No one would know unless they asked but I do have one type on insect repellent that has a very strong perfume. I think it is Cutters. I used to enjoy their product because the scent was like fresh peaches but the last few containers simply smell like a mix of over powering perfumes.

"Raye, they actually allow fragrance at gyms?! I am surprised and appalled, it must be unbearable in enclosed rooms with body heat and sweating intensifying the stench".

Are you kidding? You think they smell you when you walk in??? LOL. Men are MUCH worse at gyms, regarding overdosing on the fragrance. I don't think they put it on to work out, I think these people just overdo it for work, and come in with the the remnants still on them. I do smell fragrance on women a lot, when I walk trails. WAAYY too much perfumery! I don't understand why people have to put so much "smell" on!!!

Why would they have to smell you? I've seen signs advising people that a certain area is fragrance free. And gyms seem like a logical no-fragrance venue because working out in an enclosed environment full of perfumes and cologne sounds awful.

Check out this website. Think Before you Stink. Stinky

People who have bad body odor, bad breath, smell like they smoked a pack of cigarettes in a small enclosed room, or who smoke pot are just as offensive, believe me. These people are unaware that they stink, though, and probably wouldn't believe you if you told them so or think that you are the rude one for noticing The difference with perfume is, the person is over doing it voluntarily and think they smell better for it. They don't.

"I wear it in an amount that makes me happy"

Debby, I know you're a nice person but i hope you can see that if thoughts like this were to always prevail over trying to be considerate, then choices favoring oneself would always trump acceptable choices that are also better for others. No one would be considerate to others because they could rationalize it away with the reasoning that what they wanted to do for themselves was preferable FOR THEM and therefore okay no matter what consequences are to others.

Debby, I don't like cigarette smoke, bad breath, pot smoke or body odor any more than heavy perfume. But I haven't encountered the above on our daily hikes, just the heavy perfume. And that is why I started a post about it.

Body odor and perfume are really bad in an enclosed work space. Ask me how I know! You can't escape it and makes working very unpleasant.

Oh, Debby. We are talking about a person's HEALTH. Your choice to please yourself with scents could trigger a life threatening asthma attack in some, a severe headache, or a breakdown in nervous system function.

I just cannot believe that your love of perfumes would be more important to you than the medical concerns of others.

Some years ago after back surgery , my husband developed life threatening meningitis. For a year or two after a long recovery period, he was affected very seriously by strong manufactured scents.

Believe me, his health and well being is far more important than your love of scents. I'm not saying that he is more important than you.

The smell of coffee makes me nauseous to the point of gagging sometimes. Whether it's the roasted beans,unbrewed coffee grounds, the coffee brewing,or if it's in someones cup. It all makes me very queasy. Especially stale coffee breath. I can smell a coffee drinker 10 feet away. It is worse than cigarette smell to me. I am thinking about demanding that all coffee be banned, and call all coffee drinkers selfish,because I have an issue with a popular product,and therefore everyone who doesn't have that same issue should change their habits for me.

Oh, and my nephew has a severe asthma and a grass and pollen allergy. I demand that everyone rip out their lawns and flowers. And cut down your trees too. You selfish selfish brutes.(Or,he can carry an inhaler like a responsible person with asthma should and take a daily antihistamine during the pollen season) I mean, either/or will work I guess.

ETA: I will say that I find it an odd choice to wear perfume to the gym or hiking. Seems like a waste,like wearing it to the pool or to go fishing......

The smell of perfume gives me sinus headaches like I’ve been smacked between the eyes with a hammer. If someone put a little perfume on earlier in the day it will just be a noticeable ache but if they’re drenched in it eventually I’ll start feeling like I have an ice pick in my eye so I have to get away. The number of times I’ve had to pinch my nose shut and not breathe in an elevator is countless.

I used to belong to a women’s chorus which had a “no perfume” rule because I wasn’t alone in my perfume sensitivity.

Travelling in the car with my mother when I was young was hell because she always dosed up with perfume before we went out the door and if I opened my window so I could breathe fresh air she would accuse me of annoying her on purpose. I guess like other perfume lovers she simply couldn’t or wouldn’t understand that for some people, perfume is a real irritant.

