There are all kinds of rudeness, and perfume that anyone can smell if they're not embracing you is one of them. I'll bet Kathleen wears perfume every day and is suffocating those around her. But when she's hot and perspiring, she finally was aware of the discomfort she causes daily. Will she stop wearing perfume, allergen and migraine trigger to many (not me; I just don't like scents)? I doubt it. She has nothing to be proud of, and bragging to the world is just another example of the rampant narcissism that is bringing our society down. Her killer perfume matched her killer workout, I guess.
13
But some of those body wipes. I as a woman don't want to smell your sweat and "special" scent. Stop your gloating.
3
Tomorrow, don't use any!
5
A surprisingly controversial, "don't let this happen to you," self-deprecatory Diary entry, and so many entertaining comments to read before 11 pm - that's nothing to sniff at after a long day.
6
Our company prohibits employees from wearing any fragrance, whether it be in shampoos or soaps. If the HR Czar gets a whiff, you'll be sent home.
9
How about using "none" tomorrow. Your elevator captives will thank you.
11
Haven't perfumes in themselves become far more odorous? They used to smell faintly of flowers, now they're almost like some sort of potent chemical waste concoction. And teenage boys are the worst, with their buckets of body spray; you can literally smell them from across the street!
9
it seems Kathleen is sooo self involved that she thoughtlessly does whatever she wants- to spray or to bathe- cover up what she knows is nasty instead of getting to the gym earlier so she can shower & then does not apologize to others & cherry on the sundae ? writes about it here & includes her full name ? give me a break , enough Kathleen McCosker enough !!
4
Huh? Suggest one showers after working and before going to work. That amount of perfume in a closed elevator would have caused an allergy attach for many, me too.
2
'I think I’ll use a little less tomorrow'...use stairs instead 'B'...
5
Far more common is when young men use too much cologne - or aftershave or axe body spray or whatever - yuck you can smell it a mile away.
6
I always liked the smell of the morning crowd,the afternoon rush never smelled as good.
3
We all make mistakes, and this is more humorous then tragic.
7
How many floors? If this went on for 50 floors....
5
Perfume layered over stale sweat? Unpleasant, but there are odors far more unpleasant in the confines of a crowded elevator.
My spouse is asthmatic. This kind of exposure is really cruel. The Times itself is guilty because it allows perfumed ads to be inserted in the print editions. I have to pick them out and get them out of the apartment before my spouse wakes up.
12
You should have apologized or taken the stairs.
Rude beyond belief. And yes, I'm allergic. I would have had a 2 day headache.
12
Nowhere does the author say she didn't shower; I assumed she sprayed the perfume post-shower. Her contrition is evident. It's why she wrote the piece!
3
If your scent burns my nostrils, please reduce application by 90%.
6
As someone with allergies and asthma, I would have had to exit the elevator immediately and hope that the lingering offense of being near this woman didn't stick to my clothes too long, lest I have to go home and shower. Seriously, I hope the writer reads these and realizes that overdone perfume isn't just a stinky elevator ride for some of us, but the precursor to a migraine or asthma attack. I've had to fight to get some of the offices I've worked in to ban heavy perfume, because once it's in the air, some of us can't escape the consequences. And those who use it to cover up cigarette smoke or sweat aren't fooling anyone.
Please, just shower next time. The smell of clean soap and water is so much more of a turn-on than noxious perfume. And much less hazardous to the rest of us.
15
Exposure to strong fragrance could send someone who experiences migraines into a cycle of headaches that lasts for hours, days or weeks. What is wrong with you that you would do this and then write an article bragging about it?
11
I am one of the many people who are very sensitive to perfumes. I wheeze, I get headaches, I get violently ill. If I were on that elevator, I would have gotten off immediately. I have switched seats on buses and in theaters to avoid such people. I cannot jeopardize my health because someone has made an error in judgement.
I remember when my younger son was at the "Axe body spray" age (tweens?). It was awful, until I told him the trick to any kind of scent. I explained it this way: The purpose of any scent is to entice them to get closer to get a better whiff. If they can smell you across the room, they will never come closer. He got the message.
24
Perfume issue aside, I can't imagine going to work after exercising without taking a shower. If the gym doesn't have shower facilities (or perhaps they are filthy) then I'd use the gym after work. It probably wasn't the overuse of perfume itself that was creating the offensive odor, but rather that sickly combination of sweet perfume and sour sweat.
12
I'm not a fan of over-perfuming, but the author didn't say she didn't shower.
3
I think people are reacting to this in a certain way, because it was more of a "Sorry, not sorry" kind of thing.
