While getting ready this morning I heard on the news a story about a woman in
NY that had been fired from her job for wearing too much perfume. She had been warned twice after numerous complaints from her co-workers. Yet she didn’t tone it down and consequently was fired.
This seems to be a common problem in the workplace anymore. People are are in cubicles or sharing them only feet away from a co-worker. Yet many people come to work each day drenched in their favorite scent. It’s not only work though it seems to be a problem everywhere! Ever sat next to a person on a cramped airplane with heavy perfume? It can be quite nauseating and for many people it causes headaches or a full blown asthma attack. I’m one of those people who get an instant killer headache when exposed to certain fragrances.
The story made me think of my nursing school days. When we started doing clinicals and patient care the rules were quite strict and enforced! Absolutely NO fragrances, no nail polish (unless clear), short well manicured nails. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. A post-operative patient battling nausea and pain feels bad enough as is. The last thing they need is a nurse with a strong smelling perfume. I don’t know if that’s taught anymore?
I’ve certainly had my share of nurses and doctors that came to work heavily scented. Back in 1999-2000 I did some travel nurse assignments. One was in Milwaukee, WI working on a cardio pulmonary thoracic unit. There was one cardiologist that you could smell the minute he walked into the unit. Didn’t matter if he came straight from the cath lab or after office hours and making rounds. There were many complaints about it but nothing was ever done. I often wondered if it bothered any of his patients lying there on the cath table?
When I worked at a hospital in Ann Arbor I was working 7AM -7PM. I always dreaded giving report to a certain nurse because she came to work drenched in perfume. Giving her report on my patients that she would be taking over meant an instant headache. The nurses station is quite busy at change of shifts. You have 2 shifts of nurses, the one coming on and the one going off. Plus all the other people that are normally there. One evening while giving report (head throbbing) a Physician’s Assistant came in to make rounds. Upon entering the nurses station and looking for a chart he promptly called out, “what’s with the perfume?” Well that shut everyone up for a minute while most eyes fell to this nurse. Needless to say she began to tone it down.
If people don’t start using common sense when it comes to wearing fragrances at work we might just see more companies making rules like my old nursing school days ~~ fragrance free work place.
Technorati Tags: perfume – cologne – hospitals – work place
What is this thing you call common sense?
Elaine,
It was insightful to read about the issue from the perspective of a nurse, on one hand, and fellow sufferer on the other.
I am highly allergic to a variety of scents, including many perfumes, and also get the gigantic headaches. I don’t think perfumes or colognes should be allowed in medical facilities, or closed in spaces, where people with allergies and asthma can’t get away from it. I take all the necessary allergy medicines but there are still times when they won’t handle certain scents and chemicals. Burning lungs, lack of breathe, hives, and the need for an inhaler, or more, is far from pleasant.
I have had to move to the back rooms at church, sit at different tables in restaurants, and avoid certain people, where I was able to do so, because of perfumes, or even smoking. The smoking can also cause severe breathing issues for some of us. There are house-hold chemicals I can’t clean with either, and have to leave a room, or sometimes the house, when my hubby uses them while cleaning certain areas. You get very creative about cleaning products…that is for sure. =) Vinegar, baking soda, diluted bleach, and citrus, are all great substitutes for some cleaning products.
Common sense, common courtesy, and consideration for others, have also suffered in this “its all about me” age.
Hope you have a great rest of your week, Elaine! Big hug for dear little Poco!
Love and hugs,
Beth
A little splash of Old Spice After Shave after the razor use bit is about all I like. I could never understand how men would want to use cologne. Or, if they did, why they put a second dose on later in the day.
~Nooner~
Many times I have been either at the doctors office or other closed in areas with people who just don’t seem to know when enough is enough, I can remember one time in particular that I had to get the waste basket from the office nurse as one of the women in the office had so much perfume on it just made me sick to my stomach, they should pass a law no perfume allowed in any medical facilities……….or any other place that one has to be in contact in a close place to anyone else……..do you think the manufacturers will ever get the message. maybe after they ban certain perfumes……..