Debby, while those other smells are indeed unpleasant, they don’t generally affect people’s health the way your “extra squirt of perfume” does.

Why would they have to smell you? I've seen signs advising people that a certain area is fragrance free. And gyms seem like a logical no-fragrance venue because working out in an enclosed environment full of perfumes and cologne sounds awful.

There would be NO real way to enforce it without pissing people off. And gyms don't want to kick people out. They have signs up that say "no gym bags allowed on the floor"...but every night there are people carrying their bags and sitting them down right where they work out. Same thing with using cell phones on the cardio machines. It is NOT enforced.

Do you have some tips, amylou, for how to deal with irritants in the air? How do you survive/ get around it? Do you wear a filtering mask? Avoid restaurants? Not go to work? Take an anti-nausea medicine?

Well, with my coffee smell aversion, I have found that accepting that alot of people like coffee even if I dont and therefore getting over it and dealing/keeping it pushin has been the best solution. Certainly better than crying that everyone else in the world won't stop drinking it because they may randomly walk past me one day. Once the coffee smell dissipates, the nausea does a little while later.

For allergies, I take a claritin as a preventative measure.

If someone is wearing a scent I dont like,including but not limited to their own natural aroma, i move.

I wear scented lotions/body sprays a lot. No one has keeled over in respiratory failure because I do.

Then you just don't like the smell of coffee-- it's a psychological thing? You can psyche yourself up against the odor of coffee and put up with it? If so, that seems a little different than your nephew's asthma for which he must have medicine on hand. People do die from asthma, mostly people who do take medicines for their asthma. Tragically, there are rare times when asthma cannot be reversed.

There are perfumes whose scent smells very nice to me. Some of them, however, will cause asthma. That is why I don't complain of people wearing stinky perfume. It doesn't stink to me. I just gives me asthma. I wish people wouldn't say "stinky" when they mean "illness inducing." Your lotions and sprays probably smell quite nice, amylou. But that doesn't mean we could all get over it, deal / keep it pushin anymore than you could do so in the case of someone driving a car on top of you and expecting you to deal with it.

Unfortunately for some people who do carry an inhaler responsibly that's not always enough. I have an inhaler with me at all times, ALL TIMES. I have still been so badly affected that I had to get to urgent care for help. Allergies and asthma are deadly! Not just bothersome. That's why they require people to be responsible and never enter any medical facility or hospital wearing scent. Oh how I wish I could just take a pill! Having to rush to a hospital praying that you make it is not something I would ever wish on anyone.

The WORST. Yes, THE WORST, is when you're sitting at a table in a restaurant and a woman walks in REEKING, yes REEKING, of scent. As someone above mentioned, too often a person will drench themselves in it as they're walking out the door enroute to the restaurant and will enter the restaurant when the item has just barely dried. It can be WAY TOO STRONG at that point.

On many occasions, yes, MANY OCCASIONS, I've asked to be moved to another table if my own meal hasn't progressed too far. Scents can easily overcome one's own sense of smell (and therefore sense of taste), and will completely destroy any possibility of enjoying a meal. Enjoy subtle flavors of wine or the food? Forget it.

For those of you who insist on wearing perfume in public - please hold off on applying it if you're going to a restaurant. If you want to smell nice, take a shower and use a good soap. That'll last you until later.

No, matthias,it's a physical response. The smell of coffee makes me very nauseous. And it does not take me "psyching myself up" to accept that not everyone is the same. Not everyone has that physical response to the coffee smell that I do,and no one needs to change to accommodate me and my issue with it. That's just a given. If I encounter that stale coffee smell in public somewhere I walk away from it. When I go get my tea bags, i hold my breath and move quickly down that aisle and back out again. I HATE that aisle.When I make coffee in the morning for the drivers and the day shift the door gets propped open during and after I brew it. The smell has only made me physically vomit probably 10 times in my life.

There is a dead possum near my office right now. It smells,to me, like coffee. Everyone else says it smells like a dead animal. To me, it smells just like coffee. I have been nauseous 12 hours a night for the past 2 nights. Great for my diet.

