Tansey wrote:

Slight hijack perhaps, but it occurred to me while reading this thread that I tend to find one perfume I like and wear it for a long time; a year at least, maybe two. And I find that years later, if I catch a whiff of an old favorite I haven't worn in ages, I'm instantly and viscerally transported back to the stage in my life when I wore it.

I always shop for a new scent before I go on vacation for just this reason. Even if I don't stick with it for more than one bottle, I always think of the holiday when I smell it years later.

One time, when I was young and dumb, I bought a very expensive bottle of something for a date with a guy. It was horrible. He ended up being full of crap...lied about everything a person could lie about and make me cry like a baby. The worst date of my whole life. I threw the perfume out when I got home. To this day when I smell it at a perfume counter in a big department store a really dark, dark, mood comes over me.

Keep On Dancing*

Wow, thanks for the replies everyone! Ya'll rock!

I've definitely gotten some ideas here... I spend most of my time being a stay-at-home mom, but I also do stuff with my dance school and do contract work with my massage therapy. Due to the nature of massage, I definitely won't be wearing it to work for that... Don't need a client sneezing on the massage table for an hour straight!

Now that I have an idea of where it's okay/not okay to wear perfume, I'll definitely start figuring out the amount to wear for day-to-day stuff.

Thanks again! I love seeing the variety in the answers here, and I definitely appreciate the "do nots" of wearing it as well because I'd inevitably pull some sort of faux pas without your wisdom

^^ Definitely right - Calvin Klein Eternity and Estee Lauder Pleasures always remind me of my mom. I think I once offended a colleague who wore Eternity, by telling her she smelled like my mom! Mom herself was once given a bottle of Obsession by Calvin Klein by someone who forgot exactly which perfume it was but remembered the brand. Except my mom hated Obsession with a passion, as she knew a friend with BO who used to mask it with copious amounts of Obsession (rather than, you know, showering) so she would gag every time she smelled Obsession. I think she gave it to a charity shop as she just couldn't bear it. Tommy Hilfiger always transports me back to 1999 as every single boy in our year at school wore it. An Armani one of Tim's always reminds me of Egypt as he got it just before that holiday.

I know a lot of people put perfume on the wrists, but that never worked for me because I wash my hands a lot. A dozen times a day or more. So, it was kind of a waste.

kk~

I've worn my Clinique Happy Heart since I was 17! Last year I thought I should look for a new one since I'm now 23, hence the second perfume I mentioned in my first post on the thread (Benefit's Garden of Good and Eva). I like the new one, but eventually I decided that I still preferred the Happy Heart for everyday use (and my friends convinced me that it doesn't smell too juvenile). Got a new bottle for Christmas--yay!

Scents really do take you back don't they? My mom used to wear White Shoulders when I was a kid, I just see the bottle at the drug store and smile.

I LOVE Happy by Clinique! Love it! They're so quick to give out samples, you hardly need to buy a bottle, LOL!

I have a few, I usually pick up a clearenced gift set after Christmas, I didn't this year. I bought Kim Kardashians perfume last Christmas, I'm not super into it. Way more floral than I normally like perfumes to be. I also have Paris Hiltons original scent, which I'm not sure I've ever even worn, to be totally honest, hah!

I also have Cool Water. Personally, I don't much care for the way Cool Water smells on me. Having said that though, Jim seriously can't keep his hands off me when I wear the stuff!

I used to work on a perfume counter at Boots (which is why I find it hard to believe that people never wear it, we shifted gallons of the stuff) and I had a scientist come in one day. I knew she was a scientist as she asked for recommendations, and when I mentioned something-or-other to her she said she couldn't wear it as scents by that particular designer had an ingredient in them that didn't agree with her own natural scent and thus smelt like "cabbage water" on her. She'd actually run experiments in her own time to determine which ingredient it was so that she could avoid in future! I knew perfumes smelt different on each person but that was fairly extreme...

Lol, here's something funny to think about - a place near me is a chemist and they advertise their business as "janitorial supplies and perfumes" which sounds kind of, uh gross, but actually makes sense if you think about it. Perfume design IS chemistry. And this place will design a perfume especially for you based on your body chemistry. Because as ^ said, some secents on certain people smell like "cabbage water" or worse, lol. I would LOVE to have a scent designed especially for me! I keep thinking someday, I'll do that.

kk~

Oh that would be so ace. People would say "ooh you smell lovely, what are you wearing?" and I would say "oh, you know, just my own personal blend". Awesome! Naturally I tried to make my own when I was a kid - bucketfuls of rose petals and lavendar mashed up with water - but they looked and smelled rank.

You guys got me to think about what perfume my mom used to wear, she always smelled wonderful and so did our house. Now I am horrified about Louise's story of Obsession, that used to be my mom's "fancy" perfume. When I smell it it reminds me of my mother leaving the house dressed up. Her other perfume was Vanderbilt, that was just her normal smell to me, although nowadays I have no idea what she wears, but it is neither of those. Smelling Burberry for men from now on is going to remind me of my ex.

I always wear perfume, just sometimes applied much lighter than others. Usually I wear Burberry Weekend or Escada. I don't like anything sweet smelling.

I don't wear perfume, no one my age does regurally anyway, but I've been lusting after Daisy by Marc Jacobs for over a year now. It's just so expensive! Maybe for my birthday...

