AIBU to think this is a bit rude/ cheeky?

Opening the glass cabinet is cheeky, in my opinion.
I have some similar items (actually, includes a couple of perfume bottles) on display, in a glass cabinet. However, when I have guests round, I lock the cabinet and remove key. Might be something to consider in future.

This isn't a hotel. Guest bedroom basically translates as "spare room". Most people store personal things in a spare room and most normal people would recognise that. I wouldn't assume that absolutely anything left in a spare room was fair game. At the very least I'd ask the host. I can't imagine the vast majority of guests in an ordinary household would assume the vast array of expensive perfumes in a display cabinet had been put there just for them! Except on Mumsnet of course.

Well you left them in the guest room. I would have half assumed you meant them to be used by guests. Some people like to set up guest rooms like mini hotel rooms and if they were in a glass cabinet and you left other things like towels and bits for them then they probably thought they were for your 'guest' set up.

I always keep my guest room stocked with toiletries for guests that might be caught short. I'd assume anything in the guest room cabinet would be for me to use!

That isn't what OP asked though, she asked if it was rude. And it was. If you're a guest in someone's home, you don't have carte blanche to just help yourself to everything. You also shouldn't assume something is fair game just because it's in the guest room. I wouldn't expect someone hosting me to feel like they had to move a whole glass cabinet out of my room just to stop me using the perfumes inside. But then, I have manners.

I think that's dead cheeky actually, perfume in a display case to me is an obvious collection rather than a free for all at the bloody perfume counter in Debenhams. At the very least I'd ask first!

Mumsnet is super weird about guest etiquette though, and the rules seem to ebb and flow depending on what time of day it is. Apparently the cheeky fuckers are all on early afternoon. If you ask this again tomorrow at midnight you'll get completely different responses.

Agreed! It's someone's house, not complimentary toiletries in a hotel room. How utterly bizarre to assume you can just use anything left in the room you're staying in in a friend's house. Also agree that perfume is personal. And the snide little comment she made is just rubbing it in.

I wouldn’t use things that were in cupboards and drawers in a guest room as I’d assume that, unlike a hotel, the owners will be storing things in the room which aren’t necessarily there for guests to help themselves to. I think the worst thing is her saying she was getting her money’s worth - that’s just taking the piss as she knows it’s expensive and has treated it differently as a result.

This. It made it worse to add the comment about getting her money's worth... since presumably you weren't charging her for staying there.

She was a guest and whilst the toiletries in a hotel are fair game, because she'd paid....Also using a dab of shower gel in the shower, also fair game I think

but perfume is personal and to start using personal stuff when she'd had presumably free accomodation, free meals and free entertainment for four of them is an absolute Bloody cheek...

She didn't just have a squirt of one perfume. She worked her way through them every day she was there... That really is taking liberties..
She's a CF who likes to let you know she's a CF and proud of it.

I hope she reciprocated in some way, brought some wine or a hosting present?

Missing the point entirely, but you shouldn’t expose perfumes to light or heat. That way leads to gone off stank. You need to only display empty bottles and hide away the fuller ones.

Its incredibly rude. What a CF.

I am really surprised other people seem to think your perfume is fair game.

Nah, she's rude.

Having the perfumes in a spare room might give the impression the perfumes were old ones you don't use so you wouldn't mind if someone took a quick spray of them here and there. She probably assumed your actual perfumes would be in your bedroom/bathroom with the rest of your stuff, unless the room was set up as a dressing room.

I am surprised by these responses. I'd never use any perfume of anyone else's-they're an expensive item, spare room or anywhere they were in the house wouldn't matter.

Most spare rooms, even though never used other than for guests, have personal items in them being stored-Mine has a wardrobe in with some items of clothing I don't wear often-I wouldn't expect guests to help themselves to those items without asking.

At a push I might use someone's shampoo had I forgotten mine, but that's an everyday thing rather than a luxury item.

I think she was very cheeky and presumptuous and I would not give her access to them again, I would move them from the spare room when she stays.

My ex stays at mine quite often to 'dog sit' while I am away, and although we know one another very well and have for years, I know she'd not take anything without asking-and nor would the (two different) partners she's brought with her.

Yes, they were on display in a guest room, so you'd assume they were meant for/fine for guests to use. Not even in a cupboard, but a display case. I know it's not quite the same thing, but you wouldn't stay in a hotel or B&B with toiletries on display and not assume they were there for you to use.

It reminds me a bit of the Mitchell & Webb sketch, where David's character had bought a former bookshop for a home to live in. He hadn't made any cosmetic changes - he'd left the big front window in place, as well as the shop sign and the bell on the door, but he was still incandescent at the people who kept walking in to his living room, not unreasonably assuming that it was still a shop!

If you leave things out in a guest room, guests will use them

The fact they were in the guest room makes it fairly reasonable she thought you wanted her to try them on. Or at least didn't mind.

It's only a couple sprays of each, you wouldn't have noticed any missing if you hadn't have smelt it. And she wasn't trying to do it on the sly.

Having said that, I'd have probably done it once and gone up to you saying that I did so, and guage your reaction. Like asking if it's OK. Then obviously not do it again if you didn't look comfortable.

I think she was very cheeky.
Most people don't have a room that is solely set up for the use of guests, usually it's a spare room and used for storage/ hobbies/ wfh etc.
I wouldn't assume I had free use of anything in the room, unless toiletries were place on the bed or something.
Does anyone have a collection of perfumes for their guests to use, really?

We all know how expensive perfume is… she’s not your friend , she’s the wife of your dh friend. So definitely cheeky, and she knows it and doesn’t care. If you have her back, remove them and put some b&m sprays in there.. she will get the message (I admit to being petty though 😂)

It was a bit rude but also why do you leave your perfumes on display exposed to light? Mine are in a box in a dark drawer.

I also didn't understand the comment about her getting her moneys worth. Did she pay you to stay?

Do you run it like an Airbnb? Is that what she meant by getting her money's worth?

Btw, glass can be "perused" through - she only needed to open the door it to handle it.

I think she was cheeky to say that she wanted to get her money's worth. However, the perfumes were in the guest room so she assumed that she could use them. When you showed her the guest room at the beginning, you should have told her whether she was allowed to use the perfumes or not.

For this reason, the guest is not at fault here.

She’s described as the wife of an ex colleague of her husband who she’s met 5 or 6 times over a period of years, so safe to assume not a ‘good friend’.

OP I think she was rude.

Oh come on, the comment was surely a joke.----

I would have assumed they were for guests to use too if they were in the guest room. If you have that many different ones I would probably have also assumed they were a variety on ones you had tried and not liked hence banishing them to the guest room.