Help! Drowning in men's cologne!

[icarus]

Gah! Gag! Choke! The guy in the cubicle next to me is wearing

REALLY HEAVY COLOGNE

Hack, hack, hack.

Am visualising buckets of water over his head. Sprinklers. Little storm clouds. A large fan. If only one of these imaginary objects would animate, my problems would be solved!

(You must understand, I really hate cologne in any case, give me good old-fashioned manly sweat any day. Gack. This is the cheap stuff, too.)

Comments

I'm just a random lurker, but...

[ridicully]

I feel your pain. Nearly vomited on some guy in the bus once. Would walking in his cubicle asking "What's that terrible smell? Do you smell it too?" be too obvious?

Re: I'm just a random lurker, but...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I recognize you - you've commented before. I was weighing options:

1) Lying and saying I had allergies (alas, I'm honest and have some - inconvenient - ethics).
2) Filling large pitcher with water and -oopsy- tripping right next to him.
3) Coughing and choking loudly, turning a fine shade of purple, just to make the point.

The water idea is winning so far.

LOL!

Icarus

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I commiserate. I hate cologne. The cheap stuff is, of course, worse, but even the good-quality brands just make me wanna run far, far away. And the worst thing about it is how industrial-strength it all is; get a hug from a heavy-handed cologne wearer and you end up smelling like him for the rest of the day. Blecch.

[salazaar.livejournal.com]

OH GOD!

Cheap cologne gives me *instant* migraines. There ought to be a law against olfactory pollution.

I feel your pain.

One thing that might help is putting something like Vicks Vaporub under your nose. Replace one smell with another. Isn't this what coroners do? Or, if you were an Arab woman in the Medina, centuries ago, you could attach bits of orange peel to the veil in front of your face, to protect you from the stench of the outside world.

I don't know if that last factoid is true, but I like it terribly much.

[loup_noir]

Tell him that his cologne is giving you a headache. The cheap varieties give me horrible headaches and my sinuses plug up. At a previous job, I was quite blunt about it and prevented one person from being moved next to me because he poured the stuff on. Nothing will change if you don't speak up.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Heh. 'Cept I'm a temp. That would be a little cocky -- I'm going for the tripping with the bucket water technique.

:D

Icarus

I like a man...

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

who smells of clean sweat and maybe a hint of cologne- but not an overpowering cloak of it. My dad smelled of soap (Pears)Bay Rum(a type of aftershave)and Florida water. My brother always smells of Polo, but he does it discreetly. My boyfriends out here(Oregon) always smell good- they uses scented bath products (Like Kiehls or Body Shop) so no need for strong Cologne.

Re: I like a man...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes. Wilderness Guru always smells faintly of soap, outdoors and maybe a whiff of deoderant. I've never dated a guy who wears cologne. There's a reason for that.

Re: I like a man...

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

Would that reason be...Achoo!?

*Wheeze*

[(Anonymous)]

I'd settle for men just smelling clean. I mean, it's not too much to ask, is it?

And women, for that matter. I was forced to sit in a meeting for an hour once, next to a woman who must have upended an entire bottle of Tweed over herself that morning. Gave me an asthma attack, and I have only borderline asthma at the worst of times.

We need a Campaign for Clean Air. *passes Icarus a very large fan*

Mad Martha

Re: *Wheeze*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No kidding! We're not French! We bathe every day (most of us, and those who don't are never the ones who wear cologne).

Gratefully accepts fan.

[thywillbedone.livejournal.com]

*runs around, plugging 3 fans around Icarus*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*breathes deeply*

Whew.

[thywillbedone.livejournal.com]

I hate that so much too. I don't fake my sneezes.*grins*