Relive the nightmare-your worst

Les Parfums de Rosine Rose d'Homme.
It has got to be the lavander/vanilla combo. Caron Pour un Homme is the only other fragrance I ever had that reaction to.
Both are vile. VILE! :P

People may think I`m nuts, but I can`t stand Femme(Rochas). I think it smells of rottening plums. This frag is my nightmare :P

BE DELICIOUS :-/

OMG!

Can one ever recover from the multiple traumas of the steroidal, super-perfumes
of the 80's: Giorgio, Opium (80's style), and the especially irredeemably horrid,
synthetic Tea Rose?

Like there are now "No Cell Phone" signs at restuarants today, and "No cigar"
signs in the 90's, there were actually "No Opium or Giorgio" signs in New York
restaurants then.

There was a Giorgio boutique on 57th street Â*that had an automated spritzer
mounted to the outside of the shop which dispensed noxious quantities of Giorgio!
onto the sidewalk air every few seconds. Hideoous air polution.

I seroiusly contemplated sabotage such as procuring a live skunk and a small rug
for claw-traction and leaving him teathered to their doorknobs some night to do his
thing. Â*But alas, skunks are not easy to come by in Manhattan and besides it would
have been animal cruelty to subject that innocent creature to Giorgio. Â*:

Any scent with musk in it :-X :-X :-X

Dzing!, Mechant Loup and Pimente Brulante(sp?)(the jalapeno frag) unfortunately all L'Artisan, but also my worst nightmares :'(
You shouldn't get cold spine shivers from smelling a frag.

Oh and also most rose scents (tea rose) blagh!

One of the 80's frags was hideous. It was called Santa Fe, and I swear I've seen it for sale somewhere still at an online perfumery. I tried a small spritz of it while walking through Walgreen's Drug Store years ago and I couldn't wash the hateful stuff off. Absolutely gagging.

The other that comes to mind is the Inoui fake I got stuck with. At least it washes off. :-/

Two instantly come to mind: Bath & Body Shop's Cucumber & Melon & Gucci Rush.

Cucumber & Melon was worn by a person on the floor who sprayed it on her hot flashing & sweating menopausal body till it permeated the very heating & cooling ducts throughout the entire office building. You could smell it EVERYWHERE! In the elevators, in the hallways, in the bathroom, in the lunch room, oh my god I am at the point now where if I am in a BBS now buying hand lotion & I smell Cucumber & melon being sprayed, my nose does a 5-alarm alert & I have to bolt out of the store before I literally wretch my guts out. To me, itis the #1 NASTY on my list of all-time hated fragrances.

#2 is Gucci Rush. Another person of interest in her early 20's on the same floor wears this. The tehing is, she BATHES in it. I'm betting one little red square box of Gucci Rush lasts her all of two days, if at most. Every time I pass by her doorway in the hall, I hold my breath till I turn blue.Better to turn blue than to risk toxic shock to the lungs by inhaling that vile, dastardly potion from hell. After she leaves the office at night, you can still smell the f'ing crap in the halls. It makes me want to go on a Kourous, Opium & Karma ramapage and wear all three to work one day at the same time!!! [smiley=evil.gif] [smiley=evil.gif] [smiley=evil.gif] [smiley=evil.gif]
Not only that, Rush has been known to cause severe allergic reactions around people in department stores. I actually witnessed a woman who was shopping near a Gucci counter when someone directly across happened to be spraying on some Rush. She quickly whipped out her inhaler and the SA started fanning the air away from her so that she could breathe.
At first I thought it was because these people applied the scents with a heavy hand, but, truth be told, we have recently moved to larger office quarters and I can say this much - I didn't have to look at any seating chart in order to find out what floor I was on. I just followed the flippin' Cucumber & melon stench! LOL ;D [smiley=grin.gif] [smiley=grin.gif]

Do not remember any fragrance that would make me gag or cause allergies, but then, I am not allegic to anything, I hope.

However, last year, around its hottest days in August, we had a co-worker who would come to work three days in a row wearing too much of Beautiful. Not a bad fragrance, but not on her and not in the amounts she was putting on. I agree with RitaMae -- the whole building was stinking of it.

L'Eau D'Issey can be unbearable on the wrong person, too. Same with Passion, White Diamonds and Sunflowers. Amazingly, those last three plus aforementioned Giorgio and Tommy Girl (which is, again, just an OK fragrance) are best sellers at the drug store where I work.

I've told this story once before I think, but when I first got to spritz Joy it was with such hope in my heart because my name is Joy. The aldehydes promptly placed two figurative thumbs on my throat and began to throttle me. I trotted out to the fountain in front of the EPCOT French Pavillion perfumery and performed a surgical scrub in front of all the tourists. The combination of dashed hopes and public humiliation has probably made any relationship with this frag irretrievable.

I can't think of a perfume that I hate so much - but Kenzo. ( the original and difficult to find one!) once made my sister in law throw up when she caught a waft. She had had quite a bit to drink, admittedly. Still, it did put me off for a while.

Generally, aldehydes turn my stomach. And ( sacriledge, I know) a whole lot of Caron fragrances. There's something in all of them that hates me, I swear.

