Do you wear strong perfume? Because you make my ruddy head ache and I wish you would stop. Everyone else thinks so too but they are too polite to tell you that you stink.

[FrannyandZooey]

I think that more or less covers it.

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Franny, you were probably as suprised as I was, when I find out your previous profession

Once when we rented a holiday cottage, we had the baby monitor plugged in next to a plug in air freshener that the holiday owners had provided. It leaked and corroded the plug of the monitor. This was a clincher for me.

I'm in the pong-free camp - both DH and I have v sensitive noses and even some shampoos are too much (Herbal Essences Fruit are dreadful for this).

We went away for the weekend and both spent ages trying to work out where the intermittent wafts of air-freshener type smell were coming from (no air fresheners etc in evidence).
Eventually traced it to hands recently washed in some abominally highly scented liquid soap in the downstairs loo - it was awful.

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Oh when we go on holiday dp has to go in first and seek and destroy all plug ins

there are about 16 in every room at his mum's, we hide them at the back of the wardrobe in a plastic bag until we have gone

am lol-ing at this thread.

I had no idea that smells could cause deathwishes from an entire neighbourhood, simply from doing laundry.

Especially love the pfb 'don't you touch my baby and break its new-baby smell'

Rumpel - are you Hannibal Lecter?

Am very intrigued by Angel...

years ago, I was hungover and accosted in a cupboard by my boss, who wore a pint of Obsession a day. I vommed in a nearby bucket. The vom smelt better than her fug.

What about those awful swinging christmas trees in mini-cabs? I have to open all the windows wide, whatever the weather or I would be sick.

I do not go into shops that burn incense.

In some provinces in Canada it is banned to wear perfume or highly scented toiletries in gvt offices!

MrsBadger - you sound disturbingly like the Princess and the Pea

I don't like air fresheners or strong fabric conditioner... don't like walking past someone who has clearly doused themselves in a bottle of perfume... but I do like nice smells - so a bit of essential oil or whatever perfume you like, just a bit though. I so agree about men - they can smell gorgeous with just a little bit of pheromone. The worst thing is teenage boys drenched in Lynx, that gets me right at the back of the throat

I don't see where perfume of its own nature is bad, just if it's overused.

Vapouresse, ENTP, Vapouresse.

It does smell lovely.

"Comfort Vaporesse is a perfumed ironing liquid which goes into your iron's water tank, making ironing easier and infusing clothes with a delicate, long-lasting fragrance. It also protects your iron from limescale."

love perfume but agree some is rather too sweet and cloying.

I love the smell of imperial leather soap.. it reminds me of first boyfriend.

Cannot wear anything that has bergamot in it, as get migraine and pre migraine get incredible grumpy as prodrome. this also happens with earl gray tea and took me quite a while to work it out.. and drat love earl gray tea. So wonder if any others who feel sick with certain smells have similar problem???

Expat, I don't mean that perfumes bought on Ebay smell of Febreze, but that clothes from Ebay always do.
To continue the grumpy theme, a few years ago one of our secretaries started wearing Dune, and it made me heave/start a migraine - I had to ask her to stop wearing it. All the oceanics make me want to puke.
I suppose what I object to is being assaulted by other people's choices of scent - I don't care what their houses smell like, if people want to live in a fug of artificial stinks that's their prerogative, but I do not want to be poked up the nose by it in the office/on the train/in a restaurant.

But what if the scent they chose is unwashed person? Arse? Feet?

Is that any less offensive?

I know two people who have to share an office with a man who really reeks of BO.

I asked if they're rather smell strong perfume, or this chap.

No contest.

But the choice isn't simply unwashed arse or perfume, is it? I expect your friends would rather this chap didn't smell of anything. I'll have a word with him if you like!

He's pretty bad. I thought they were exaggerating, until I experienced it myself.

Ooh this makes me feel all nostalgic for the eighties. Obsession, Poison. I wouldn't buy Angel (nineties?), but sometimes in a fit of nostatlgia I will spray it on if I am going through a department store.

I am a bit confused by peachy poo bags too.

I worked with a man of some size who was allergic to deodorants. He had the most awful BO but appeared clean, so sometimes it is a choice between one or t'other, and when you reach a certain age sweating will make you smell in a relatively short space of time. Slathering on cloying perfume to cover up the smell is nasty, but surely a good, clean smell of soap/washing powder/light fragrance is nice?

"a good, clean smell of soap/washing powder/light fragrance is nice?"
I think this is the point, GrumpyGeeGee, this is nice, what is vile and disgusting (in the opinion of the OP and several others including me) is a really strong reek of any artificial fragrance.

Urrrrghh, I hate Angel.

I think something odd happened to my sense of smell when I had DS1 - I went off all perfumes then and haven't really ever regained my liking for them. I occasionally spray on a bit of O de Lancome if going out in the evening, but never wear perfume during the day.