIP! I’m sure you would be mortally offended if someone bought BO to work rather then dreadfully offensive perfume.
Seriously if perfume offends/damages you, how the hell do you walk down the street (car fumes anyone?), visit a public loo? (discenfectent? You can’t smell that?), go to the movies (all those people in a small space for hours with all their BO and/or perfume smells?), resturants (OMG! They are cooking something I am allergic too!).
For fucks sake, it’s perfume! When they discover it causes cancer, let me know. When a whiff of perfume becomes soooooooooooooo bad it may kill you, let me know. If it is that bad already I apologise. I guess you need to work from home.
The perfume industry is worth billions. I use one squirt a day so I add to the billions I suppose. I don’t plan on giving up and I am quite sure the perfume industry isn’t giving up either.
GROW UP, It is none of your business what your coworker smells like!
This thread does add to my kooky theory about modern society being so sterile it is becoming allergic to EVERYTHING though.
But, I don’t have to be in those places for 8 - 9 hours per day.
Not so. If what you smell like makes me sick, it is then, by definition, my business.
I actually don’t mind heavy perfume smells per se (and actually, I really like the smell of Opium, Safari and Youth Dew - none of which are subtle!), but I truly loathe the fragrance Oscar de la Renta.
To me, it smells exactly like mice. I used to have pet mice for years as a kid and while I loved the little guys, they have a noticeable smell if you neglect to clean the cage every week. This is just like that smell only stronger. Actually, it reeks. There’s a girl in the office who wears it and I can smell her from the other end of the corridor. She’s a lovely person and there’s no way I’d hurt her feelings by telling her that her fragrance turns my stomach, so I just put up with it. It seems to be just some weird reaction on my part, because everyone else seems to think it’s pretty. :dubious:
As a general rule I don’t wear perfume. I don’t wear it to the office at all, because it can be headache-inducing when you’re in a confined space with a number of individually pleasant smells fighting for dominance. Not so bad in an open-plan office, but not so good in a small room.
Well, fuck you, calm kiwi. Did you not read my post about how I had severe asthma attacks from a coworker’s perfume, that caused me to end up in the emergency room? Have you not heard of people DYING from asthma attacks? I happen to have known a 12-year-old girl who did just that, died from an asthma attack.
So yes, a whiff of perfume CAN kill me if I’m trapped in a space with someone wearing one of the ones I’m so massively allergic to. I don’t like having to escape rapidly when I end up near someone with a perfume that I’m allergic to, but I kid you not, one whiff from someone 20 feet away can cause my chest to tighten enough I have trouble breathing. I have about 10 seconds to get far enough away to not end up having an asthma attack. I’ve had to move seats in concerts, change cars in public transportation, get off buses, turn and walk in the opposite direction from where I want to go, leave businesses, etc. because of this. It is NOT FUN and I am not doing it just to piss people off! Have you ever tried not being able to fucking breathe?
This is one big reason why I actually DO work from home. I’m lucky that I’ve found a way to do it. But people like you who dismiss a severe allergy as people being “too sensitive” pisses me off even worse than that stinky shit you douse yourself with so you don’t have to smell your own BO. I’d rather smell a coworker’s BO than their perfome – at least their BO won’t kill me!
That’s my mother’s fragrance. So I like it. I think it smells pretty and it reminds me of my mother.
calm kiwi, fuck off. There’s a big difference between a tiny dab behind the ears and on the wrists and taking a bath in the stuff.
Yes, your post completely negates my post saying that people who do not think they stink actually do stink. High five.
That’s it for me, as well. Heavy perfumes can trigger a migraine for me - not ‘just a headache,’ but an actual migraine, where I have to take Rx meds, lie down, throw up and wish I was dead till the meds kick in.
If someone applies just a light bit of scent, it’s usually okay, but if it’s a heavy perfume, and they’ve basically marinated in it, then yes (looking at you, calm kiwi), I’ll get a migraine if I’m around them for any length of time. And I’d more than likely have to go home.
Just so you know, there are people who think exactly the opposite of what you do about these scents. I think smelly armpits smell better than deodorants, actually. I do like it better when people smell like a human, rather than a flower.
<aside> I don’t mean to be pedantic with the ‘sic’ device. Should one correct quotations for spelling and such, or just leave them? I am new to message boards. I don’t know the custom yet. I wouldn’t, of course, correct someone’s spelling if I didn’t quote them. I realise that would be rude.</aside>
Hi Jamaika, and welcome to the SDMB. Often, correcting another poster’s spelling, or drawing attention to spelling errors with “[sic]” in a quoted post, is seen as rather snippy and aggressive, unless the error in question is funny and you’re pointing it out for a laugh.
In cases where the spelling error might introduce ambiguity about how you’re interpreting the post, it’s probably more useful to replace the error with (your understood version of) the misspelled word in editorial brackets. As in:
And I tend to agree that for people who bathe frequently and don’t sweat excessively or have some kind of skin condition, their usual amount of natural aroma is often less repulsive (or at least less intrusive) than chemical perfumes.
Does this work for every sense, or just smell?
Could I tell my boss that a fat co-worker needs to lose weight because their ugly face makes me sick, and thus their weight is my business?
Gee, Metacom, if the sight of your co-worker ever sends you to the hospital with a life-threatening condition, then I think you might have an argument. Maybe. I’d love to see something like that documented in a medical journal though. It’d have to be a first.
No, I too am a super-smeller (with really bad eyes!) and, in the case of the coworker with the Opium, I don’t think we can really say she was putting it on lightly. I mean, after I took the bus (bus fumes) home at the end of the day my husband, who is NOT a super-smeller, could still smell that perfume in my hair and on my clothes.
But I’m really not talking about perfume that merely smells like whale puke, or otherwise stinks. Before it happened to me, I had no idea fragrance could trigger the kind of reaction I and others have described.
You can always look away from your fat coworker; I don’t know that there’s any documented evidence that the mere sight of someone can give another person the sniffles, runny eyes, coughing fits, choking, swelling, and skin lesions. You can’t get away from or otherwise neutralize a scent.
There was a restaurateur somewhere who banned some perfume, and I’m thinking it was Giorgio, from his establishment because it caused so many people to have bad reactions.
Which is ironic since the perfume named after Georgio is one of the ones that gives me asthma attacks.