I know what you mean, especially En Avion

First time I tried Samsara I couldn´t get home quick enough to wash and wash it off.
But I am wearing it and loving it as we speak. Â*

Mmmmmmmmmm....

The only perfume that has made me gag is Beyond Paradise.
Beyond rotten fruit, it's almost in another dimesion, a dimension where fruit are enslaved, beaten with smelly sticks, left to scorge in the suns, brought to sewers were they rot against their will (poor fruit, they don't deserve such treatment).

It reminds me of that pityful cage were they zoo kept those poor lions (they're meant to roam the land, not keep imprisoned), while the monkeys, in the cage next to it, throw pieces of lechoza (a tropical type of papaya) they've smired with monkey B.O. to the lions...

Oh my gosh do I remember those days. Â*I can actually take Opium but Giorgio and Poison still trigger my gag reflex! Â*They just overpowered and overwhelmed everything.

BTW "Hi all". Â*I'm new to the list and look forward to getting to know everyone better.

"HI" back to ya drlake66. Â*Glad to see you here - you are a welcomed addition!

JAG

LOLLLLLLLL RitaMae! Â*Cucumber and melon even sounds like a gagging combo! Â*I had a lavender and vanilla combo from Suds & Light that was mighty awful, but the sink stunk of it for a couple of days after I washed it away.

Thanks JAG. Â*I'm pretty excited to be here.

Thanks Shycat But trust me, sharing every stray thought I have might get dangerous ;D

Anyway, I think in many cases it is a question of dosage. I had many scents I tried and they were terribly sharp and cloying. After a few moments many of them (not all for sure) turned fantastic. E.g. Chloe Narcisse - especially nice scent if you use it very slightly - it is a delikatesse. It's my experience with most frags.

I had an instant dislike to Alien this year, RAN RAN RAN to scrub it off ASAP.

And also Gaultier2, I was SO wanting to like it and it gave me an instant headache, and WOULD not come off of me!!

without a doubt Diptyque's L'Autre

yuck...pure and simple.

p.s. - I LOVED Velevet Rope and ALLIEN!

Hi JAG! I'm new(ish) too. I've been bouncing around here for some time but have not read the forums often.

My scent nightmare: About two years ago, I ordered several samples from Aedes. Serge Lutens Fleurs d'Oranger was among them. I had been wild about orange blossom scents for several years and expected this to be the crowning achievement to add to my collection. I opened the sample, dotted some on my wrist, and before my nose even got within a foot of my wrist, I was overwhelmed by old-person-with-bad-hygeine-and-too-much-perfume smell. It only took about ten minutes of olfactory torture before I hit the bathroom and scrubbed in the smelliest soap I could find. It was one of those situations, though, where no matter how much or how long I scrubbed, I could not make that horrid smell go away. I think by that time it had embedded itself in my nose.

I can't wear an orange blossom fragrance to this day.

My most memorable secondhand nightmare was with an office assistant who used to bathe in White Shoulders. One day our normally quiet and sweet comptroller came out of his office and stated to her: Sheila, I can smell you all the way in my office with the door shut. You need to get a new perfume, or less of the old one.

Quarry

And not only for you, Quarry. The name has been desecrated forever for everyone I would expect. Alas, what Proctor and Gamble (makers of Â*supermarket products such as Tide, Folgers and Febreeze) now passes off as Jean Patou's once glorious Joy -- a supposedly sublime, somewhat green, blend of Rose and Jasmine -- is but a synthetic shadow of itself. Â*

There is word, however that Guerlain will be releasing, or rather reintroducing, a new Fragrance, Ode, which is fairly close to the 1935 Patou vintage Joy (which was not classed as an aldehydic as say, Cahnel no. 5 was/is), and might be a better bet. Probably not enough to change your name over though. Ode was originally created in 1955 and was the last perfume composed by Jacques Guerlain.

Absolutely. Even if I love a frag, it can be gagworthy when overapplied. Also, there are some fragrances I only enjoy in the tiniest of possible doses -- then they're lovely. I spritzed a tiny bit of Knowing on my wrist yesterday and was NOT happy with it. Wanted to get it off ASAP. After scrubbing, though, I found the residue to be quite nice.

That said, I seriously dislike Angel. I respect that it was a trailblazer, yadda yadda, but to my nose it's cloying dirt mixed with BO. I actually like patchouli, but not in this mix.

Another fragrance that made me ill is L'Instant by Guerlain. I made the mistake of spritzing it on my coat, so I got to smell it for DAYS. Why is it the scents we dislike seem to have the most staying power?

I tend to have problems with certain notes - Muguet is one. The worst reaction to that note was in i Profumi di Firenze's "Mughetto di Primavera". Absolutely searing, vile, and harsh. It was way beyond the typical Death By Flowers. We're talking Chernobyl.
I also had problems with their Iris di Firenze, but that one only stunk on me, and wasn't the level 5 emergency of Mughetto.
I too can have variable and vile reactions to the older floral Carons. Sometimes they will be acceptable, though not bottle worthy, and at other times, they turn on me. A very dysfunctional relationship not worth pursuing.

