To my co-worker: Perfume is not a substitue for showering

The BBQ Pit
1

First, I hate work. It is a pain to get out of bed and come here. When I get here, I do prefer not to be choked on the smell of perfume.

It’s not my fault if you are attempting to work a schedule that is too early for you to get out of bed, take a shower, and still get to work on time. However, it really irks me when you come waltzing through the door 15 mintues late with a haze of perfume surrounding you. You are ONE person. Please remember that when spraying that horrible scent. You have on enough for 5 people today: again, you are ONE person.

Do you KNOW what perfume does to me? Do you see my eyes beginning to redden? I wish you could feel the burning in my noze, the dull pain slowing creeping in to my head.

I try to avoid you, but yet you always seem to be around me. Go AWAY. Pleaseeeeeeee…

And last but not least, PERFUME only temporarily masks body odor. Please take a shower.

2

Errr…sorry. substituTe

3

Your ButtWindsong stays in my mind…

4

Ya, using deodorant on your body works a little better than perfume :slight_smile:

5

perfume was invented originally to mask bodily odours.
In France, druing the 17th century, people thought it was harmful to wash away the natural oils from the skin. They thought washing was unhealthy. SO they didn’t.
And the necessity for perfume was there. I mean, even The Louvre didn’t have toilets, there was straw underneath the staircase, and you went there, if you had to go.
That, combined with the lead based powder women used to put on their faces (which seriously damaged their skin) and the towering, flour-powdered, wigs…

well, my, you were grateful when a women stank of perfume.
not that i don’t agree, though. I hate the smell of perfumes and deodorants. Don’t use any, but use lots of water and soap.
nothing like a soapy smell, I say

incidentally, I know of a few people who habitually shower before they go to bed, and then just hop in their clothes in the morning. I could never do that. Have they no idea how much a person sweats during their sleep?

ugh!

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You damn better be sorry. That was a typo you just made! :wink:

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Elfje, just to let you in to the mentality of night showerers…

Back in high school, I used to have to get up at 5:30 in the morning in order to catch my bus at 6:10. That was the bare minimum in terms of time: I am not a morning person, and needed the 40 minutes to wake up, get dressed, get groomed, eat breakfast, get my shit, and get to the bus stop.

I also have very thick, wavy/curly hair. If I don’t blow dry it, it looks like crap. If it’s wet, it looks like crap. And it takes me a good twenty minutes to blow dry it to the point of decency, thirty minutes if I want it to be almost totally dry. Admittedly, I might just suck at drying my hair, though I don’t think that’s the case.

So, in order for me to have taken my shower in the morning–assuming that I only take 10 minutes to shower/get all my stuff ready in the shower/possibly shave my legs or underarms/dry off–that would’ve put me at a wake-up time of 4:50 am.

Do you have any idea what the odds of a fifteen year-old not-morning person waking up at 4:50 am is? Evening showers it was!

…still is, sometimes. I hate showering in the morning. HatehateHATE it. Nothing says, “welcome to this crappy world that is NOTHING like your bed! Here, try to inhale water! Don’t fall asleep on me, now…” Makes me feel like total crap.

Of course, being anal and all that, I wear deodorant/anti-perspirant even when I go to bed, and nary a once have I gotten a complaint about being too ripe. And I live with some very honest people.

That being said, the people who bathe in perfume REALLY piss me off. I shouldn’t be able to smell you coming; it doesn’ matter if that scent is Chanel No. 5 or eu de sweat.

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McMurphy…
It’s what happens when you are trying to sneak around and surf the 'Net at work! :slight_smile:

Angel…
I understand about circumstances like yours. There have been times when I’ve had to do that too. For my coworker, this has been two days in a row with problems. Day 1 was just BO, Day 2 perfume. She normally wears pretty heavy perfume anyway, but goodness. This was just awful. Next time she works days I’ll know to bring a gas mask with me!

Seriously though, several people in our office have allergies so it makes for a difficult day when things like this happen.

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Thanks fucking og I didn’t live in 17th century France.

