Unbelieveable. They are trying to outlaw fragrace

Interesting for sure.

Even if I didn't wear fragrances I would find this a bit too much.

Wow! I can see their argument in a way; I can imagine that if you have allergies, it would be pretty uncomfortable to be around very heavy fragrance. However (and it's a big however!) I'm not sure what it's like now in the USA, but in England there are always people (patients, visitors and staff) smoking outside the main doors of the hospital. Non-smokers and possibly allergy suffers have to wade through cigarette smoke before making their way into the hospital. The smokers are not banned from entering wards etc after getting their fix and I'm pretty sure that this smell and potential 'danger' to allergy suffers is much worse than that of someone's fragrance! After all, the chemicals left on clothing after someone has been smoking are just as harmful (possibly more so) than the smoke itself.

Looks like the perfect way to get out of jury duty.

Hospitals I can understand, and how often do you go into a government building if you don't work there?

Of course putting fragrance on the same level as cigarette smoke is ridiculous!!!

Thank you! This is so effing asinine! ...and I'm a smoker...a courteous one...with allergies.

Another victory for people who would rather we all live small, drab, joyless lives, marking time until we all die.
Antihistamines? No thanks, I'd rather YOU alter YOUR behavior for MY comfort.

If heaven is as antiseptic and smell-free as those government offices, I don't want to go.

They can fire you for posting on Facebook so I guess the next thing is going to be firing you because someone didn't care for the way you smell. This is what happens when you give people power that have zero common sense. Then when someone gets shot and dies they just turn their backs and blame it on society. I want to make a law that says if someone's being a dumb A**hole that I can pull out a gun and shoot them along with their offspring. It might not completely erase stupidity, but it would delay it for a couple of generations.

We will soon all have to go under ground.

If that sounds a bit too far, wait until you read this..

The charge on the police docket was "disrupting class". But that's not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of "you smell".

"I'm weird. Other kids don't like me," said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. "They were saying a lot of rude things to me. Just picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then they said: 'Put that away, that's the most terrible smell I've ever smelled.' Then the teacher called the police."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...rt-of-comments



Hope Sarah would not take this too seriously

Yet another reason to love this country. What happened to the good times ?

American Puritanism or Greeny/Natural Fascism, or a combination of both. I guess they prefer the natural smell of underarms.

I've previously described here how I had to spend time in the emergency care rooms of local hospitals down here, when my late father was ill - and how the Doctors were leaving vapour trails of strong scents they were wearing all over the place as they wandered from patient to patient. I thought I was wearing strong scent with six sprays under clothes, but they were totally overpowering what I was wearing.

Plainly, if scents were as dangerous as some suggest, it would have been noticed by now.

Oh - and I keep seeing occasional news snippets every few years about how hospitals in the UK were piping essential oil scents all through their air conditioning to improve the health of their patients.
Cheers,
Renato

BLOODY HELL.
How, at this point, might we say, "What's Next?" Electric Chairs in the "Senior Quad?"

Every hospital I've worked in has been fragrance free. Most in the US are now. It's part of the rules and regulations. An interesting note about people that have Asperger Syndrome is that they can smell very easily, but have a difficult time actually identifying what they are smelling. Another problem is when people are hooked up to IV's and have a reaction, all those tubes are going to be pulled out which makes it a pain in the butt for the nurse. Not to mention the distress it causes the patient.

As I said - American Puritanism thrives in America. To my mind there is a lot of rationalisation to try to justify such bans.

Australia isn't a third world country - last I looked we were the only first world country that wasn't in a near recession. From observation, our Doctors seem to be able to do their job properly in emergency sections wearing 15 or 20 sprays of powerful scents.
Regards,
Renato

I have 1 coworker...and we work in a small office building, and he has more allergies than just about anyone that I know, and I wear fragrances every day and it has never effected his allergies...believe me, if they did he would tell me. I really don't think that people's allergies are effected by frags. I think that people are quick to blame their problems on anything to make them feel better...I'm not saying that there aren't some people that have allergic reactions to frags, I'm just saying that I don't think it's nearly as common as they make you think it is. I knew a girl that she was allergic to people's perfumes and said that she wouldn't go to public settings because people might be wearing perfume...but conveniently those "public settings" were the one's that she didn't want to go to such as work and school...but when there was a party that she wanted to attend, you better believe she was always there, and...funny thing...parties are the place that people tend to wear frags.

