Perfume in the office

When I was young and got the Metro to work, it was thick with Poison and Opium. It used to make my eyes water and make me wheezy. There were always a few lasses spraying it on in the carriage!

YANBU. As a neurodivergent person, perfume (& other smells) is one of the banes of my existence. I literally could not work in a place where people are wearing it as it gives me so much sensory distress and leads to sensory overload. There's definitely been an uptick in people wearing it too, and why? It usually just smells like artificial nasty chemicals, very few perfumes actually smell pleasant. People comparing it against smelling BO are making a false dichotomy - you can both not smell like BO and also not douse yourself in offensive chemicals that cause other people problems. Nobody needs perfume, it's completely unnecessary - there's other ways to smell nice that are a bit more discreet.

OP I agree (perfume gives me migraines). However, you won't get much sympathy from Mumsnet on this topic. It is filed under the "why should I care about other peoples needs" category.

My work bans strong perfumes yet people still wear them, drives me up the wall. What's the point of a safety policy if you're not going to enforce it.

Walking into the ladies locker room is an assault on the sinuses.

Just walking through the perfume section in John Lewis or Debenhams is enough to make me feel sick. I avoid them like the plague. And don’t get me started on Lush…

Sorry, photo didn't post. Imagine this times several thousand 🤣

Oh you'd love King's Day in Holland!

What did she tell you about jacket sleeve length??

Furious hypersensitivity to perfume is one of those things I’ve only ever actually encountered on Mumsnet and never in real life. See also: getting angry at the mere sight of a dog in a cafe, ending marriages because their husband once looked at porn, refusing to give children fruit because it’s ’full of sugar’, enforcing screen time limits for 16-17-year-olds and refusing to allow people to sit on a bed in their ‘outside clothes’.

I used to work in the same two person office as my (then) manager, who'd 'disguise' (it really didn't) his BO with copious amounts of Lynx Africa 🤢. He'd sit there and spray it while I was in our shared office. I thought Lynx Africa was a teenage boy thing - this was a professional in his 40s!

Still traumatised by the BO/Lynx stench 🤣 sympathies OP.

Aye, but it shouldn’t have squatters rights for the rest of the day!

@Aninabertsi in the same way it’s office etiquette to not eat stinky foods in an enclosed space it should be the same for perfumes. Too frequently they give me headaches 😑

I work in close proximity to people in an enclosed environment and i would much rather smell strong perfume ( even if it was one I don’t particularly like) than bodily odours.

😂😂😂😂

Her point is that if it is that strong, they are imposing it on everyone else!

@Swiftie1878 @Aninabertsi

Oh, but you do have to look at them, like in a meeting, for instance. Whereas your issue can be solved with a clothes peg or a bulldog clip requisitioned from Stationery.

I think you're being quite unreasonable about the orange clothes thing. Show some empathy - @Swiftie1878 is suffering too.

I douse myself with the chemical H2O everyday the whole world is made of chemical elements. We even drink chemicals and eat them.

So people think if you have unclean clothes or dont wash yourself covering it up with perfume is a great idea?

Same as people who want to cover bad smelling rooms trying to cover it up with air freshener instead of opening a window

I wear it so I can smell it on myself, to mask other dodgy smells around me. Hopefully it's not overpowering - I don't aim for that. Sans perfume I probably smell of cats and cigarettes.

I work with woman, who I can always tell where she has been just by the smell of her perfume. Meeting rooms, corridors, in the lift, etc.
If you are wearing so much perfume that someone can tell where you have been, even when there is no sign of you anymore, then that is just far too much. Likewise if you can smell someone from across the room, too much!! Perfume should be something you only smell if you are close to someone, sitting right next to them or hugging them.

That being said there is also a dude who must have issues doing his laundry as he leaves a dreadful musty aroma wherever he goes, which is gross. Again it lingers long after he has vacated the area. Probably on balance this is worse than the strong perfume, but only marginally!

Thankfully all the people who I share an office with don't give off any aroma, either gross or perfume-y.

Personally that's what I am looking for in a colleague, no obvious smell either way.

Because you have a choice with cafes. You have no choice about sitting in work for 8 hours.

I really struggle with strong smells (I have chronic headaches and it makes them worse). I also seem to have an annoyingly sensitive sense of smell. I had to ask my brother not to use his aftershave when he moved in for a few weeks. I'd never dare do that in the office though! 😂

I actually find the kind of stale perfume smell from coats and things the worst sometimes. They're probably pretty faint to everyone else.

I wear my Chanel number 5 every day.

I have an allergy to Cats and Dogs, they affect my breathing … but I can’t ban people in the office from owning one, in case they come in with hairs on them, which will set me off