Hi, Elaine…
I have a daughter that is terribly alergic to pets, pollen, and chemicals. People who wear too much perfume are an anathema for her because she instantly starts to suffer headaches, running eyes and nose even after an allergy shot. There is a saying about dosing oneself with perfume. If it smells just right to you…it is too strong for everyone else. Very simple guidline. I rarely wear any but if I do a small spritz will do it.
Huggerz!!
Perfume is supposed to make one smell good… something subtle, to enhance, not to knock the surrounding people off their feet with an odor attack. Makes you wonder if these people know how awful they smell and how it negatively affects those around them?
Elaine,
How coincidental that perfume is on your blog today. It just so happens that a woman on the plane today over did it with a strong scent. I did appreciate the air conditioning blowing on the airplane and even though it was cold it diverted the strong scent away from me. The smell was starting to give me a headache but when the AC came on, it went away. I am glad that this flight which is usually full was only half full today and that you were not on it with me. It must be horrific at times for those who are either sensitive or allergic to these strong scents. If some one who is, had a seat assignment near her, I am guessing they would have changed their seat. I do have to say that this is the 1st time in along time that someone over did it and on a plane that I was on. Probably over 50 flights and I hope at least over 50 more. But I do remember it used to be more prevalent in the past, so, I do believe that most people are getting the message but sorry to say, Not All!
P.S. Love the new banner and layout!
Hi Elaine…….
ty for sharing this article……. my Mother has just come home from Skilled Nursing and I was there every day for 2 months….. perfume was a problem for sure….. several nurses were “written up” for wearing too much and too strong perfume….. after 3 times they were suspended for a certain amount of time…… but in all fairness a lot of people cannot tolerate the strong odors….. mild is o.k by me but I do not like the wildly popular ones……. maybe the manufacturers will see the need for a nicer fragrance…….
again.. thanks for the info and thanks for sharing with me….
Hello Elaine,
I am all for the common sense thing and, for Laoch’s benefit; “common sense, (or, when used attributively as an adjective, common-sense, or commonsensical), based on a strict construction of the term, is what people in common would agree: that which they “sense” in common as their common natural understanding”.
Whatever that means, we’ll have to ask the Wikipedia author.
I’ll settle for a touch of Nivea.
Take care …
Boy I’m so with you on this. I only wear scented powder myself and that’s not a daily thing either. I use to hate to get in the car with my mother because of her perfume which she would spray on right before we leave to go somewhere. She has stopped doing it thank heavens.
Thanks for well wishes for Toby. Leaving in a moment to get drains out, will update later.
Laoch – something harder and harder to find. Might even end up on the endangered species list one of these days.
He got his last shot today!!! Yeah done with this for a year.
Beth – I totally sympathize. We both have so many of the same allergens. I too have to be very careful around cleaning fluids and such or end up sick (literally have thrown up). Poco says, hi
Nooner – can’t beat Old Spice
Mary-Anne – boy that was one awful doctor visit you had. I agree medical facilities should be fragrance free!
Judy – good to see you again. I feel for your daughter, they’re miserable allergies to have! I agree with you, a tiny bit goes a long way when it comes to applying perfume.
Karen – like the woman who was fired, she knew but didn’t give a damn. Like Beth said, it’s all about me. Sad huh?
Gino – yep glad I wasn’t on the flight either. I would have froze with the AC at full blast or asked to be moved. Welcome back
Jana – I’m so sorry to hear your Mom has been moved to a nursing home. I know you did your best keeping her at home as long as you possibly could. Will keep her in my thoughts and prayers.
Ottavio – common sense…becoming a rarity
Janet – thanks for stopping in. Hope all went well with Toby today, he’s a beautiful dog!
Though this is off to the side of the subject, many people do the drenching in perfume because of a disorder with their sweat glands. They’d rather risk bad comments for “smelling good” than let people know they smell bad constantly… Could this be the reason this person wears the perfume?
