To not understand why some people wear such heavy scents?

[clingclangclong]

Before MIL leaves the house to get a pint of milk and the daily mail (cringe) she showers with a branded, highly scented body wash, then applies the same scented accompanying body cream ALL OVER her body, then spritzes herself liberally all over with the accompanying perfume.

After this she puts on full make up (primer, foundation, powder, blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow, mascara, lip liner and lipstick.) I have found that when make up, especially foundation and lipstick, is applied heavily, it has a strong smell too.

You can smell her upstairs with doors closed before you can see her, before she enters any room, and if you get in a car with her you have to hope you do not already have a queasy stomach or are prone to migraines. The DC and the pets smell of her after she has been around them, and I have to wash all bed linen, towels etc after she leaves because it is just covered with smell.

I have known other people similar, but not quite as bad as MIL. Is it a generational thing? Or am I just being a sensitive little sausage? And surely if you have laid on a scent that heavily you can smell yourself?

Poison is actually beautiful.

The thing is it's impossible to wear in the right dosage. It needs fraction of a molecule to be right.

Make up does smell. Some nicer than others.

I don't tolerate scents very well at all. Perfumes, air fresheners, fucking febreze, they mostly give me a pounding headache or make me cough up a lung. I hate strong laundry detergents, too, as does DS1. My mum went through a phase of using some extremely highly perfumed bold and she washed something of DS1's in it. Took 3 washes to get the scent out completely so that he was comfortable wearing it again.

I've never actually told anyone their perfume is making me ill Absolutely, I either move away from them or put up with it somehow till I can get away. So it's possible you have met people like me, but they've never said so because it would seem rude.

abnotfab - it's you, not the perfume.

Poison is overpowering (my mum used to love it - it made me queasy) and angel is so strong you can't get away from it, though I actually really like the smell of it - just not being around it in high doses all day. Even some of the comparatively milder scents like Eau d'issey and Happy make my forehead want to explode.

My baby smells fucking paco rabanne every time I pick him up from nursery
Don't mind perfumes but wtf when they work with babies they have to be mindful!
The other day he actually smelled of BO as well... WTF!

I must be in the minority here - I adore Poison, Angel, Opium, etc, though I don't wear them myself. The worst smell for me is cheap body sprays like Lynx, or heavy-handed use of fabric softener - yuck!

I'm more puzzles by the fact that the op is blaming the smell on the fact she has to wash towels and bedlinens after her MIL leaves

Errrr wouldn't you wash them anyway after a guest leaves?!

Este Lauder 'youth dew' used to be very popular in the 60s/70s, those who wore it invariably overdid it, it was apalling and even the memory of it now makes my eyes water.

I have a weird sense of smell. I go from smelling nothing to BLAM! No smell to strong smell with no gentle introduction. It then gets stuck in my smell memory and I smell it for hours after the source of the smell has gone. I have to say perfume is one of my preferred things to get stuck in my smell memory.

I hate strong perfumes.

It seems that many older women seem to drench themselves in sickly sweet pongs.

If I swim in the mornings at the gym, I am often nasally bombarded with the putrid perfume of the women that do breast stroke without ruining their pouffy blow dries.

I love perfume, I love smelling of perfume and it matters not a jot to me if others don't like the way I smell

Wearing perfume is a treat for me, just brought a bottle of Opium and like J''adore as well. I am one who will always put it on for flights too, especially long haul to drown out other people's BOish smells.

BO is preferable to either of those.

DH has an aftershave that is really expensive. I have never liked it all that much.

Just recently, he accidentally knocked over the loo brush stand, and although he said it smelled of bleach, and cleaned it up straight away, I started noticing a smell of stale urine in the bathroom. I gave it a really good clean, but could still smell it.

Finally we realised it was one of the "notes" of this aftershave that smelt so bad.

And now I have noticed it, I can't not smell it, anymore.

See, I love strong smells. I must be living in a parallel universe because, to me, smells that other people on mumsnet find objectionable don't bother me at all. I know I'm old and of the "power perfume" era but....

Even cigarette smoke doesn't bother me in the slightest. Or BO kinda whiffs.

At the weekend I had the misfortune to be on a replacement bus service after my train was cancelled. The bus was packed like sardines with ranty peed off passengers and then some stupid stupid woman decided to start spraying vile stinking perfume. What possible reason is there for that? I had a 2 day headache, the first being a full on migraine. There should be a special corner of hell reserved for inconsiderate people like that.

SIL does this, my house stinks when she leaves. It caused a major argument when I asked her not to wear it when she Came round to see my new baby, I hated when she held my first born because he ended up smelling like a tarts handbag and so did all his things.

I probably smell like I douse myself. I don't, just a squirt or two in the morning and no top ups, but my perfumes are strong (Chanel No5, Coco, No19). I also LOVE the smell of fabric conditioner and I love my clothes to smell clean and fresh, I use Comfort Intense, and I love plug ins my favourite is Yankee Home Sweet Home. You guys would HATE me.

So OP I would have said YABU but it seems you are certainly not alone! I think your MILs perfume habits may be colouring your view of her because it really seems that you don't like her very much. Could you DP ask her not to wear it when she visits if it affects you so much?

Out of interest sweetbabyray how would you react if someone asked you not to wear so many artificial scents, as it was making them feel ill? I think it would be a tricky subject to broach.

I think it would be very tricky, yes. I have been in a position before where I couldn't wear perfume for my job so it wouldn't really be a new thing for me. I stopped wearing it when my DNs were tiny babies as my mum commented that they smelled like me, which I didn't notice. My DSis wasn't bothered and didn't ask me to stop though.

I suppose it depends how I was asked. Something like "I'm really sorry but strong fragrances make me feel ill so would you mind not wearing that in my home/around the children/when we're together/while at work" I would feel a bit mortified at having caused that and I would not course not wear it with that person. I wouldn't stop wearing it altogether though unless it was my DH as he can't escape me.

But something like "you stink and your perfume makes me feel sick" is uneccessarily rude and would annoy me.
Because as much as a perfume might affect someone, a clean person wearing a nice fragrance does not "stink" and it is rude to say that they do, we each have out own preferences.

MILs Vanderbuilt on the other hand...

Sorry the above should say and I would of course not wear it with that person.
I wouldn't willingly make amother person uncomfortable like that.

I love a strong perfume.

Unfortunately I've learned the hard way not to buy blind without doing a sniff test first. I bought a Serge Lutens online and on me it was actually horrific, I thought I was going to throw up. I sent it to a mnetter who wanted it and said she was thrilled.

With this in mind I'd be careful not to overdo the next one I buy in case I do to someone else what I did to myself.