Lots of things trigger asthma attacks. From scents to pollen to chemicals in cleaning supplies to physical activity that is too strenuous. You can't expect the entire planet and all its inhabitants to cater to that. I am amazed that so many people think otherwise. BTW, my scents have never bothered the aforementioned nephew. He does carry his inhaler in case his asthma gets triggered. The last time was when he was at a friends house and the friends dad was cutting the grass. So....if you refuse to comply with my demand to eradicate your lawn,flowers and trees,you are part of the problem. I dont care how pretty they are. Somebody somewhere might have an allergic reaction or an asthma attack. How dare you.

A neighbor drenches herself in a particularly noxious -smelling perfume that makes my head spin. Even if I don't see her, I can smell the scent trail she leaves in her wake. Totally qualifies as a WMD.

I used to wear popular synthetic perfumes but I grew weary of the ingredients and their toxicity. I have started wearing more natural perfumes with essential oils. I wonder if they have the same affect on people's breathing. I hope not.

As I get older, I am more sensitive to scents. I don't mind a light perfume but some people wear way too much. I posted here last year about a woman next to me in a restaurant with so much perfume on that I swear I could taste it.

Amy - just because you aren't aware of anyone having a reaction to your perfume doesn't mean it hasn't happened. There have been times that I've lost entire days due to the sore throat, body pain and high fevers that are the result of perfume exposure and I would consider that a mild to moderate reaction. The person that inflicted this on me never know that what they did.

Perfumes are made of toxic chemicals, why anyone would willingly put toxic chemicals on themselves is beyond me. I see this as the same as smoking, it will only decrease when the population is aware of the dangers.

Chi, unfortunately essential oils can contain toxic ingredients that cause the same reactions as to synthetic perfumes.

Strong scents irritate my lungs. I have asthma. It's worse when I have a respiratory infection going on. I have had to use my inhaler, usually at work because someone was wearing something too strong or they were waxing the floors. The wax has put several people in the ER in the hospital I worked in and put one nurse on a vent in her own unit. It's not just a minor annoyance for some of us.

I was guilty of being inconsiderate of other people's sensibilities for years, I smoked for most of my adult life. If anyone said anything I would have a fit because it was my opinion that they were trying to infringe on MY right to smoke. This was due to coming from a family who all smoked, all their acquaintances smoked, most of society in our social class smoked, heck, even some of our physicians smoked, so we all smelled like smokestacks. Yes we were all inconsiderate and stubborn and didn't listen when we were told we reeked, hey, we didn't smell it. When I finally was able to quit I started noticing how bad others smelled who smoked. And I soon became ashamed because it finally got so I couldn't stand being close to anyone who reeked of it. I've also been offended by some who either douse themselves with too much fragrance or the particular fragrance that they use is just poison to me, immediate headache. I hated the deodorant brand that my Mother used - the fragrance to this day makes me gag.

I went to the hospital last November to have a portable IV removed from my arm. I had it for almost 3 days. I had never seen this doctor before. My husband came with me. She walked into the exam room and covered her face and didn't say hello. She said, "OH MY GOD! YOUR PERFUME IS SO STRONG! THIS IS A NO SCENT ZONE. THEY SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU THAT!" My mouth fell to the floor. My answer: "Do I look like I even took a shower today? I haven't worked in 3 days. I have NO perfume on, and neither does my husband have any cologne on!" "Well, you must have *something* on!" NO. NO we didn't. I felt so dirty because I just wanted that IV off so I could take a decent shower and have never been so insulted in my life. I don't know what she thought she smelled (maybe my husband leather jacket?), but it sure wasn't scents that we sprayed on ourselves. So, I'll wear what I want. Turns out, this woman smells things that aren't there.

I used to wear a dab of perfume to work every day...didn't feel dressed without it. But since retirement, I find I'm unable to use most of them as they trigger a headache in me. Instead I've been using a light lavender body spray after a shower made with natural lavender oils. I still feel dressed, but no headache, and it's light enough that no one else will notice...except maybe the bugs as they seem to bother me less when I wear it.

