Some Noses Want Their Air Space Back
When David Pugh’s mother-in-law used to visit, he got sick. His stomach churned, his eyes watered and his head pounded, seconds after this stylish Italian woman clutched him in her arms. It wasn’t her display of affection that sent him racing to the medicine chest; it was her Liz Taylor perfume.
After years of sniffing and saying nothing, Pugh, an allergy sufferer, has become an activist for his respiratory rights - even if it means confronting relatives about their grooming habits.
“I feel like a bloodhound sometimes - picking up scents that aren’t offensive to most people,” says Pugh, 37, a graphic designer who lives in Hamilton, Md. “But I have every right to breathe fragrance-free air.”
Empowered by the victory of nonsmokers in reclaiming their airspace, sneezers and chemically sensitive alike are lobbying to limit secondhand scents. Although there’s no surgeon general supporting their cause and no mystique (yet) to giving up the perfume bottle, this contingent holds steadfast to its desire to make schools, churches and workplaces devoid of everything from L’Air du Temps to Pine-Sol.
Impaired by even a whiff of aromatic underarm deodorant, ridiculed by their healthier friends, they have grown tired of dodging a minefield of smells. But their opposition in this battle is formidable: Doctors continue to debate whether the most serious condition associated with perfume intolerance - multiple chemical sensitivity/environmental illness, or MCS even exists. And research expands on how scents can do everything from promote relaxation to reduce migraines.
In some quarters, concerns about cologne are being taken seriously. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has started a separate category to chart workplace complaints related to multiple chemical sensitivity, a condition triggered by chemical exposure that can bring on headaches, fevers and other symptoms. Since late 1993, the group has received more than 100 complaints a year.
Two years ago, the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work began asking students, faculty and staff to refrain from wearing any scented products in the building.
On some level, it’s a clash of personal freedoms: Does one person’s right to douse himself with Old Spice exceed another’s right to breathe scentless air?
“It’s like this,” says Carol S. Petzold, a Montgomery County, Md., legislator and allergy sufferer: “I have every right to swing my arms, but I don’t have the right to hit you in the face with them.”
During the most recent General Assembly session, she wrote to other House members after leaving a committee meeting because of an overly cologned colleague. In her letter, she explained her allergy problem and asked for their cooperation. Although she says reaction was positive, she endured plenty of jokes.
Louise Kosta, spokeswoman for the Human Action Ecology League, an environmental group in Atlanta, encourages people to confront their oppressors but acknowledges the news isn’t always well received.
“We don’t believe fragrance is something that people are entitled to use as much as they want, whenever they want, as often as they want,” she says.
Smells may stir such strong feelings because of the way we perceive them. Once inside the body, a scent is immediately picked up by the limbic system, the center for emotion and memory, says Dr. Alan Hirsch, of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, which treats patients, sponsors studies and works with companies to use fragrances.
That explains why the smell of moth balls can immediately rekindle thoughts of grandmother or a whiff of a cake baking may take us back to childhood.