Perfume.
It's such a pleasant sounding word. Sadly it's rarely, if ever followed by a pleasant smell. More often than not it's a headache inducing, nostril offending pong.
Today I made the colossal mistake of hugging a woman I hadn't seen in about a year in a half. The hug lasted maybe 4 seconds. The stench is still on me. That was 3 hours ago.
I will undoubtably have to burn the scarf and coat I was wearing. I was hopeful that the smell would dissipate after I took them off. As luck would have it, apparently my hair came in contact with the stink. So I've got a disturbing fog of odor lurking right about nose height. I suppose I'm going to have to burn my hair off too. The smell would be an improvement.
I was trying to place the "fragrance", and after 3 hours and an epiphany I figured it out. Narciso Rodriguez. Dreadful. Tell your friends. Seriously, pass it on. The perfume reeks and should be labeled a bio hazard, along with patchouli (obviously), Angel by Thierry Mugler and anything Polo.
Perfume is tricky and very personal. It's safe to say patchouli is nauseating. And no matter how you dress it up or muddle it with vetiver or sandalwood it still, and will always gag of patchouli. Ask yourself: "Do I own a didgeridoo?" "Do I have dreadlocks?" If you answer "No" to both or either of those questions ask yourself "Do I want to smell like a hippie?" If that answer is also "No", then put the patchouli back on the shelf at the hammock store your shopping in and swiftly leave. A similar set of questions apply to higher-end but equally repellent fragrances: "Do I own anything Ed Hardy?" "Do I enjoy Pitbull featuring Chris Brown?" and "Do I want to smell like the inside of an Escalade limo?"
Here's a few helpful tips to follow when dousing yourself with your perfume of choice. This goes for guys too by the way. You're just as, if not more guilty of over saturation than women.*
- Don't spray directly on your person.
- If you've just callously ignored the first point, try to limit the spritz to 'once'.
- To reiterate, patchouli is total rubbish.
The only reason I can think of for over saturation is that the offender's nostril-buds must be chemically burned and unable to do their job. Which is to warn their body of excessive/offensive and dangerous smells. I guess I should feel sorry for these people and their obvious disability. But I don't. Because they are disgusting.
It took me years to fumble through ounces and ounces of fragrance to figure out what worked and what didn't.
1)White Musk by the Body Shop. LOVED it when I was 20. Now, I can barely tolerate it, perhaps because after trying to wear it for the duration of 1992 it continued to smell vaguely of mould when cohabiting with my particular brand of body chemistry. Nobody is perfect. Clearly I'm not (see second to last posting)
2)There was my flirtation with drugstore bought 4711. Which to this day although heavily infused with alcohol, I continue to love, for the nostalgia factor.
3)Then there was rubbish like Tribu by Bennetton and a host of men's colognes that never worked. Fortunately even as an idiot teenager I never succumb to the aromatic chaos that was Designer Impostors.
Several hours later: After an accident involving microwave popcorn and extreme smoke inhalation, the stink is subsiding. Or perhaps it's just masked? This is more likely. Just like a 17th century French aristocrat, I've managed to conceal a nauseating smell with another only slightly less nauseating smell. And I'll continue to pile on smells until I'm mistaken for a pile of fresh laundry. I honestly thought the cold would knock the pong off of me. Isn't that why people "air things out"?
* NB: Men. Just because it's cologne doesn't mean it smells good. Just because you can't see it spray out of the bottle, doesn't mean it didn't.