We once tried Gain laundry detergent. Never again! The clothes reeked with an odor that wouldn't go away.

I've even written to Avon to complain that one of their night creams was so scented that when I tried it, the odor was so strong it woke me up at night. Awful.

And don't ask me to go into a Yankee Candle shop!

I do try to buy unscented products where I can. I can remember in the old days when you were going out on a date where you would have scent in the shampoo and conditioner and then use a scented hair spray or gel and scented lotions and scented deodorants and then add perfume to the mix...and the beau would be doing the same...together you made a most horrible scent bomb!

Reminds me when my office (when I worked full time) was down the hall from the ladies room. Our maintenance staff got new waxy air fresheners and hung one in the bathroom. I began to get headaches and searched and searched the ladies room till i found the freshener disc. I threw it away.

When it comes right down to it, artificial scents are chemicals, right? Why do we want to breathe chemicals?

littlebug, exactly. I don't mind judiciously applied perfume, but I find scented candles, air fresheners, etc. very unpleasant. They put a lot of VOCs into the air, which are not great for our respiratory systems.

Our office building plant service filled the atrium with hyacinths one spring. oh, my, they are potent en masse! They were gone in a few days, i think we all complained of headaches. Ever since then I can’t tolerate the scent. My friend house-sat for us one week, and though we told her not to smoke inside she did, as well as on the patio. She burned hyacinth-scented candles to cover it up. What a horrid combination that was! When we got back, boy was I mad.

Scents can work differently on different people. My mother wore L’Air du Temps, I loved it on her. She usually wore it when going to a party, and of course when she came home she carried the scent of all the smokers with her. When I grew up I got L’Air du Temps for myself. I love it in the bottle, but when I put it on, I smelled like smoke, and got a tremendous headache.

And once, 2 friends and I stopped in a “chocolate store” that had chocolate-scented everything, including cologne. We all tried it on. On one of us, it smelled like brownies, on another like chocolate chip cookies, and on the third, believe it or not, it smelled like vanilla. Same cologne, from the same bottle, but on different skins. Even the gal in the shop was intrigued.

I don’t wear scents but I have to admit that I enjoy the smell of a light smelling scent. I volunteer at the library and every once in awhile some one comes in smelling just heavenly. It’s just a light puff and doesn’t linger.

My mother used to wear a perfume called Krystal. I think it was named after some tv character. It was horrible. I never said anything because she liked it and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. One time I gave her a ride to the airport and she had doused herself in the stuff. I felt so sorry for anyone sitting next to her. Next time I told her in advance that it wasn’t polite to wear perfume on an airplane and she didn’t.

i always look for unscented products because if I am going to wear a scent, I want to choose it myself.

Debby, my mother used to wear a perfume every day. It clung to everything, permanently. It was in the car, on her furniture, her clothes hanging in the closet, her coats. Heck, the smell would get on my clothes,

When I would return home from a visit, I had to put all of my clothes directly into the washing machine and my suitcase had to cleaned and aired out. I could still smell it until I took a long hot shower to wash my skin and hair.

When she would send me letters or packages to my home over 800 miles away, the smell of her perfume would come with them.

This was a result of her simply applying the scent in the morning. That's how the chemical molecules function, Debby. They attach to everything. You don't smell it because you've gone "nose blind" as the saying goes.

It's like that awful stench that wafts from a smoking person's skin, hair, clothes, car, and home. It doesn't go away until it's washed away.

I detest scents so much!!! Walking in the neighbourhood, smelling people's fabric softener coming out of the dryer, puke. Scented candles and air fresheners in people's homes, I get a headache. I absolutely cannot walk down the laundry detergent aisle without my eyes burning and having to hold my breath.

There are signs in our hospitals telling people to refrain from wearing scented products and every single time, waiting in admissions for hubby's treatments some lady would come and sit beside us reeking of perfume. Or being the next patient in the doctor's office, when the previous patient's perfume stinking up the air.

