Scentsibility

You know what I don’t get? Okay, okay, you’re right, the list of things I don’t get is long indeed, including how magnets work, why guys don’t use the instructions when assembling Ikea furniture, and why my mother is still to this day afraid I will be kidnapped and sold into white slavery. But what I don’t get today, what we’ll be considering right here in blog, is perfume.

Now, a nice scented soap or lotion, that’s a great smell. That fruity stuff from the Body Shop – mmmmm. Good old fashioned Dove soap is just plain sexy on a guy. Speaking of menfolk, I guess I understand the after-shave thing is as much about cauterizing your shredded pores as anything, but it sure doesn’t look like it feels very good.

But why does everybody want to smell like what Calvin Klein thinks you should smell like? Why spend scads of cash just so you can smell like everybody else?

I just don’t get it. I’m not one of those chemically (and often emotionally) overly sensitive people who are bothered by your cologne, and I will admit that until moderately recently, I only wore makeup when it occured to me and even then sporadically. I’m not too hip with the girlie-girl stuff.

I tried. Many years ago, somebody bought me a Perry Ellis gift set, and while it was quite a pleasant scent and I used it on and off, it used to freak me out when I’d smell somebody else wearing it. I’d immediately evaluate them, wondering what kind of person they were, if they were like me, if they were somebody I wanted to share a smell with.

Do you wear perfume or cologne? How did you decide what scent you wanted as your olfactory signature? Does perfume or cologne affect your opinion of someone of the opposite sex? Educate me, I must be missing something!

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

14 thoughts on “Scentsibility”

  1. Personally I AM SCENT Sensetive. I CANNOT stand when one over loaded my nose with a scent they think smells better than there natural odour. (AND I don’t mean B.O) Each person has his own smell and I don’t mind soap smells or other cleasining products but if you come near loaded to the max with some designer or not fragrance I will start to sneeze and choke. ONCE I sat beside a lady in theater and I had to ask my hubby to change seats I was on the verge of passing out and still sitting 2 seat away I was still over come by the scent. Did I mention when I was sitting beside her there was one empty seat between us?
    It’s nice to smell nice but GOD don’t invade my space or senses with your Expensive designer CRAP! So does this affect my opinion of the the opposited sex or the same sex YES….Get the “F” away from me! Your not missing anything Dani if you smell just like YOU!
    Scent challenged MOM

  2. I have never worn perfume or cologne. I’m not even a big fan of bath splash. Like you, I do not get it. For me, walking through the cosmetics department at a store is like going on a covert mission — the goal is to dart through without being detected or squirted.

  3. I’m a one scent kinda girl. I find a subtle one I love and wear it every day until I get bored of it. Usually takes a good year or so. I like that you can only smell it if you get nice and close and it’s a scent that just sort of tickles you and you have to wonder where it’s coming from.
    Love it.
    Although I have to admit I still feel nauseous when recalling my high school days where the girls came laden in Poison and the boys doused themselves with Polo.
    Not a pleasant memory…

  4. I wear a perfume that I love, not every day and then very carefully – because after almost fifteen years, I can’t smell it as well any more. But my husband tells me I smell like it a little all the time anyway. Most people who wear too much do so because they’ve lost their sensitivity to their own scent.
    But I love it – it’s called Casmir, by Chopard, and thank goodness it’s available readily on Ebay for not much because it used to be a bite out of the budget. One of the reasons is that it works with my body chemistry and smells good on ME. People should nevery buy colognes as gifts – it’s like saying, “I think you would smell better like this”. After the perfume has settled into my skin, it just becomes a part of me – not a cloud I walk around in.
    Cosmetics are one of the best most temporary ways to change how you feel about yourself. It’s just like giving your shoes a little shine. Perfume should be worn as a secret you whisper to yourself. There shouldn’t be scent wars going on all over your body – the Bounce versus the Gain, or the Odour Eaters versus the Herbal Essences Shampoo and the Degree and the breath mints. Everything else should be unscented.
    Wrapped up in my love for my perfume are the memories of how my husband’s friends said to him on the day we met “She smells GOOD!”; and of how he used to love the traces of red hair and perfume on his pillow cases after I left his bachelor pad. As well, of the story that we both realized that we knew and adore when enacted: That when Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner had a fight, to let him know she wasn’t mad any longer, she’d hold her perfume bottle outside the bedroom door and give it a little squirt.
    I’m not a cosmetics whore, but I have fun colouring my hair for the sport and wear base makeup to cover acne damage, and I have pale eyebrows and so I touch those up. Lipstick helps me feel “together” – it’s like putting on my game face before I walk out the door. Otherwise I don’t wear it because I like my lips free to kiss my daughter and husband without the resulting carnage.
    I knew my scent when I smelled it on a lark, and then wore it and felt happier and got only positive reactions. No one can identify it just by giving a sniff in my general direction. I’ve been asked what it is and then told it smells different on me. That’s how it should be – it should meld with your own essence.
    Perfume or cologne affects my opinon of others when it rings a false note – like they’re trying to hide something or be something they’re not. When my husband wears a little scent, I like to bury my face in his neck after a night out and smell the components – maybe some fine Cuban cigar smoke, his warm skin, a hint of laundry starch from his shirt, leather from his jacket. All together, it’s sexy.
    If you think about scents you love – vanilla or cucumber or rubber or leather, there are scents that have those elements in them. If when you put them on you, and you fe

