Mind your scents

Oliver Neighbourly Lead from One Tree Point

Hi Neighbours
Don't worry - this post is not about smelly socks or effluents. I'm only trying to raise some awareness regarding a very little-known and therefore often-ignored problem - being allergic to perfumes, fragrances, after-shaves, air fresheners and other good-smelling scents. My poor wife is suffering from that condition, and it has had quite an impact on our personal and social life.
At home we try to live fragrance-free, which is not as easy as it sounds, because there is not much choice when it comes to scent-free products. We can get most of what we need from ecostore, but in some areas there is just no suitable product available. For example we're still hunting for a fragrance-free shaving cream for myself, so that I don't have to leave our house for the next two hours after each shave, until the perfume wears off.
Shopping in stores and pharmacies with a perfume department or just being in rooms or spaces that use air freshener has become quite tough. Working with other people in a shared space, visiting with friends and neighbours, attending events or meetings, or going out for dinner or to the movies has also become a problem because unfortunately many people use scents quite liberally. Most perfumes are actually designed to be used sparingly, because they are quite potent, and only to be applied to certain areas of your skin, the so-called pulse points. But over time, as you become accustomed to your favourite scent, you might actually start using more and more of it, particularly if you measure the amount by or own ever-increasing threshold when you can smell it on yourself. You should only ever notice someone else's perfume when you're getting close to them, but many people are actually trailing a cloud of scent that you can still smell long after they've left or passed you. Here is a good article about how to apply perfume efficiently:
www.wikihow.com...
In some countries, like the United States and Canada, scent-related allergies are already well understood and recognised, but in New Zealand there seems to be very little understanding or sympathy for that kind of condition at present, because my wife is often facing astonishment, incomprehension, or even ignorance when she explains her problem. Hopefully this little article is helpful to increase people's awareness of it and maybe even prompts the odd person to become a bit more mindful of their scents and use of scented products.
Thanks for reading, and for those of you who are interested to learn a bit more, here is a collection of links to articles that show that I'm not making this stuff up:
www.stuff.co.nz...
www.womensweekly.co.nz...
www.nzherald.co.nz...
en.wikipedia.org...