I don’t like strong odors either, but I’d put up with that after stints in a automotive plant, a warehouse filled with food (seafood aisles) and other places of distaste.
I don’t think in your business anyone should be bathing in scents since their job requires heighten sensitivity to the patients’ problems.
I actually am not usually allergic to many perfumes, but my mother and sister are severly allergic. I guess I’m a guilty one when it comes to perfume (only one spritz of it, though, I swear), but my sister tells me I smell like raid….. I guess I’m a little contrary on this one, but there are SO MANY things I’m allergic to that other people do, and I don’t complain… I just realize that I’m allergic, and sometimes I’m uncomfortable in life, and cannot be around certain things. I’m not disagreeing that people should not wear perfume in a hospital, or that people should not overdo it in the workplace, but if someone wants to wear perfume on their own time, I don’t see anything wrong with it… Just my opinion, though… :-/
I’ve had to ask two co-workers in the past few years to please go a little easier on their perfumes because of the headaches they’ve given me. As tactful as I try to be, it’s never easy… that’s for sure. These girls don’t realize that although they become de-sensitized by the scent after a certain period of time, others can still smell it quite strongly.
Hi. I can relate. I too am a nurse. The nailpolish was disallowed because if was red you could easily startle a medicated and befuddled patient with the color of blood on your fingers. I think a nice fresh fragrance is fine..you know, inexpensive and “soapy” like maybe Calgon spritzers. That’s about all I wear so I smell clean.
One of our nurse practictioners used to come to work smelling like cookies sometimes..sickenly sweet vanilla or somesuch. Nobody ever asked her to stop it.
The problem with these scents is they are mostly artificial stews of hundreds of chemicals. And we humans cannot use these without paying a heavy price. Scented products, and those with lots of chemicals, should be banned. During clean-up of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, Natl Federaltion of Marine Fisheries [NMFS] found deformities in herring eggs and salmon fry at very low petroleum exposures–parts per billion, not parts per million. Living creatures are a thousand times more sensitive, a thousand times more harmed by chemicals, than at first observed. And that includes us.
I have MCS, or Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and migraine. Perfume can send me to bed for days at a time, yet when I tell my friends and family that it can also harm them I get a blank look. What’s more, we have created whole industries that manufacture poisons, pollute the environment while doing it, label them as scent or fragrances, and market them so successfully that people spend their own money to buy them and bring them into their own home to poison their families….now that is truly stinky business!
All fragrances are aromatic hyrocarbons of the terpene family of chemicals, meaning that they are made up of multiple units of terpenes equally divisable by one terpene unit. These fragrant terpenes are aromatic simply for the fact that they are polymers of one chemical “mer” formed in a circle. Aliphatic hydrocarbons are also made of terpene units but the “mer” is in a straight line. They are non-fragrant. Rubber is an aliphatic hydrocarbon. The latex antigen, the N-terminal hev domain, is in the protein that holds the shape of these terpene polymers together, whether it is a straight chain polymer or a circle polymer. Multiple chemical sensitivity is simply sensitivity to terpenes (therein latex), one of which is squalene, the Gulf War Syndrome chemical. Squalene is a precursor to human (and for the most part female) hormones. Note that the latex antigen, the N-terminal hev domain, is introduced into all GE (Genetically Engineered) foods. 80% of corn oil and 80% of soy oil in the US is GE, meaning extra latex antigen has been introduced into the food. Any comment or response can be directed to me at stephanie.ryan@us.ngrid.com. As a health care worker, I nearly lost my life to chemical and latex sensitivity.
I know what you are saying about perfumes. They are very hard on my body as I have Asthma and it makes it hard to do my job with all the running I do at work.
Perfume is one thing but strong smelling flowers and the pollen is a problem too. I wish family would not bring in flowers to my residents the pollen makes it hard to breath and makes me sick as well as perfumes do. I left work an hour earliy do to pollen and perfume. I hope I do not lose my job do to my allergic reation to what I ‘m exposed to so often lately.
To commen sense!
Tammie