  5. I will admit that I’m kind of a cosmetic-phobe. Seriously, and that includes perfume/cologne. If I wear anything scented, I’m always paranoid that I’m stinking up the room with it. I think that’s partly because I have no real sense of smell (I don’t include the imaginary gas leaks and burning buildings that I always think I’m smelling. Y’know, maybe that’s not normal…), and I’m always worried that other people can smell weird things on me that I can’t.
    Whoa. I just realized I’m a total freak, and that I should just get back to work. Carry on.

  6. hmmmm, I love scents and the chemistry behind how a good perfume has several notes and all. Cheap perfume is gross. The leftover chemical smell is nauseating. That being said, I abhore smelling perfume on someone from a distance (like that coworker who indulged in Poison, yak) it has to be subtle for sure. Scents on a person definitely tell me something about their personality. Over the years, I’ve gone through different scents, experimenting and having a few favorites depending on my mood and all. Aromatherapy I guess.

  7. I’m like you, I don’t get perfume. I never buy it and if given it hardly ever wear it. My husband is allergic to perfume too so there’s even less reason to use it, even if I wanted to!

  8. Dani,
    Can we talk…..Migraine to migraine…..
    I have lots..never wear it and have stopped buying it for Dh ’cause he likes to bathe in it and thinks that he can cuddle with me..I think not.
    I like soft subtle scents, nothing over powering..
    Barb

  9. I used to love perfume because I have fond memories of lots of people’s perfumes from my childhood. But I have been victim of 1) being seated beside someone drowning in Obsession or Bob Mackie or Eternity (why, oh why always these scents and why oh why always during an uberdull subtitled three hour film at the filmfest!)and 2) those perfume drivebys you get when you walk through the department store cosmetic sections that I refrain from using scent now. I do love (lightly applied) White Linen however and wear it if I’m going to be outside.

  10. I do own perfume. I own Beautiful by Este’ Lauder. One bottle about the size of my hand from finger tips to palm will last me about a year. I only wear it on date night or something special. Sometimes on church day too. I get a new bottle for C-mas every year. Because it generally takes a year for it to be used up. This year I hadn’t used up last years and so, I’m still on the same bottle about 18 mon later.
    I am not uber sensitive but it does bother me if it is overload of really cheap stuff..i.e. my mother in law…did I say that? OOOPS!

  11. I don’t mind when people wear perfume or cologne. It should be subtle though. There have been a couple of women at work who must put the stuff on with a mop and bucket. Yikes! They can be 10 feet away from me and I’ll still gag. I wonder if they know how much they’ve put on? I’ve always been too kind to tell them. I suppose an argument could be made that they aren’t being kind when they wear that much…

  12. I have this nice Aveda perfume stuff I bought on Queen St. I use it when I remember. But most of the time I smell like the nice soap I use each morning. (I am a soap aficionado. If I ever go broke, it will be because I indulge in good soap, good coffee, good wine, and way too much reading material.)

  13. Hey, I thought I was being brief up there!. Sorry. Perhaps I might have cross posted. What I should’ve said in two sentences:
    Perfume, do it right and it’s “you, only better.” Do it wrong and you’re Pepe le Peu.

  14. I’m a natural scent kinda girl myself. Love the Aveda scents.
    As far as guys, Gap used to make a scent called “Grass” and that’s just what it smelled like. Fresh cut grass. I don’t know why, but on my man it smelled AWESOME!! of course, they don’t make it anymore…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *