Thirty-four people went to hospital and dozens were treated for sickness after strong perfume was sprayed by a woman in a Texas bank.
Two workers initially complained of having chest pains and headaches.
The bank then announced that anyone who felt ill should leave the building, prompting around 150 people to take up the offer.
— From Perfume spritz sparks mass exit at BBC News, with many thanks to Victoria for the link! So far as I know, none of the many news stories about this event have identified the perfume in question.
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i want that frag!!!!!!!! I WANT IT! I NEED IT!!!!
i guess i could have a similar response with Kouros somewhere in the mid-west…
Oh, I’m quite sure Kouros would work!
I’d wager…Minnesota, land of the hotdish.
I find it hard to believe… hospital? At first I thought this must be an april fools joke, except its nowhere near april the first. I can’t imagine any perfume being that strong. Truly bizarre.
It was at a bank’s call center. Those are not fun jobs, usually.
With no offense to people who have real allergies, a lot of people like to control their environment by saying perfume-wearers cause all sorts of danger. On a long flight, I once spritzed distilled water on my face and cleavage and the woman in the aisle across from me began to pant, claiming I had released perfume toxins into the air. She then scratched at her arms till they became red and blamed it on my “perfume.” I’m guessing there was a bit of hysteria here, too.
That’s quite hilarious (with sympathies to that woman’s extreme mental illness). I’d kind of love to conduct social experiments along those lines.
I’m keeping my mouth (and typing fingers) otherwise shut regarding this article.
LOL! Excellent.
My money’s on Angel…..
Hahaa, mine too!
That would work too!
From Ralph Laurens Safari I get an instant Headache.
Ditto. I wanted to like Safari so much but it always gave me a screeching headache no matter how hard I tried to get used to it.
maybe its my current favourite, Covet! Thats pretty strong!
It really is quite strong. I like it too though.
Good strategy to rob a bank hum? Arrive with an unbearably strong perfume and everyone will either fall sick or run out. Who would open the safe though?
LOL…might work! Perhaps the perfume would corrode the safe’s lock.
I can understand headaches, but chest pains? Wow! A friend of mine said she had a terrible reaction to a co-worker’s White Diamonds — maybe that’s what this was!
Could be! Or could be just general panic.
Re: chest pains: if they truly ARE allergic, it could cause a very rapid/skipping pulse, and that really does cause chest pains. I’ve had it mildly in reaction to one frag, but much more severely w/a medication, to the point that I did go to the doctor, who sent me over to the ER. So it’s not impossible…
Ah, that does make sense then (and sounds very scary!).
I can see students using this. Forget bomb threats, for which you can face serious legal trouble….just spray strong perfume so they have to call off class!
HA!
hey, i think the 150 people just wanted a day off work!
I think so too.
Me three. I used to work in a call center, and people would have been flying out by the hundreds to the nearest bar if they had been given this easy out. By the way, I vote for Safari as the noxious substance!
Second that. Terrible headache only by sniffing on paper.
I’m thinking secretions magnifique.
Too obscure for a Texas bank call center, I’d think!
I reckon it was Fahrenheit – that’s always made my eyes water since I worked with a guy who apparently bathed daily in the stuff.
I have to say though, this story is a bit ‘only in America’ – no offence intended but I can’t imagine this happening here in Europe. There seem to be more and more people in the US claiming perfume makes them deadly ill. I wonder why?
No offense taken, I’d say that’s true. No idea why.
My bet is on “Sex Panther,” first made famous in Anchorman.
Perfect.
Did anyone ever pick up any of that REAL Sex Panther? I’d love to see a review of that or the Star Trek (Pon Far?) scents, even though I don’t expect anything from any of them. LOL.
I smelled SP, plus the 3 Star Trek scents. None of them were really interesting enough either way to review: just dull.
I used to work in cosmetics in a dept store and I had to keep an inhaler and an epinephrine injection on hands at all times in case someone sprayed Donna Karan Cashmere Mist. They moved the fragrance away from my counter but I would know the instant someone sprayed it because my throat would suddenly start closing up. No one else ever had that reaction, though, so I’m kind of suspicious of an entire office being cleared by something like that. I think it must have been a hysterical reaction. That or someone’s perfume is laced with serin gas.
