Hi Ugly,
I am 47 and have become sensitive to smell – particularly smells of fabric softeners and perfumes. I don’t want to be with people who apply strong scents as the smell makes me feel sick.
There’s a boy in my neighborhood whom my children want to play with occasionally, but I don’t want to have him in our apartment as the smell of softener that permeates from him is so strong. I don’t want to say no to them playing together. What should I say to my kids and the boy about why he can’t come in to play?
– Sick of Perfume
My sympathies: never before has smelling “good” been such big business.
Fragrance was the fastest-growing category among mass beauty retailers over the first half of 2025, continuing a years-long perfume boom that’s conditioned consumers to eliminate their own natural odors with full-body deodorants; stink themselves up again with specially made scents for the body, hair, vagina and/or testicles; and drench their clothes in multi-product “laundry cocktails” for good measure.
The hashtag #PerfumeTikTok boasts 4.8m posts. Atomizers are status symbols. People pay $4,000 for discontinued formulas and pray for brands to release bigger bottles. The market’s so hot that Sephora, Ulta and TikTok Shop are engaged in an “all-out ‘fragrance war” – and consumers are losing. We’ve collectively flushed $85.6bn down the toilette this year, cost of living crisis be damned.
On what can we blame this senseless embrace of scents? My take: science tells us that odor molecules travel straight to the brain’s emotional center and bypass the part that handles logic; cue illogical obsession! (And Avon’s brand-new and aptly named perfume line, Perfect Nonsense.)
But a sounder, less snarky theory comes from Cari Casteel, a University of Buffalo professor who hypothesized that Covid-era isolation “de-acclimated some people to the normal odor of their fellow human, and that when we came back together … hyperawareness of other people’s odor has led to hyperanxiety about our own odor”, reported the Atlantic. In uncertain and unhealthy times, deodorants, colognes and fabric softeners may provide feelings of control, cleanliness and health.
The irony – as you know – is that fragrance makes many people sick.
A 2019 survey of citizens across the US, Australia, UK and Sweden found that as many as one in three respondents self-reported fragrance sensitivities. Common symptoms of this (under-studied and under-understood) condition include congestion, watery eyes, headaches, migraines, skin rashes, asthma attacks, dizziness and fainting.
“Around 20% of fragrance ingredients are [potential] allergens,” Lindsay Dahl, an environmental health expert and the author of Cleaning House tells me. Allergens appear in both natural and synthetic products – and even in so-called “fragrance-free” products, which often “use fragrances to mask the base ingredients”, Dahl says.
“It’s estimated that the amount of fragrances in consumer products has doubled since 1990,” she adds, which could explain your later-in-life sensitivity. Women are also “two to three times more likely” to react poorly to these chemicals. “The hypothesis is that women are exposed to more fragrances throughout their day including household cleaners, beauty products, laundry detergents and workplace exposures,” according to Dahl.
In your case, add play dates to the list.
My suggestion for what to say to your kids and their detergent-doused friend about why he can’t come over is nothing – at least not at first. This is a conversation to have with the child’s parents or guardians.
It’s a delicate situation. For starters, understand that telling a family their smell makes you sick is basically telling them they smell bad. And since smell is never neutral – it’s racialized, classed and deeply cultural – even well-meaning comments can sound judgmental or echo old stigmas that labeled certain groups “dirty”, “poor” or “uncivilized”.
More from Jessica DeFino:
My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done
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That doesn’t mean you can’t set boundaries for your health! It just means you should be extra considerate, especially if you’re white, wealthy or otherwise privileged, and especially if the family in question is from a different racial, economic or cultural background.
When talking to the parents, be straightforward and kind. Don’t mention their fabric softener. Keep the focus on your needs rather than their laundry. Try something like: “Just so you know, I have a sensitivity to fragrances and they can make me feel unwell, so we can’t really host play dates inside our house. My kids really enjoy playing with [insert name here] though, and he’s welcome to come play with us outside or at the park anytime!”
If your children have questions about why their friend can’t come inside, there’s no need to single out his smell. Explain your sensitivity – “It’s like a peanut allergy in my nose” – and frame it as a house rule. This way, your kids don’t feel like you’re blocking a friendship and the boy doesn’t feel fabric softener-shamed.
Finally, a bit of advice for the scent-obsessed among us: now that you know 33% of people around you could experience adverse reactions to your aroma, consider lightening up on the fragrance. Or spritz before bed, instead! You could save yourself some money – and someone else a headache.