Yeah that's odd considering that smell is a huge part of diagnosing and evaluating clients in the hospital used by both doctors and nurses. I'd love to be able to spray on something instead of having to use vicks all the time.

I wish same as well lol... It would also solve some global problems like overpopulation.

Why don't they target sick building syndrome first ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_building_syndrome

Outlawing fragrance in the U.S. would be very hard. Far too many HUGE companies (Benckiser, S.C. Johnson, P&G, etc.) have too much invested in scented items such as household goods. Think of the room freshener and detergent aisle in the stores: all scented with some sort of fragrance.

If a perfume wearer is sued for wearing perfume to work, then a countersuit for someone wearing items laundered with something like Tide or Gain can be lodged. They want all perfumes to go, then so be it.

And just think ...if all fragrance went then everyone would be complaining about the body odor emanating ......
I've smelt fragrance free soap ...it ain't much to write home about. Everyone with a body odor issue better start getting worried.

I can't help but think that this is a natural extension of people in general becoming more anti-social. Bear with me...what I mean is, when I was a kid, if you fell and cut your knee outside your friend's house, your friend's mom would help you clean it off and give you a Band Aid, and out you went. You might spend your whole life telling people how you got that little scar on your knee.

Today, there's a very real fear of litigation, and many more parents who won't tolerate a blemish on little junior's knee. Rather than just dealing with it as something that happens as part of childhood, we get lawyers involved.

With the perfume thing, it seems we can no longer just talk to each other and try to work out an issue. If your loud fragrance bothers me, heaven forbid I should just bring it up with you privately and diplomatically and you should take it in stride and maybe wear a bit less. No, let's get HR involved. Let's call the authorities.

It seems like we just don't know how to deal with each other anymore.

Also, can I just say something about the "puritanical America" comments? Please. There are plenty of places where perfume is plentiful but women aren't allowed to show their legs or be seen with unrelated men. Can we get some perspective please?

Amen to that , Kagey .

Word!

Personally , as a patient either being examined by a doctor ,nurse ..... I have, on occasion, been far more disturbed by their bad breath and BO than anything else.

Excellent observations, Kagey.

Not meaning to sound flippant, but the older I get, the more I think mental illness is the new normal. People seem to be losing their grip on some very fundamental life skills (i.e. being able to interact with other people in a rational and mature fashion). Adolescence (that is to say, adolescent behavior) is now lasting well into peoples' thirties. Speaking of perspective, let us remember than Alexander the Great conquered half the known world when he was still a "child" by today's standards of maturity. Where does it end? This is what I find disturbing.

most likely.
or just simply we don't want to deal with each other anymore.

This seems like going too far, but I can understand the concern for those with allergies. For many people, allergies mean discomfort - sneezing, a tickled throat, a rash. But for others, allergies present a real risk to their health.

My mom suffers from allergies, and ever since she battled swine flu in 2009, her lungs have been damaged and sensitive. She is much more sensitive to certain fragrances and allergens, and it's not the kind of thing where she can just take some antihistamines to make it better - we're talking about sometimes being barely able to breath and having to sleep sitting upright for a week because she can't breathe lying on her back. Scary stuff. It's hard to understand how terrifying it is to really lose the ability to breathe unless you've experienced it. She feels like she's drowning for days on end.

My mom is also a neurologist, and she can't see patients that wear fragrances, plain and simple. If patients walk into her office wearing perfume, she has to turn them away (politely of course). Even if it might not trigger a reaction, she can't take a chance it might. Of course, her assistant tells patients this when scheduling appointments. Ironically, my mom recently fell in love with Mitsouko, so that one is safe. But she doesn't know what will set her off.

