Perfume poisoning in Texas

A woman in a Texas bank sprayed "strong perfume", according to the BBC. Two people complained of chest pains and headaches. An announcement was made that anyone feeling ill should leave the building; 150 people did, and twelve were later taken to hospital by ambulance, complaining of dizziness and breathing difficulties.

Now, my feeling is that the vast majority of the 150 were simply grabbing a chance for a few minutes off work, and in general I think the EU's fussing about the allergenic potential of, say, oakmoss is blown completely out of proportion. Nonetheless, I have sympathy with the original two complainants. Because some perfume, while not necessarily allergenic, is just so foul that a person of nasal sensibility cannot put up with it.

It's not a question of "strength", which is a misleading term. Personally, I would find someone wearing the pure parfum of No 5 or Mitsouko unobjectionable, and, in fact, entirely pleasant to be around. Meanwhile, the eau de toilette of many celebrity perfumes – or even something so mild as Lynx/Axe or Impulse body spray – can seriously gross me out. It's a question of quality, and that comes down to composition, ingredients, and intent of the perfumer.

Most perfume is sold in Duty Free, department stores or chemist shops, and this is the key to the problem. In those enclosed spaces, the environment quickly fills up with a high-level chemical hum, which obliterates any subtle notes. To sell, a perfume or body spray must stand out from the crowd. One way to do this is to make it incredibly aggressive. After smelling, say, five or ten similar scents, most buyers are so confused and exhausted that something which smells powerful and different will appeal.

The results are obvious, and probably the reason so many people claim to dislike perfume. I can see where they're coming from: I dislike at least 90% of perfumes. I have on more than one occasion had to move tables at a restaurant on account of somebody else's bad perfume. I've had to scrub bad perfume off my own arms. As Beverley Sutphin has observed, being stuck with bad perfume on a flight is intolerable. Just last week, I was stuck at a restaurant between two women, both of whom were wearing different bad perfumes: the combination was particularly dire, and actually put me off my food. I concur entirely with those people who claim a noseful of something offensive may have a physical effect.

The real question, though, is what perfume caused it? The reports give no clue, but there are so many possibilities! The ones I've had to move away from or scrub off include, of course, Angel, Amarige de Givenchy, a revolting and shockingly overpriced perfume by Lalique once sprayed on me in Roja Dove's shop at the top of Harrod's, and Cinema by Yves Saint Laurent. And the obvious culprits could include Giorgio Beverly Hills – allegedly banned by some shops and restaurants in the 1980s – or the famously wrecking-ball fragrances of Poison or Opium.

Any more guesses? What perfume might make you evacuate the building and call in a HazMat team?

On Pretension

New perfumes! New perfumes! Let's get unwrapping and see what we've got.

Lovely. Rose Noir, Eau de Parfum, nice classy white box. No problems there other than it's huge compared to a bottle of perfume. What's inside?

Er... another box. Good good. With some symbolism. A crown, and a Trivial Pursuit counter, and a thing that's a bit like an aleph with an extra bit. Now we have to break two seals to get in.

Bottle, excellent. What's that on the right?

Oooh, a tiny envelope! Maybe it's ingredients? That would be boring. Or a nice little message from Gorman? Perhaps thanking me for buying his lovely fragrance, like you get with Amouage?

The text reads:

The edges of its petals begin to blacken, and yet the classic damascene rose is no less beautiful--its scent no less evocative. But of what? Not of innocence, nor prurience. No, it's something subtler, something sophisticated yet animal, the aura of Baudelaire. The rarest flowers mingling their fragrance. The Oriental splendor, might whisper: restraint and order, bless; luxury and voluptuousness.

Oh, for god's sake, what the hell is that all about? Why is it that, so often, people writing about perfume descend into rubbish (and slightly illiterate) fifth-form poetry? It's not even poetry, it's faux poetry - fridge poetry, the Vettriano of poetry. It is utterly pretentious and awful. I can just imagine the copywriter staring dreamily at the Lady of Shalott poster above their desk and composing their horrible prose. "It smells of roses... no... too abrupt. It smells of the scent of roses carried on the breeze... much better! What kind of breeze? Oh... It smells of the scent of roses carried on the breath of lovers... wonderful! 'Smells' is clumsy... how about... It resonates with the scent of roses carried on the breath of tragic lovers... I'm a genius."

So much writing about perfume is packed with these kinds of adolescent flights of fancy which tell you nothing whatsoever about how the bloody thing smells. I'm not suggesting that we should replace all perfume writing with dry lists of ingredients, but that we should use comparisons that have meaning - does it smell of libraries? Does it make you think of the sea? Does it remind you of a walk in the woods in the summer? Maybe. Does it whisper 'restraint and order'? Is it evocative of the aura of Baudelaire? I doubt it. I hate it when I spot a piece on perfume and discover, upon reading, that it's nothing about perfume at all, but rather a piece of GCSE-level free association with all the sophistication of My Chemical Romance lyrics.

Let's see how Frédéric Malle does it, shall we?



A black box. With a bottle in it. Full marks to Monsieur Malle.