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I love apples. Not all, but those with the most pronounced smell: sweet or sour, but definitely fragrant. When I was little, my mother would always carry an apple for me in her purse. And whenever she offered me one I would always decline. I would tell her: “It smells bad”. I would throw a tantrum and refuse eating my favorite food.
She never understood it, but I still can recall that smell: suffocating, gagging. How is this? Simple. Because she always had a handkerchief, dabbed in her favorite perfume, in her purse. Imagine, an apple practically washed in perfume and left in the closed, windowless, warm, small place. Even as a little girl, I never touched her purse. Never rummaged through it, either.
Growing up I experimented with a few scents, because everybody else was wearing a perfume. I told myself: “It’s so ladylike, grown up, sophisticated”. I even liked some fragnances in the bottle, but not on the skin. Then I got tired of lying to myself and one day I gave it up altogether. Proclaimed myself fussy and hard to please, and accepted it.
While I enjoy the smell of fresh cut grass, fresh and baked apples, flowers and most of the food, it makes me irritant and gives a headache smelling a fragrance in the room 15 minutes after someone left it.
I asked my husband to stop using all of his colognes and creams. He balked at the beginning, but is perfectly content with it now. The cosmetic products we use are all unscented. A friend of mine, who stopped using his cologne, confessed that he can’t tolerate it anymore being close to anyone, wearing a perfume strong enough to be easily detected within standing distance.
Why I am writing about it? Because, while many people wear perfume, most of them were never taught, that it’s a very personal thing, and should not be so powerful as to leave a trace or being detected by everybody in the close proximity. Sometimes I think that perfume industry has changed and is employing stronger ingredients, than before. Then again, I have no problem spending a lot of time with my girlfriends, because, while many of them wear perfume, I can’t detect it without practically sticking my nose to their necks. And this is a correct way of wearing a perfume.
Someone I know had strong and frequent headaches. She complained about it often, but would not even consider stopping using just for a week a strong very strong perfume, which she wore. After an extended period of time experimenting with food and medications, she stopped using her perfume. She didn’t want to admit that it helped.
Another thing, which many don’t recognize, is that people have allergies, and wearing a perfume is a good way to trigger it.
The times are changing, and if you noticed, many places, such as medical offices and gyms, require its patrons refrain from wearing any kind of fragrances. Same applies, when having a job interview.
Yesterday, (Valentine Day!) in NY Times, I found an article about how the culture is changing its ways about a perfume use, and it made me very happy, because when publication as big as this is writing about it, it might get the results.
What results? Do I want everybody stop wearing perfume? Of course not, but for people to examine reason for wearing it, and learn a correct way when and how to apply and wear it.
The article discusses many other aspects, where fragrance wearing may not be a desirable thing and the declining power of scents in all.
“At a time when the number of perfumes on shelves has dramatically increased, consumption of fragrances is declining, industry analysts said. Last year, department stores carried 1,160 different fragrances for women compared with 756 in 2002, according to NPD Group, a market research firm that tracks consumer product sales.
Yet, last year in the United States, spending on upscale women’s fragrances declined, as part of a multiyear trend. The group said $1.97 billion was spent, down from $2 billion in 2002″. And this is a trend.
Please read the article here: www.nytimes.com and I would really like to hear your opinion about it.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:04 am
I used to wear a cologne, the original Paul Sebastian. Almost everyone said it smelled terrific on me — women would walk past, turn around and stop me to ask what cologne I was wearing. Paul Sebastian and my personal body chemistry clicked…until I got my first kittens, in 1990. Cats are extremely susceptible to any scent — they identify each other and us (their “humans”) more by our smell than by our looks. That’s why cats (even those who live together) seem to kiss when they first meet each morning; and why the “kiss” also is a real sign of affection between two cats, and between a cat and its human. But that also means that strong scents such as perfumes and colognes actually can be painful to the cat’s extremely sensitive nasal passage. When I wore my wonderful cologne and the kittens got too close, I could see them jerk their heads away from the offensive odor. Any cologne had the same effect. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to cause pain to my two little kittens; I sent Paul packing, and haven’t worn cologne since (by the way, cats react the same way — but even more negatively — to cigarette
smoke. They’re smarter than we are in this.)
February 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Bert, thank you for commenting. I hope it helps someone, who has pets. I have cats, too, but didn’t know about their aversion to these specific scents. My cats kiss, too. Also, I visited someone once, who has a very large, but kind and well trained dog. The dog liked me right away, and the owner’s first comment was: “You don’t use any perfume, right?”. But I never made a connection to the cats…I learned something today, thank you.