Jezebel 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 12:40 AM
Tue Dec 22
55 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Anna Holmes
| Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Dodai Stewart
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor:
Tracie Egan Morrissey
| Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Anna North
| Twitter
Sadie Stein
| Twitter
Reporter:
Irin Carmon
| Twitter
Editorial Assistant:
Margaret Hartmann
| Twitter
Contributors:
Rich Juzwiak
Email | Twitter
Latoya Peterson
Email
Jenna Sauers
Lizzie Skurnick
Interns:
Katy Kelleher
Twitter
Weekends/Commenter Moderator:
Hortense
| Twitter
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/30/09
Interestingly, I never heard a peep after that. I especially appreciate women who say they are "allergic" to perfume while oddly being smokers. Also, pardon me for asking but why have I never met/heard a man who was allergic to perfume?
11/30/09
1) What does smoking have to do with anything? Are they smoking at your desk?
2) Most men don't have the guts to tell a woman she reeks. I most certainly have met men who hated or were made ill by perfumes - they just talked about the women behind their backs.
3) It's quite possible that people might be allergic to chemical compounds or oils in one perfume and not another - do you think that people who say they are allergic to peanuts, but still can eat almonds, are lying too?
4) It's also quite possible they gave up on complaining because you're being so stubborn and rude about it - much like how I haven't really said much anymore about my coworker who shrieks, screams, whistles, and sings all day at his desk, exacerbating my migranes, because if he refuses or is unable for some reason to stop by now, why bother complaining? Am I/your coworkers supposed to just quit?
Honestly, you kind of sound very selfish and mean in this post - if you were asked by HR to refrain from wearing perfume because of coworker complaints, you should've done it no different than someone being asked to dress nicer/more cleanly or people being asked to take private phone calls outside. Everyone has to work together.
11/30/09
1) Don't cigarettes contain many damaging chemicals?
And no, of course they do not smoke at my desk. No, they smoke at
the entrance of the building, though it clearly indicates that one must smoke at least 9 meters from the building. Also, when one returns form smoking , one reeks in the elevator, in
the stairway, in the corridor and at their desk.
2) Nice way to generalize men. I disagree completely.
3) Tobacco smoke contains over 4000 different chemicals.
4) If you knew me, which you do not, none of those insults apply at all. I can proudly say that.
Your attitude encroaches on my choices just as much as my choices encroach on yours
Thank you, Artemisia
11/30/09
11/30/09
I mostly loathe all commercial scents. At my house we use unscented soaps, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, and deodorant. For years I wore no perfume except nature-based oils, in particular Aveda's now-discontinued #30. (Musky, incense, amber.)
Then... well, I fell in love with Tom Ford's Absolute Amber. It's insultingly expensive, and as a commenter said upthread, he's such a douche that I hate to give him any more money. But my husband did the sweetest thing in buying me a bottle for my birthday last year: he braved a snooty store and spent too much on a product he doesn't really like, just because he knew I'd love it.
I spritz a tiny bit into the air and walk into the spray, and might put one small drop inside my wrist. Nobody's ever complained about the perfume, even friends who are allergic: and the only people who really notice it are the ones who make out with me. Perfect.
11/30/09
Memory of scent is a powerful thing.
11/30/09
No? Then please don't do the same thing with your scent. It might be nice, it might be perfect to you, but to others it might just be a pain in the neck, quite literally. So don't apply liberally. Please apply sparingly, so that those who want to smell you up close can smell it, but those who don't or can't don't have to put up with it.
And what's worse, showtunes might give you a productivity-lowering headache, but your overly-perfumed body could give others sneezing fits (and then you'll probably complain when those people sneeze near you), runny noses, and all sorts of other germ-spreading things that cause even more productivity loss, perhaps even for you, oh strong perfume loving ones.
Spritz, walk through it, and that's all you need. Really. And please, if you wear perfume, wear unscented deodorant, not the scented kind. If you wear both perfume and scented deodorant, you'll stink after a few hours.
/gets off lightly scented soapbox.
11/29/09
Earlier this year, I took a job as a "professional nose" for scientific research. Now I can't even wear perfumes because my nose just recognize scents as cyclopentenones, ionones, damasecenones, nonadienals, hexenols instead of flowers, fruits or grass... The plus is nobody in my office would DARE wear strong scents to work.
11/29/09
In secondary school I remember that the boys all seemed to use the same musky and sour Lynx deodorant, spraying on so much after gym class that the changing rooms were cloudy with it.
The boys who cared that little bit more about their appearance would bring perfume in their jacket pockets. As if they felt the need to touch up between classes!
11/30/09
11/30/09
11/30/09
11/30/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
But anyways, my problem with finding the right 'signature' scent (not that I've tried very hard) is that when I go to the perfume store, all the scents just morph into one homogenous smell so that I can't tell any brand apart from the other. Not to mention that what I like in scent often changes.