I'd like to add my two cents (scents? LOL) regarding when it's not a good idea to wear perfume:

I'm one of those people who happens to have an extremely sensitive nose - especially where perfume is concerned. In me, when I'm within noseshot (that's now officially a word, by the way!) of a person wearing artificial (or even partly artificial) perfume, it manifests as a sick, dizzy, headachy feeling and a nose that feels like it wants to shrivel up and drop off. I have serious sensitivities to petroleum derivatives, such as the constituents of artificial perfumes. In fact, I've even fainted before because someone sprayed perfume while sitting next to me in school.

Kudos to anyone who read that entire paragraph.

But to get to what I intend to say with this...

Ironically enough, I happen to love perfume. Natural perfume, that is. Yes, there is such a thing - perfume made with a base of a natural vegetable oil such as jojoba or apricot kernel, and scented with pure essential oils - yes, the plant essences used in aromatherapy. (If you've ever had a good aromatherapy massage, you'll know what I mean when I say it's amazing.)

Good natural perfumes have a lot of special properties - since they're made with aromatherapy oils, they have emotional and mental benefits. For example, my favourite perfume ('Niamh' by Another Realm Scents) has neroli oil in it. Neroli oil is one of the very best treatments aromatherapy has for depression - and I kid you not, whenever I wear 'Niamh,' I feel happier.

And since there are no synthetics in good natural perfumes, they're a much safer alternative to synthetic perfumes!

So, I guess the things I really want to get across are these:

1. Be careful where you wear artificial perfumes. Somewhere like school or an office building, well, it may not be a good idea as there's no way for someone who has issues with the perfume to escape without getting in trouble. However, if you're at, say, a party, it's easy for someone who takes issue with your perfume to move away. I've done that a fair few times myself, just walked away from someone wearing too much perfume. If asked why you're avoiding them, just explain their perfume is giving you a headache, and they'll usually understand.

2. If you really, really want to wear a perfume to a situation where there might be people unable to escape the smell, then try a natural perfume. They are a LOT more subtle and since they don't have artificial components, it's much more bearable for someone who has issues with conventional perfumes. Plus they have aromatherapy benefits.


Hope I've made some things clear and given some good ideas!

I never wear perfume, because i've never found one that "works" for me.

My biggest pet peeve right now (which I've never done anything about and likely won't) is that both my nanny and my mother-in-law (who babysits for me) wear perfume, so when I get home, not only does my house smell like a different person, but my baby does too.

As a teacher, I always have to laugh when my middle school boys discover body spray. They are far worse offenders than the girls are!

Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory! I experiences this all the time. Even the smell of a certain car air freshened reminds me of high school and this boy I was into.

I rarely wear perfume. On the occasions when I do wear it, though, I use only a light spritz on my clothes. Any more of it does get overpowering. Men's colognes, too, can get quite overpowering.

My favorite perfumes are:

1) Je Reviens
2) Oscar de la Rente
3) Laura Ashley

I can't stand the smell of the cheap perfumes found in neighborhood drug stores. These would include:

1) Charlie
2) Love's Baby Soft
3) Jovan
4) Wind Song
5) Jean Nate

RE scent tied to memory:

Je Reviens does and I guess always will remind me of my mom, as she used to wear Je Reviens. It was her favorite scent. It's really a lovely scent. It's made from iris and rose petals, so it's a natural perfume.

I do wear perfume, as I got a few bottles this Christmas and last and in these times, it's not like I can afford to throw it away.

While I do try not to be to offensive with it, unless it's very fancy I don't spare it too much. Where I live I'm assaulted by a numerous smells everyday (and too many unclean smelling people for one medium-sized city, IMO), so I'm not overly PC about my perfume offending anyone, unless someone specifically approaches me with a complaint.
That said, I don't wear Obsession or Opium to work, or any of these 1980s powerhouse scents, and scents tend to not last on me, so I don't think I've overwhelmed anyone so far.

Romance is a very versatile scent, it's clean and feminine, so you can wear it to almost anything, and if someone around you gets too fussy, you can even pass it off as a strongly scented body product, or shampoo, because it's not very 'perfumey' (unless you douse yourself in it, of course).

Thanks again for all the replies!

ClareJulissa, my mom is actually a HUGE "Oils" person- she's part of a company that markets therapeutic-grade essential oils and is wearing so many of them on a daily basis that she never feels like she NEEDS perfume. My dad got her an expensive fragrance for Valentine's day last year, and she hasn't worn it once because she doesn't like the idea of "smelling like chemicals" (her words, not mine).
However, my dad is actually allergic to some of the oils, and if he gets in the same room with a few of them he'll start coughing and sneezing like none other. The essential oils that my mom wears are supposed to be the purest in the world, so I'll just throw in that wearing aromatherapy oils isn't a guarantee that you won't cause an allergic reaction in someone by your scent. It's a lot less likely, but DEFINITELY not a sure thing.

Pog, it's ridiculous when boys start trying to figure out scents. I have 4 brothers, and 2 of them have gone through the "I walk around and knock girls out because they can't breath my cologne is so strong!" phase and one is currently in the "The more Axe I spray the more attractive I must be" phase. It's painful, lol!

I used to miss a lot of work days due to a colleague who wore perfume, it is a huge migraine trigger for me and I'd feel great till I'd get to work and then I'd be trying not to vomit as the room spun and my eyes sealed shut. I asked her to stop wearing it and she refused until my boss got a migraine from it as well as told her to quit pouring it over her head every morning.

At the hospital I currently work at there is a no-perfume policy. I am thankful for that. We get older people who must bathe in the stuff and it is just awful.

Ironically, I love quality perfume and wear natural scents when I am going out for fun- or I'll wear a dab of vanilla. Most scents don't get to me but a lot of the musky ones do, and man oh man is it bad.