Oh, yeah, Hyacinths are the worst! And Easter Lilies. But most flowers aren't offensive to me with the exception of Gardenias and Jasmine. A slight fragrance is OK but not the really cloying strong scent. One of the most pleasant scents that a person can use IMO is old-fashioned Ivory soap. And when I buy a body wash or shampoo I go for the ones that don't smell like flowers, more the scent of fresh air at the beach or a green scent (not cut grass) of forests and moss, etc. Most of the air fresheners are horrible.

Like dedtired wrote, there are light pleasant scents, sparingly applied, that don't overwhelm. You don't smell it on the person unless you are very close to them. That's far different from those who leave heavy scent trails everywhere they go, and everywhere they have been. And thank you to bookwoman who mentioned the danger of VOC's, here is a link to an interesting article from last year, excerpt below, pertaining to products with toxic emissions which include perfumes as well as household cleaners and other products:

The deodorants, perfumes and soaps
that keep us smelling good are fouling the air with a harmful type of
pollution — at levels as high as emissions from today’s cars and trucks.

That’s the surprising finding of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. Researchers found that petroleum-based chemicals used in perfumes, paints and other consumer products can, taken together, emit as much air pollution in the form of volatile organic compounds, or V.O.C.s, as motor vehicles do.

The V.O.C.s interact with other particles in the air
to create the building blocks of smog, namely ozone, which can trigger
asthma and permanently scar the lungs, and another type of pollution
known as PM2.5, fine particles that are linked to heart attacks, strokes
and lung cancer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/climate/perfume-pollution-smog.html

Ritaweeda, I love the smell of Ivory soap. I think that’s part of the appeal of doctors, they always smell like fresh soap :)

Have u ever been 'trapped' in church behind an "old lady perfume" .... OMG, so suffocating, we had to move to another pew....headache, nausea - ranks right up there with perfumes in restaurants, IMO....

i like light, clean scents only!! but i do love the smell of downy from the outside dryer vent, especially in winter!! smells 'cozy'.

For all the anti-fragrance folks, in a nearby city a few years back, a factory caught fire and it was very difficult to put out...burned to the ground. It was a place where they had the chemicals to make commercial fragrances for detergents and the like. I can't imagine what the smell was like!

Annie' statement about the fragrance chemical factory fire made me remember that on a chemistry test, my classmates and I were surprised to find a page of molecular structure depictions of various flavor and aroma chemicals. We had to give them their proper chemical names.

I sure could not do that anymore, but I looked up a few that may be in your perfumes/ colognes/ candles/ laundry supplies/ cosmetics/ air fresheners/ lotions/ creams/ hairsprays/ soaps/ shampoos/ conditioners/ candy bars/ fruit cereals/ store bought pies/ ice creams/ fruit yogurts/ sherbets/ fruity cereals/ candies/ baby wipes/ make-up removers/ deodorants/ householder cleaners/ scented markers/, etc.

Here are a few with their chemical names. You probably won't see them written quite like this on your product labels. There are long-standing "common names" for these and many other flavor-&-aroma compounds whose common names might still look a little intimidating, but which tell less about their chemical composition. Moreover, in the case of foods, manufacturers are often allowed in the U.S. to vaguely just say "artificial and natural flavors."

STRAWBERRY: ethyl-3-methyl-phenyloxirane-2-carboxylate

CUCUMBER: trans-octen-2-al with 1-methyl-1octanol

JACK FRUIT or JUICY FRUIT: 3-methylbutyl acetate

CINNAMON: 3-phenylprop-2-enaldehyde

RASPBERRY: 4-(4-hydroxyphenyl)butan-2-one

BLUEBERRY: 3-methyl butaldehyde

VANILLA: 4-hydroxy-3-methoxy-bezaldehyde

GENERAL FLOWERY (ROSE-LIKE, GERANIUM-LIKE): diphenylmethanone.

I really can’t understand why someone would wear perfume or any scent to the gym, to hike, or fish, or whatever outdoor exercise pursuit they are doing. Besides offending most everyone around them, it is totally unnecessary.

I am fairly sensitive to most scents, especially fake ones in lotions, detergents, deodorants, and soaps of any kind and even dryer sheets. It is so dang hard to find anything unscented these days. I am the one you see trying to open and sniff the bottles in the store that aren’t unscented to find one I can purchase and use.

Oh yes, sprt! I have had many a meal in a restaurant ruined by someone coming in and seated next to us loaded down with old lady perfume. Of course we are in the middle of our meal so it’s hard to move.

Outside, here are some brands with fragrance free products that I've used, Free & Clear, Dessert Essence & Seventh Generation. Personally I find that fragrance free products work better because they're not relying on masking odors.

I've had a few meals ruined by pet owners who carry dog and or cat odors on their clothes.

Yes, it's just as offensive as perfume.

"Yes, it's just as offensive as perfume." Agreed.

I usually don't smell it ON someone, but damn walking into a house that reeks of doggie odors - YUCK. And a litter box is just as bad.

I remember buying my first perfume when I was about 14. It was Christian Dior's "old" "Miss Dior" perfume (they have changed it and it no longer smells the same at all). I was SO proud to own "real" french perfume, not Coty from the drug store.

I wore perfume daily until I started going to pulmonary rehab 13 years ago this August - it's not allowed there, and I now often forget to even put it on for church or going out to dinner. I've had several fragrances I've worn over the years" Dior's "Miss Dior", Patou's "Joy", "Guerlein's "Shalimar" in college, Karl Lagerfield's "Chloe", Piguet's "Fracas" and now Caron's "Pois de Senteur". What these all had in common was that they were classic fragrances known for being "subtle". "Shalimar" was the strongest but it was nothing like perfume today.

The first time I was bothered by perfume was in college when I think my entire dorm wore Estee Lauder's "Youth Dew" perfume, and the body wash, and the body lotion, and the bath powder. My gawd, on a Friday or Saturday night, one could smell that dorm a block away! The next offensive one was "Georgio" - it always gave me a terrible headache. Now, most of today's perfumes appear to bother a LOT of people.

What is the difference? No one used to ever complain about someone's perfume - in fact, one was often complimented on it. It's the new perfumes that are totally synthetic (no flowers lost their lives for these perfumes!), and have bases to make them stronger. They're awful - they are almost as awful as Febreeze, which makes me ill. Just try renting a car where the previous person smoked in it (illegally), and then the car rental company doused it in Febreeze. Prepare for a migraine!

Many of the old fragrances no longer exist or have been changed to the point of being unrecognizable. It's such a shame that this has happened, but nothing is very subtle anymore, is it.

Raye, yes, I use Free and Clear and Mitchum unscented deodorant and have for a long time. I’m just saying it is getting harder to find products like garbage bags for example that are unscented. Yes you can find them, but why do we have to look so hard?

The default now seems to be scented and antibacterial products. The overuse of antibacterial cleaning stuff causes its own problems.

People must be getting the memo, because it's been a long time since I've been turned off by another's scent other than body odor. I love scents, but I use essential oils in my home and on my body that smell less manufactured to me.

Dedtired, I think it's lovely how you gently informed your mother about wearing perfume on a plane. My guess is you made her more aware of how she may come across to others, and you probably saved her from many comments behind her back.

I agree that we go "nose blind" to how we smell. One of my sons used to over-do it on the body spray after showering. He had no idea how intense the smell was, so I let him know that it was pretty strong and he may want to just be sure to clean well in the shower, and apply the spray with a lighter hand afterward. There have been girlfriends come around over the years whose perfume was apparent, but they always smelled fresh and pleasant to me. But I think it's easy for younger people to over-do it because many fragrances are sold in sets (lotions, sprays, etc.) for "layering" the scents and they can quickly become overwhelming.

^^ Yep, we have a young male relative who overused cologne to where he reeked and left the scent on everything he sat on and everything he touched. I think he also used the same scent via shower gel and deodorant. He moved and we haven't seen him in ages, but I wonder if he still does this.

Be aware that most products marked "unscented" contain fragrance, look at the ingredients list they may call it a masking fragrance. If it's marked "fragrance-free" then it can't have perfume in it.

I'm noticing a problem with plastic store bags being perfumed. As soon as you pick it up your hand has now been "stink-em'd".

I actually like the trash bags with "deodorant". That's one fragranced product I appreciate.