Viewer Mail: My Office Hates My Perfume

Hello Katie,

I am Lalaine, from the Philippines. I am a graphic artist in an advertising agency, and my colleagues get irritated because of my perfume use. And I don't over spray -- I only spritz once, and the two younger guys who share my office react to it like a bad odor, covering their noses.

But my perfumes are quality, like Paris Hilton Fairy Dust and Just Me, Elizabeth Arden Pretty, and Guess for Woman. I don't know if they are just not used to women smelling okay, or if they are just stupid. Or if they just don't want to get attracted to me due to the perfume.

They cover their noses on my fruity perfumes, and then when I wear florals, they say I smell like a funeral. There is no pleasing them. Though I am not trying to attract them because they are just young boys -- I just wear perfume because I like its scent on me.

Now I wear my perfumes only when leaving the office at night or just when I’m at home. Help -- I do not want to stop using my perfumes just because of them. What would you do if you were in the same situation?

Sincerely,

Lalaine

Oh Lalaine, this is like a perfume version of He’s Just Not That Into You (the movie that came from the book that came from the Sex & the City episode). So instead of the heroine twisting herself into a pretzel trying to assign a psychological M.O. for why a man isn’t calling her, you've come up with a list of reasons (social retardation, latent sexual attraction, all-encompassing stupidity) for why the guys in your office say they hate your perfume.

And while your colleagues may or may not fit your psychological profiling (personally, my money’s on social retardation), the real reason why they say they hate your perfume is...THEY HATE YOUR PERFUME.

And while I’m throwing my money around on “social retardation”, I’m willing to bet further that any perfume you might wear, whether Paris’ finest (Fairy Dust) or Paris’ finest (Chanel and Guerlain), would trigger the two stooges’ pantomime nose-pinching.

I think the main problem here is that you’re applying your perfume right in the office, in the middle of everyone’s workspace, and perfume fresh out of bottle is not fit to smelled by anyone. It needs time for the alcohol to burn off and for the scent to bloom on your skin -- and for the initial mushroom cloud of fragrance to dissipate into something more subtle and inviting.

As perfumer Geza Schoen says, “You don’t want to get on someone’s nerves with your scent. You want them to come closer and undress you instantly, because of it.”

Okay, so maybe you don’t want anyone undressing you instantly (especially those clowns at work), but you get the general idea. Do your one spritz at home, and by the time you get to the office, it’ll be “Lalaine smells so good!” not “Here comes the funeral. Again.”

This is a tricky one, though, because it’s a fine line between you enjoying the self-expression of your signature scent -- and ruining someone else’s day. In the US and Canada, there seems to be increasing intolerance for perfume in public spaces, as evidenced by news stories about people getting kicked out of restaurants or buses because of their head-clobbering, life-force-draining fragrances.

Some feel that your right to smell like Fairy Dust ends where their nose begins. My friend John put it this way:

I hate perfume, cologne, etc. Can't stand it, never could. If I can't smoke my cigar in an elevator, why can that woman burn my nose hair with that sick smelling shit (SSS) she wiped under her arms?

I really don’t have an answer to that, other than I personally think my SSS smells better than a cigar. But that’s kind of a “because I said so” response, and probably wouldn’t cut a dash with the judge at my upcoming public perfume pollution trial.

Fumies, any insights into sharing your space with fume-o-phobes?