Is perfume the new body odour?

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Man if only I could make stuff smell like night air

I hate the smell of perfume and the way it makes it hard to breathe.

And the smell stays in the area for a really really long time, even after the person wearing it is gone.

There's a guy in my apartment building who sprays his nasty cologne on when he's going down the stairs to work. So opening my door is like entering a chemical warfare zone. Why can't he just spray the stuff in his own apartment? Oh, wait, I know. Because then his apartment would smell like a chemical warfare zone. Can't have that.

Similarly, the people who go out and stand right under my window to have a smoke are incredibly irritating. They don't want to smoke up their apartment so they stand right under my window (and there's no place outside that's not right under one of my windows unless they go for a walk to have their smoke) and smoke up my apartment.

While I'm on the topic of unwelcome smokers (I have no problem with people who want to smoke. I only have a problem with people who want to force me to smoke along with them.) I'm so tired of smokers deciding that the bicycle rack is a great place to perch for a smoke. When I come pedalling up, breathing hard from a nice, healthy ride, the last thing I want is to have to stand in a cloud of smoke to lock up my bicycle. Have a little common sense and decency and smoke away from the bike racks. guh!

The smell of perfume and cologne makes me feel like I can't breathe. Same goes for scented laundry detergent, fabric softener and Febreze...oh, and cigarette smoke.

Once when I complained about all the cigarette smoke coming in my window, someone told me to cover the window with fabric softener sheets. I explained that all those chemicals and perfumes in the fabric softener sheets would just make things worse and they said I didn't really want to solve the problem, I just wanted to complain and get pity.

Guh! Just because someone else thinks fabric softener sheets smell nice doesn't mean they don't make *me* ill!

Yes...there's one particular perfume around at the moment that's a real killer. Twice it's almost taken me out (brought on an asthma attack) once in a supermarket and once stuck behind someone in a queue who was wearing it. Don't know the name of it but it's deadly - if the perfume industry sold it to a neurological research lad they'd make a fortune and the world's arms race would have a new toxic nerve gas...on the other had, they could just use freesias, I find they have a similar effect

I have to confess to having a special interest in fragrances.
So I guess Im a perp.

Maybe its the Iso E Super which was invented in the 70s and gets used in everything from cleaning products to fragrances. Its kind of a large molecule which does have some similar structure to neurologically active ones.

There is a fragrance called Molecule 01 by Escentric Molecules which just contains the single molecule Iso E Super. Maybe give that a test.

Other fragrances with high Iso E Super are Terre d'Hermes and Encre Noir.

Seriously could something called this be harmful?
1-(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8-octahydro-2,3,8,8-tetramethyl-2-naphthalenyl)-ethan-1-one (and isomers)
International Flavors and Fragrances - Iso E Super

New Perfumes and Fragrances for 2009 and beyond

What a list! I've heard of perfumes that contain human phermones and are meant to mimic smells such as unwashed hookers, etc. I guess some people like that.

OK, here's a question for all of you who object to perfumes etc: how would you like it if there was a bouquet of lilac blossoms on your desktop? I believe it's not the chemical nature of these smells that bother you, that flowers probably cause you to have the same problems.

I can't stand perfume or cologne. I don't understand how people think that it makes them smell good. There must be some clever people in marketing at the perfume/cologne companies to convince people to buy that crap.

As aspies, we have problems with any of our 5 senses. Touch and hearing are the two complained of most often. Can't you see that this problem is in you, in a distorted sense of smell caused by your AS? Certain smells are grossly exaggerated in you. Obviously those things that cause you problems are very pleasurable to most people.

I got tired of commenting to people about other people's perfumes/colognes and getting the response "I dont smell anything." And I knew there had to be a worldwide conspiracy trying to drive me crazy by telling me that these extreme smells I encounter don't even exist.

Perfumes, colognes, flowers, cleaning products - these things don't smell the same to you as they do to others.

A Veterans Administration Neurologist decided to try an experiment to see if Gabapentin (Neurontin) would help me, and it did, quite a lot, especially with weaker problem smells (Nothing will help the overpowering ones.) I take 600mg three times a day. Note: it can cause dry mouth.