My daughter had a boyfriend in high school who was a cute, vain, sweet guy. We invited him to our homestead for a weekend, and he brought an amazing assortment of fancy casual clothes and an absolutely huge bottle of Polo, which was old and just starting to turn. He reeked of it. He and his friend slept in our unfinished cabin, and somehow at some point, his Polo bottle broke. The next week we kept smelling Polo in the air, and joked we could still smell him. But when we opened the door to the cabin and were hit with a wall of rancid Polo, we were horrified. It took the entire summer to dissipate, as it had soaked into the plywood on the floor. It would have been a lot more tolerable if the Polo had been fresh. Everytime I smell Polo, I think of that summer.

Most Diptyque (excluding the new one and Oyedo), they smell like old wet rotten pot pourri!

Can I say A*Men on the womens board? Angel is a close second! I do rather like Alien mind you, and as for Gaultier 2, well I'm on my 8th bottle! Yup its nuts I know!

;D

Wait a minute. Your name isn't Quarry? Â*Next you'll be telling me Flathorn, Shycat and Musse are pseudonyms, noms de guerre. And my real name is Vetiver.

A lot of us mention attempts to scrub away the offending scent without any luck. Try Noxzema. It works.

Another thought that just came to mind: Curel Hand Sanitizer or Lysol Antibacterial Hand Gel. I always have some with me when I take my nieces and nephews to the zoo, etc. I wonder if that would work? (Apres spray with Guerlain Vetiver - known for longevity - and a 'hand washing' with both products.) Well, kinda. Stick to Noxzema.

Ok, I'm going to say this and run and hide, because I know many here like it (and recommend it to others), but for me it's Tabu. I cannot stand it in any way, shape or form. I find it thoroughly disgusting, and it literally makes me gag.

I get nauseous just thinking about it.

Ew.

LOL.... You certainly have a very active imagination.
Among the few fragrances that I purchased blind and end up tossing right into the trash can were:

Â* Â*o Â*Odeur 53 by Comme des Garçons -- They call it anti-perfume; I couldn't agree more.
Â* Â*o Â*Monsieur de Givenchy II by Givenchy -- Rancid! Â*Has absolutely no resemblance to the original masterpiece.
Â* Â*o Â*Mambo for Men by Liz Claiborne -- A very hollow, directionless scent.

There's something about Dune (for women) that I absolutely cannot stand. It makes me feel sooooo nauseated.

I recently tried a new fragrance from Montale called Sandflower. I have NEVER been so grossed out by a smell on my actual body. The designer of the scent somehow managed to exactly capture that lovely smell of rotting seaweed at the edge of any beach along with the decomposing small animals that make up the biosphere of the ocean shores. It should have been called Sandflies. [smiley=tongue.gif] and....I couldn't get it off! I scrubbed, showered, abraised, used alcohol (the rubbing kind, the other came later) and then tried to drown it first with a strong green (Kenzo) which faded and left the Sandflower smell and then I covered it with Cedre' which at least distracted me so I could get through the rest of the day without vomiting. That night I showered again, and I could still catch a whiff of it. Just in case anyone wants to try it, it does last.... :-X

(Thanks for the noxema trick BTW)

When I was a teenager, I wore this fruity, nauseating teeny-bopper body mist called Malibu Musk. I loved it at the time, but in retrospect, it was melony and disgusting!

I remember one time on a family vacation I sprayed that stuff in the hot, stuffy car and my family got so mad at me. [smiley=laugh.gif]

Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds is genuinely hideous!
It looks such a yucky colour to start with and smells
of tacky dance halls. I also don't like Samsara much -
about the only Guerlain I don't rate highly.

I actually don't like any of Elizabeth Taylor's fragrances. I find them all to be incredibly cheap and sharp. <-------- do not take this the wrong way, I'm only speaking about how they smell on me.

I'd much rather have her jewels. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I would consider having her eyes, too, but I like mine more, even though they're not violet.

Hi, I'm new ,too. I hope to join in as I've just developed a peculiar desire to smell everything you all are talking about. I have been ordering as many samples as I can find.

I have to agree with the White Shoulders and Tabu verdict. They are outstandingly wretched. Isn't it funny how scents can evoke people and places and times so powerfully? I think that's why I have been searching so hard for the perfect fragrance that stays pleasant all the way through, one that I look forward to each time. It stimulates those happy thoughts if you get the right one, it's kind of a miracle.
I'm amazed at all the bad scents out there. It seems like they always discontinue the good ones. By the way, I just tried Chanel #5 again for the first time in 20 years and I have to say, I don't get it. Do you think they have changed it? I remember thinking I liked it but I didn't want to be wearing the same thing as everyone else. This time it just smelled of chemicals on me. It's probably just that my tastes have changed.

Welcome, kumquat. Although I'm new myself.

I agree with you on the Chanel No. 5.

I have to admit, I don't like it on me at all. Then again, I naver liked it on me.

Maybe body chemistry changes with age. We were just discussing this on another thread - I recently re-discovered Anais Anais, and it smells completely differently on me now. It's not so much a floral anymore as a leather-cedar scent.

Go figure.