Regarding the article, I do fear that soon we'll be banned from wearing fragrances in restaurants, airports, schools, on planes and trains, and on and on. But I can also see why it's a significant concern for some.

For what it's worth, I think even my mom would consider a government ban unreasonable. And surely many (if not most) of the people complaining are people looking for something to complain about (or reasons for litigation).

Ultimately, I think people should just be sensible and courteous about wearing scents. Policies and rules don't need to be made for everything. Hospitals might be considered a safe haven though, since it's presumed that health is the primary concern and should take priority over smelling nice. Maybe that's what skin scents are for...

I find limitations like that highly worrying because one never knows where it might end. The system tests how far it can go with certain directives that interfere with the self-determination of human beings in social contexts. People normally behave like the frog that doesn't realize the water is boiling until it has reached the boiling point - and then it's too late.

I for one don't think this is a symptom at all of any "puritanical" ethos here in the USA. I think it's another symptom of the "new" members of the ownership society, and their neurotic over sensitivity and undue egos. The older, wasp ownership class was far from great, but these nouveau rich are far more insane and annoying. Hopefully their run is short, and long term damage minimal.

Interesting points, but remember that in Alexander's time, people didn't tend to live a whole lot longer than Alexander.

But I think you're right about adolescent behavior, even though I'd call it immaturity, self-centeredness, narcissism, or whatever, and I'd say it has nothing to do with age. Possibly more to do with a culture that places comfort and happiness above all (they're rarely attainable if you're looking for them), and that has vast numbers of people thinking it's acceptable to demand sympathy because you didn't get a pony when you were a kid.

Two other observations: a friend of mine years ago theorized that the litigiousness of American society had to do with the decline of religion. His idea was that before, people thought that when bad stuff happened, it was divine will or whatever, and accepted it. Now, they look for someone to blame and to hold accountable. I'm not sure I believe that, but I haven't looked too deeply into it. Britain strikes me as a much less religious country, and I don't think you have the same trend here.

Also, I totally agree with you, Andy, about people losing social skills. Look around any public place these days and most people are on their phones. They're not even talking to the people they're with. Their attention spans are nil. I dread even trying to start a conversation with some people because I know there's bound to be that interruption. Or I try to get in the main points in the first ten seconds. I want to believe that young kids today will grow up knowing how to do more than text or tweet, but I'm not that confident.

I wouldn't get too hysterical about this. A few hospitals and government offices aren't the real world yet by any means. And, really, fragrance is EVERYWHERE nowadays. Just take a walk through your local mall. The only way most people would even notice you were wearing a fragrance is if you were drenched in the stuff. Even kids school erasers have a scent.

I like the part about using "less fragrant" flowers. How about plastic?

Uhhmm - this is the only western country that prohibited the production and sale of alcohol, and when that fell apart, kept its various agencies occupied by then prohibiting hemp and assorted other drugs, and forced the rest of the world to follow suit. And which currently doesn't allow people to drink alcohol till they turn 21.

Coming from an Italian background, where mothers routinely started giving their children alcohol at around age 3, the US has some pretty puritanical aspects to me - so does Australia (where I live) for that matter.
Regards,
Renato

Uhhmm... what??

I'm also from an Italian family (and was raised in America, just to clarify). Alcohol was ever-present at our table, and we were allowed to drink it--at our parents' discretion--from the time we were small (and even before I was allowed to wear perfume!). We were not unique in this regard. And the cops never burst in and arrested anyone. In the U.S., the law may say 21, but I don't know a single person who didn't know his way around a bottle of wine well before then. I'm not saying there aren't puritanical strains in the U.S. All I said is that there should be some perspective, and that other countries are far more strict about moral or religious righteousness.

Speaking of which, prohibition in the U.S. was like 90 years ago (!), and the U.S. was certainly not the only "Western" country to place bans on alcohol. I'm pretty sure there were strong and active temperance movements, with varying degrees of legal success, in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and other Western European countries, though I don't feel like looking it up at the moment.