Yep, most of my senses are overburdened as well. Sight and hearing mostly, though perfumes and colognes drive me outside as well. About the only scents I like are natural ones and oddly, a few scented candles. One red apple one smells really good, and coupled with soothing firelight it's very nice.

But luckily it's not too bad where I work. Military aren't allowed to wear much in the way of perfumes/colognes. The old civilian women though.... *shudder*

I love lilacs. I love to frequent flower stands (can't stand closed-in florists but I'm pretty sure they've got extra scents going on in most florist shops.) I love to smell flowers I see growing (I once got stopped by a police officer when I was walking home at night and stopped to smell some petunias that were growing in a big cement container on the street. He told me that smelling flowers was "suspicious behavior.")

But floral perfumes are some of the worst for me. I can't even handle floral essential oils (I can wear some essential oils and don't mind them on others. Sandalwood is nice. Patchouli chokes me. Someone gave me a vial of jasmine essential oil and I had to give it away because it felt like someone was squeezing my lungs when I oepned it.)

I think I'm okay with regular flowers because ther're not as intense as floral perfumes and essential oils which are unnaturally concentrated and thus give me intense sensory overload because they smell much more strongly than flowers usually smell.

I HATE perfumes. Well, I hate all chemically smells. Stuff like bleach, and that stuff they use to clean the floors, whatsitcalled, cleaning agents, I think. Those air freshener things they use, too. Ugh. They smell TERRIBLE. Not just the smell, either, it feels as though my nostrils, throat, and bronchi are on fire or something. I get headaches, and feel naesous, too. Then you can't get away from them, as even if you leave the room, it goes everywhere and stays. That's actually why I buy my kitty unscented kitty litter. She likes a closed litterbox(she has privacy issues). I don't know if she minds, but I know I if I had to walk into the bathroom, and smelled it 'fresh', I would. Those smells aren't fresh at all.

I don't know how people can actually wear perfume and use that stuff, or be exposed to it at all. See, I don't know why in the world people even need that air freshener stuff to have the room smell nice, when it does the opposite. I mean, you could use, like, quinces. Those were actually the original air fresheners, I think. And they smell so nice.

I love flowers, and fruits, berries. More natural scents. Yet I don't like perfumes that smell like flowers, does that even make any sense? They're the ones I can't stand most. We have an orange tree in our back yard, and I love when it's blossoming. I love the scent of the orange blossoms coming from the tree, yet I find orange blossom scented perfume, body lotion and stuff, and yech.

I have a problem with oversensitve smell and this can be fine if the perfume is nice. I hate however, the smell of Red Door on the skin of other people. It is not quite so bad in the bottle but on the skin it takes on a smell that insults my sense of smell so much I cannot bear to be near a person wearing it. I have the same problem when some body creams mix with BO and some hair products mixed with head sweat. It makes me feel rather faint and I lose can coordination. Purfumes and sweat alone are somewhat bearable but not certain products with sweat.

Once I was in the computer lab, printing out a paper I needed for class, when the lab person started going around spraying the desks with some kind of antiseptic spray. I was fine with that, even when he started cleaning the desk right next to me, but then he SPRAYED ME! To be fair, I don't think he meant to. I think it was a case of clumsy, not malicious. But I immediately started choking and grabbed one of his paper towels and started wiping it off my skin but it was also all over my shirt. I tried to take my paper to class but I was choking so bad I had to run home (literally run) and take off my clothes and wash my body. I got to class in the last five minutes and barely was able to hand my paper in on time. Just barely!

Now, when I see them coming around with that spray, I tell them "please wait to do this section because I'm allergic." I don't know if I'm actually allergic or just sensitive, but I have to keep them away in case I get sprayed again.

The stuff they spray on benches at the plasma place is even worse, though. I had an asthma attack (and I don't have asthma!) when they were cleaning a bench two benches away from the one I was on. Thankfully, I don't have to sell plasma at this point in my life.