11/30/09
Before I had my children I would wear a combination of small amounts of Lotus oil behind my ears and on my wrists, a light spritz of Ralph Lauren's Romance and Nivea lotion. (Yes.--This sounds completely nutty but wait for the drop...) The combination produced a light.fresh exotic scent that worked very well in fetching comments from both men and women. Sadly, after I had my children I can't really put up with the smell of Ralph Lauren's Romance. Patchouli, Frankincense and Myrrh, and citrus oils are my favorite scents to sport now.
On the subject of how to deal with over-perfumers... If I have to regularly work with them or around them I will simply address the problem because it poses a health concern. Due to my awareness of how synthetic scents can agitate respiratory issues within others, I definitely play it safe and turn down the intensity of my scents when I am at school or out shopping.-Yet at a party or a night club, anything goes. :)
11/30/09
A party is someone's home. A nightclub is someone's workplace. If many people apply "anything goes" amounts of perfume or cologne, it becomes a stinky health problem even though each guest is only there for a little while.
I have nothing against scent use if it's tasteful - as in, if I'm sitting next to a person, I should be able to taste my food and not have all my food taste like my table-neighbor's overwhelming perfume.
11/29/09
11/30/09
I can't even find it online anymore, though I haven't looked in a while. Where are you getting it?
11/30/09
(Ten seconds later) I checked Boots.co.uk and they have it. Perhaps you could check their international shipping or hit up a friendly Brit?
11/29/09
11/30/09
11/29/09
I sometimes wish I had a signature, scent, though. I much prefer those little roller balls than perfume you spray on. Why don't more companies make transportable perfumes in tiny flasks with roller balls on them? It seems superior in every way. You can control how much you use and more accurate apply it to pulse points.
All I want is a perfume with that sort of bottle design, with no powdery note (why is a powder scent so popular?! It reminds me of deodorant!), and a dominating rose note. Is that so much to ask?? Apparently so, because I have not found it yet.
11/29/09
You're looking for a pure rose scent with absolutely no powder? Here are a handful to think about:
Eau d'Italie'sPaestum Rose, a soft, slightly spiced rose that is beloved by just about anyone who's smelled it, including the inimitable Chandler Burr.
Jo Malone's Red Roses, which is a crisp, pellucid rose with absolutely no fussiness or dusty powder. Burr loves this one, too.
Then there's S-Perfume's oddly-named but strangely beautiful watercolour rose, 100% Love. It doesn't smell like any other rose scent I know - it has a silky, light-as-air quality that is just beautiful. It was created by the grand dame of rose perfumes, Sophia Grojsman, and is one of her very best.
Good luck in your scent hunting!
11/30/09
You are a wealth of resourcefulness!
I don't suppose you would be willing to work your magic with the scent of rosewood, would you?
11/29/09
In the first few pages, a famous perfumier is talking about the difference between American and French taste in perfume and he comments on how attractive the scent of "an unwashed woman" is to the French, and the converse for Americans. Hence the tendency to "clean" smelling perfumes.
11/29/09
11/29/09
I have pretty bad allergies but they've never been triggered by a perfume before. (I actually am able to WEAR perfume but do try to be conservative in my application, parTICularly for the office.)
Anyhoo. I spoke to my boss and she talked to the HR VP who said there was nothing to be done since it wasn't like this lady isn't showering. So... you can call people on their B.O.-funk but not on their perfume that's giving other people headaches? WTF.
11/29/09
11/30/09
11/29/09
I absolutely abhor cheap, artificial scents. I hold my breath when I walk by Bath & Body Works and similar places to avoid triggering a headache. All my soaps and shampoos are made by 'natural' companies, which use real herbal essences and essential oils--these are always lighter and more nuanced than artificial fragrances. I also loathe most department-store/popular perfumes, even pricey classics like Chanel No. 5 and Dior J'Adore. I can only stand them in very small doses and only on other people (who are walking away from me).
I've come to the conclusion that most people must have a very poor sense of smell, if these types of strong, sweet, heavy fragrances are so popular. Not to mention the fact that many perfumes nowadays are made with synthetic ingredients that tend to be harsher than the real stuff, making the olfactory assault even worse.
I can't imagine walking around in a cloud of fragrance all day long. Doesn't it affect the taste of your food? The scent of your coffee? I'm going to be generous and guess that people who bathe in perfume don't realize how bad they stink since you become desensitized to your chosen scent. Plus, most people don't realize that they shouldn't spritz perfume directly from the bottle onto their skin. Spray it into the air and walk into it. Or use small dabs from the bottle on a few pulse points. That's ALL you need and it's less likely to bother other people that way.