That’s exactly what Narciso Rodriguez For Her does to me.
Re: the Sarin gas comment — I immediately thought, “did someone spray perfume or pepper spray, egad!”
Hahah, this is hilarious. 1.) My money’s either on Angel or Poison (the original gangster), 2.) What are the chances that 150 people had an allergic reaction? and 3.) Quinncreative, your story is hilarious. People are so alarmist about perfume, but they use a million other scented and/or toxic chemicals in all other areas of their daily lives.
On 2, none, but a very good chance that 150 people were more than happy to take a break from work
My money is on Charlie or Ciara, something cheap, and inexpensive, too.
The airplane story is fabulous. I would have wanted to spritz her right in the face.
Charlie! I wish I could remember what it smelled like.
Ohhhh, no, you don’t. Trust me.
This may not have been a perfume. There has been a curious thing going about. If you are ever approached by anyone in a parking lot saying they are selling perfume, report them immediately and do not go near them. Very often this is a knockout spray, allowing the criminal to take your purse or you.
On the other hand, if this was a perfume, yes, America is full of whiny cowards who love to blame their so-called health problems on everyone else but themselves, and they love to target us perfume wearers. I had an interesting instance where the lady who gives me massages from time to time stated that the client usually scheduled after me complained of the perfume I was wearing staying around the area after I had left and that it bothered her. My massage lady had never noticed it before. I conducted an experiment. One day I went to see her and wore no perfume. Her client right after me again complained of my perfume. When my massage lady called me to tell me that she thought she had told me to please not wear perfume becuase it bothered this particular client, I let her know I had not worn any, and the client’s real problem was not with my perfume; it was with me. This client was a so-called shaman, and is really rather something of a rip-off artist, and was worried I had told our massage lady I thought the “shaman’s” work was not so great, so the shaman/client was trying to do what she could to set the massage lady and me at odds with each other, and I explained all this. The massuese immediately understood the under-handed game, and never fell for it again. I continue to wear perfume, whatever, whenever and wherever I damned well please; I refuse to cave in to these whiny
@$$e$ who try to make the rest of us suffer for their self-inflicted non-enjoyment of life. I am considerate of others; I do not wear gobs of anything; too much of a good thing is still too much, but I shall not cave in to their pathetic demands we kowtow to them, either.
The parking lot thing has been established as a hoax:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/perfume.asp
Some fragrances (Insolence, Pink Sugar, Angel, Flowerbomb etc.) should come with instruction manuals detailing just how and where they should be applied. If I’m wearing it outside my home, I always spray Angel under my clothing so as not to overwhelm with monster sillage. Same for Ciara, which my sweetie adores. Despite the bad rap it gets, it’s truly quite lovely in a classic sense if applied with a very, very light hand.
My mother got horrible headaches from Avon frags. This was really unfortunate for me since I loved Odyssey and Pearls & Lace growing up. Poison also set off a really severe allergic reaction for her as well, which she unfortunately discovered when a laboring patient wore it during her delivery. I think it is possible a small percentage of people world wide may have fragrance sensitivities, just as they may with certain chemicals in foods, soaps, or pollinating flora, which is my personal foe each spring and autumn, and throughout the summer. I don’t think it’s an American issue alone, as indicated by the ever-shrinking list of compounds allowed by the stringent IFRA requirements.
Robin, I think I’d truly have to cry if I couldn’t wear NR for Her. It’s just so gorgeous in all available concentrations! While I have never had a reaction to a fragrance, I do find Georgio pretty hard to take if poured on, same with White Diamonds.
A couple friends of mine worked in call centers, and I know they’d happily take the day off if someone so much as spilled a drop of Clinique Happy or MJ’s Daisy four floors up and the boss gave them the okay.
Well, I don’t cry because I’ve never been able to smell it…and gosh, there’s plenty of other wonderful fragrances!
It reminds me a great deal of SJP’s Lovely, which I discovered when given a sample of the Lovely body cream. I couldn’t put my finger on the huge case of olfactory deja vu I was experiencing until I recalled NR’s Musk for Her, which is also compared to a basic Egyptian musk. So no, not the most unusual scent out there by any stretch of the imagination, but one that just knocked me on my rear when I first smelled it amid a sea of screetching fruity florals.