Phew!

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Somehow I can see the transport plane of lawyers approaching…a legion of barristers parachuting out, their briefs in one hand-ripcord in the other :rolleyes:

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I worked with a bitch who one day, a couple weeks after I’d started at this company (a law firm, no less), came to work drenched in Eau de Swamp.

Within 30 seconds I was having trouble breathing; within an hour, I had a class A asthma attack. I’d never had one in my LIFE, didn’t know I HAD asthma.

So what did the dickhead cowardly lawyers do? Tell me it was a “hygiene issue,” not a “health issue,” so they couldn’t ask her to stop wearing her stink.

Excuuuuuuse me, not being able to breathe is a HYGIENE issue??? WTF???

Needless to say, I immediately went looking for another job. Got one, too, in record time, for better benefits, better hours, better work, better people to work for, and all of that for only a 20% pay increase. I laughed my way out the shitheads’ door.

Go ahead, bitch about perfume. I’ll join your chorus.

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First you gotta talk to them. Expect to hear them whine “But I’m not wearing that muuuuuch!”

Don’t be afraid to use such statements as;

“Did you know that one bottle of perfume contains more than one application?”

Then talk to your boss and the other persons, if she works for someone else.

Don’t be afraid to go over their heads if they do nothing.

Last resort, knowing you’ll be fired;

1> A bar of soap and a washcloth, handed to the person in question just before;

2> Your choice of a very large Supersoaker, or a 5-gallon bucket of water. Apply liberally.

Alternative: Find out what they are allergic to (if anything) and threaten to paint their cube with it if they don’t stop. I did this to a woman who refused to tone down her perfume (always giving me that line about how she wasn’t wearing -that much-). It worked. She knew that I had two cats and could easily bring in enough cat hair to carpet her entire fucking cube.

And that I was devious enough to do so in a manner what would not be immediately discernable as having been done at all.

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You sweat when you sleep? I take my showers in the evening, I’ve got five-hours-to-dry hair like Angel of the Lord’s. Never heard a word about my own stinkiness, never noticed a smell from people I know showered in the evening, either.

Now, I just finished a book Perfume about scent, that makes Paris of a couple three centuries ago sound like hell on earth, olfactory-wise. Not a bad read and will make you grateful your cow-orker is just a little on the stinky side (in comparison). My sympathies though, I teach teenagers who all seem to think P.E. plus a gallon of stink water equals yummy.

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Actually, perfume has been around since the beginning of time. People have always used scents.

Anyhoo, I’m another night showerer. For one thing, it feels SOOOO good to climb into bed with squeaky clean skin. For another, my pillowcases don’t get greasy from dirty hair, which would make my face break out.

And finally, I have limp, baby fine poker straight hair. I have to use a curling iron and set it in sponge rollers just to get a tiny bit of body. You can’t use a curling iron on wet hair.

Plus, I have to compete with my dad and my sister for the bathroom. It’s not worth the hassle.

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BTW don’t mention Petrulie or however the hell it’s spelled.

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Showering in the evening is also good if you have allergies to pollen. During the day you accumulate the stuff on your clothes and skin. If you go to sleep without showering, then your sheets get the allergens on them, too. But if you shower in the evening you get a whole night without exposure to the pollen.

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Thanks for the tip, MLS. My hay fever is acting up particularly badly right now - I’m off to the showers before bed tonight, hopefully to wake up with eyes and nose that aren’t swollen shut!

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World Eater, I think that you mean Patchouli.

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I feel for the OP. At regular intervals I work with Middle-Eastern men and I swear they use more perfume than most women. A friend who is Iranian told me that Middle-Eastern men like really smelly perfume so the perfume there is made more oily and we can get in the West. He was lamenting this fact!
Have you tried talking to the woman, letting her know in a very nice way that you can’t breathe properly because of her strong perfume?

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I’m a night showerer. I don’t think I sweat at night- I never wake up clammy or nasty (or smelly). Hmmmm, I guess YMMV.