26
LESS is always more when it come to perfume. Save money and just show your skin the bottle, like vermouth and a dry martini...
16
Instead of perfume, just take a shower. If that's not possible, then work out *after* work (not before)!
14
Right. I re-read this and also have to wonder how thrilled people in the gym were to encounter her scented trail, in the ladies' room or on the way out?
Problem is, if you say anything to the perp, however polite, they think you're the rude one.
10
"I think I'll use a little less tomorrow." Good idea.
And, yes, we all make mistakes.
11
My grandmother had an expression for someone wearing too much fragrance: "Smells like s/he's going to a tent revival." I loved the expression, even when she used it on me.
12
Perfume is like second-hand cigarette smoke. No wonder there were sniffs and grunts.
26
Your Diary entry is funny Kathleen. Because I am an historian with a particular interest in the history of medicine, it brought to mind an anecdote from the late-nineteenth century age of the microbe hunters. Joseph Lister (the mouthwash Listerine carries his name to our era), a professor of surgery in Edinburgh, believed Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease and insisted on performing all of his operations amid a dense mist of carbolic acid, used to kill germs and generated by his students using spray pumps. Before an operation one of Lister’s students was heard to intone, “let us spray.”
19
Interesting, Allen. Two things:
(1) I didn’t know that Listerine products were named after Joseph Lister. Thanks.
(2) You remind me of the old joke:
—What did the religious skunk parents say to their baby skunks?
—Let us spray.
5
Dear Diary:
It happened again. Another clueless New Yorker doused herself in perfume and headed to an office filled with humans who don't actually have any interest in inhaling her scent. It's odd how she holds her head up and strides out of a packed elevator, leaving everyone in it to suffer with her eau de toilet clinging to the back of their throats like high-fat durian kefir. I wonder if she thinks giving people immediate headaches is a charming way to get noticed. Or that making people queasy is a superpower.
I find it confusing that an otherwise sensible person would actually think her sense of smell reigns so supreme that everyone would find it agreeable - and those who don't should just have to suffer every second they find themselves within a twenty-foot radius of her.
I suspect a person like that tells herself "if only they knew how much the bottle cost, or the brand, their plebian olfactories would come around. See if the cloying film coating their mouths each time I walk by doesn't turn to instant desire at learning this magic potion can only be bought in tiny, exclusive shop in Paris."
I suspect too, a person like that tells herself "no one really gets an instant migraine, they just say that to be dramatic so I'll stop wearing it, but I won't because I should be able to do whatever I want, wherever I want, and if someone doesn't like it, I'll just spin it into a not very clever piece in the NYT"
48
I don’t believe Kathleen was in any way boasting about what happened. Indeed, her second sentence reads “I hope the people who were riding in elevator B will forgive
and forget.” Why she didn’t apologize before exiting, as she wrote she thought of doing, we don’t know. But I think her Diary entry clearly suggested that she was well aware she had made a mistake and regretted having done so.
30
Lighten up, Heisenberg.
4
Chill out, mate. She realized she overdid the perfume. But her "sin" was better than the countless number of times I see men spitting in the street.
4
Gross. Some people are allergic, did you consider that?
37
don't apologize; it's aroma therapy
5
No, it's not "aromatherapy." It's a sickening, toxic stink.
7
Not for people with asthma.
5
If one of those businessmen had been a real gentleman, he would have smiled at her and said something like: "A lovely perfume, if I may say... Perhaps a bit bold today, but lovely nonetheless."
26
Please, don't encourage her! She knows she used too much, but in fact any amount would probably be too much. No-one gets a headache or has trouble breathing because they're next to someone who smells sweaty - that's just a temporary annoyance compared to the actual pain that perfumes and essential oils can cause to those in the vicinity.
27
Wow - I am kind of amazed at the consensus that this was a truly horrible thing to do to strangers. I have experienced far worse from strange men and while reading really thought how appropriate it was, that this group of men was for one long elevator ride forced to deal with the expanding physical properties of this woman via her perfume, who they don't know. I have constantly been angered and made anxious through the over-expansiveness of men in a whole variety of ways and doubt that any of them have ever given it a moment's thought.
Of course one might be allergic to perfume - I am not contesting that at all. But how few ways are there for women to aggressively claim space in this world? This is one of the few traditional ones....
26
If we are talking about women aggressively claiming space in an elevator, the large handbag and the wide-brimmed hat are quite effective.
As for aggressively claiming space in this patriarchal world, why use a traditional female one? So far they don't seem to have worked all that well.
11