Also: do you think all the countries now experimenting with legalization schemes are asking American permission to do so? I'm not a fan of the "war on drugs," but with "forcing" I think maybe you give America too much credit.

Yeah, they're pretty patient with this stuff. Years ago, we never dreamed that what happened to tobacco and now food could actually happen.


I have to admit that the new power class in America is pretty annoying. At least the old class of gents in smoke-filled rooms allowed the rest of the world to smoke.


Your key word, is "yet", BurgundyMarsh! Hospitals and government offices are where the restrictions always start. Then, they just kind of seep out to everywhere else, by way of California.....


Oh, man. You just gave them the best way to do it!

If the new American scent-fascists don't glom onto that idea immediately, they're idiots. It reeks (no pun intended) of that same "plastic" sympathy they always have for the victims of their do-goody meddling. "Just give them plastic flowers. It's the thought that counts." Grrrrrrr.

Twenty bucks says real flowers are GONE from most hospitals in America in 5 years. Plastic flowers are too damn workable.

So another huge swath of small businesses (florists) die, and big corporations with plastic flower factories in countries with low wages and low standards against pollution take their place. Kinda interesting. The regulators create the problem, and the anti-regulators create a problematic solution. Hey - but the people with no jobs and no health insurance get plastic flowers in the hospital!


Kagey, what you say is true - or rather, it WAS true. But very seriously - if a grade-school kid today bragged to the class at show-and-tell that they had drunk a "glass" of wine or had some beer? The question is HOW MANY counselors and social workers would get dragged into things before it's over. ESPECIALLY if a single parent - or a parent that the teacher doesn't like - is involved. Not sure when you left this place, but there have been a few changes in the last decade or two.

Wait - they still do show & tell?

I've lived in the UK for nine years. And I still have family and friends in the U.S. with kids. And I also recall a colossal sh*tstorm that happened when a teacher called DYFS on my friend's mom because he came to school with marks on his neck (he had poison ivy). I'm aware of the overzealousness of social services and don't doubt that it may have increased. But I wonder how much of that is about moral prudishness (which is what we were talking about) and how much about fears of child abuse or neglect, or, to be more cynical, fears by social services people that they'll take the blame if they miss an instance of abuse or neglect.

It's funny. I'm usually on the "America is so prudish, they want to outlaw fun" side of this argument. And I think there is a pretty strong strain of that - not a majority, but a very loud minority. But to bring it back to the original point, I don't think the perfume restrictions are a symptom of American prudishness. I think they're a sad product of this anti-social trend I mentioned earlier - fear of litigation, inability to deal with each other to negotiate a sensible way forward, etc...combined with the fact that--as hobbes mentioned earlier--perfume actually can cause problems for some people. People in charge get scared and they throw the baby out with the bath water.

^I agree completely. I think the more traditional, prudish side of America has put up with the increasing prevalence of such restrictions, coming more from the left and single-issue center, never really thinking that the zealous regulators would eventually start bringing regulations to bear on things that mattered to the free practice of prudery, so to speak.

One thing that strikes me as having really changed in America, is that we are no longer forced by lower technology to make friends with randomly chosen neighbors. Thus, our much-different neighbors have all fallen into the class of acquaintances or even strangers, while we can choose distant people much like ourselves to be our friends. It is now easy to surround ourselves with like-minded people, and we do.

Personally, things like this seem to be yet another attempt to assure people that they should be anxious and frightened. Go to any Whole Foods Market and the same underlying theme runs through every single overpriced product they sell.

It's no wonder that IFRA is doing what they are doing.

I suspect they see the writing on the wall : Perfumes are simply one more toxic assault on the world's innocent citizenry.

- - - Updated - - -


I agree : The concept of "connectedness" has taken some unexpected tacks. Are we truly more connected....or less ?


I saw a photo recently of a bunch of people walking down the street, all with their heads facing down at their phones.

The caption read : The Zombie Invasion has Arrived