Perfume allergies prompt a battle

The people in the center of a bustling big city are completely captivated by the aroma of a fabulous French perfume for men, resulting in pandemonium.

One guy tumbles off a moving motorcycle, which then hurtles through a plate glass window. A gorgeous nurse is so distracted she lets go of a wheelchair and the geezer in it rolls into traffic, causing a demolition derby.

A bus full of gorgeous female cheerleaders crashes onto its side and the cheerleaders leap from bus windows to join others in passionate pursuit of the guy or guys wearing that perfume, just as a mime runs down the street completely on fire.

Previously, I had not seen any commercials for Axe perfume for men, or, if I did see any, they did not register. (I have a bad habit of switching channels during any commercial.) In view of a nationwide fuss over Axe, focusing on the Bethlehem Area School District, I knew I had to check out that product's commercials, some of which I found on the Internet.

My first thought was that I wish this stuff had been available when I was in high school. For one thing, I could've saved a lot of time by avoiding showers after football practice, to say nothing of the romantic opportunities the perfume would provide.

Instead, I've always detested perfumes, for myself, for other guys and especially for girls and women. Some guys, by the way, call their perfume "cologne," to avoid being associated with, um, well, the Joel Cairo character in "The Maltese Falcon."
I do not have an allergy to perfume, as far as I know, but if I get trapped in an elevator with somebody who reeks of the stuff, I try to hold my breath for what are probably dangerous lengths of time.

Perfume, I am convinced, is designed mainly for people who do not like to take showers or baths. Slosh or spray enough of it on yourself and others may never suspect you have mold or parasites growing in your armpits or in other sensitive areas.

It is no accident that Axe and other perfumes originate mainly in France. I have never been there, but it's my understanding there are large segments of French culture with strong aversions to bathing. The French need something to deal with that.

Last March, The Morning Call had stories about a student at Bethlehem's Freedom High School who was hospitalized twice after allergic reactions to the Axe body spray perfume. Brandon Silk, 15, had to be treated for anaphylactic shock, which can be fatal.

Bethlehem is not alone. Other stories ranged from a Connecticut school where Axe fumes set off fire alarms to a New York City school where eight students had to be hospitalized for reactions to the perfume.

Bethlehem's school officials did not ban Axe, but "requested" that Freedom students refrain from soaking in it out of consideration for Silk. That did not work and Silk was home-schooled as a way to remain alive. Last month, Rosa Silk, his mother, asked the district to ban the perfume spray, but Superintendent Joseph Roy did not sound supportive. "I don't believe that such a policy will be readily enforceable," he was quoted as saying.

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What smells? PA lawmaker wants to ‘Axe’ fragrance in schools

HARRISBURG – Teenagers looking to woo a homecoming date could soon be without a powerful — and pungent — ally.

State Rep. Marcia Hahn, R-Northampton, wants to introduce legislation banning the use of scented products such as perfume, cologne or body spray in schools having students with fragrance allergies.

The proposal sounds odd, but its inspiration is serious. A student at Freedom High School in Bethlehem this spring had a severe allergic reaction to Axe Body Spray — a staple among high-school-aged boys — and was taken to the hospital. He now takes cyber classes.

Hahn does not think that’s a fair set-up for the student, but even she knows regulating fragrance use among teens eager to drench themselves in Britney Spears’ latest scent is a challenge, even legislative overreach. She thinks her proposal, though, could at least start talk about a tough subject.

“If you have a piece of legislation and it’s not enforceable, it doesn’t really help,” she said. “So I’m hoping that we can come up with a solution that works for everyone.”

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Making Sense of Scents: Fragrance tips for savvy shoppers

The fall-winter season is upon us. The chill in the air signifies that it is time for a change in wardrobe choices. We put away our lightweight linen trousers, tank tops and flip-flops and opt for chunkier sweaters, skinny jeans and boots.

Of course, no outfit is truly complete without its main companion — a great scent.

According to the maven of all things fashionable, Coco Chanel, “A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.”

Though this is not a foregone conclusion, why take the chance?
SCENT SELECTION

Visiting a department store’s fragrance counter can be as daunting as climbing Kilimanjaro.

We are faced with images of designer-clad sex-symbols who want us to believe that all need to be like Charlize Theron in a Dior J’Adore ad is a spritz of scented magic. Forget the personal trainer, dieting and team of stylists and makeup artists that help bring this image to fruition.

When Helaine Gottschalk went shopping for a fragrance other than her beloved Eternity by Calvin Klein, she did so by teaming with fragrance experts Amanda Dabney, Lynda Sims and Manisha Argawal at Belk in Cordova Mall.

Gottschalk is a savvy shopper and had an idea of what she was looking for — a fragrance that allowed her to transition from her everyday routine to special events without much fanfare.

“I really don’t give any consideration to time of day, occasion, etc. Probably because I don’t like the heavy, overpowering ‘night time’ fragrances. My choices are lighter ‘go everywhere’ scents,’’ said Gottschalk, a Long Term Care Insurance Specialist.

She also knew that she wanted something that was either, floral, green or “spicy.”

THE NOSE KNOWS

The Sense of Olfactory (smell) is a very powerful one because it can transport one back to a certain time and place and create nostalgia, evoke a specific feeling or conjure a memory.

For Gottschalk, this is especially true.

“I know that I lean toward the floral, green, warm spicy scents because my mother wore that combination,” she says. This combination reminds her of the Shocking, by Schiaparelli, a fragrance her mother favored.

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Fragrance 101: Everything You Need to Know About Picking the Perfect Scent

Divine Caroline: Can you break down some of the lingo we always hear when looking for a perfume. What exactly are top notes, base notes, etc.?
Renee Bukowski: Unlike flowers where the taste is received all at once, fragrances evaporate and reach the nose over time. A general composition of fragrance is a fragrance pyramid, which has top, mid and base notes. Top notes are what you smell first. These are the citrus, fruity, ozonic notes. Mid, or heart notes, are the floral, spice and herbaceous notes. Base notes consist of woods, balsams and musks.

DC: How can you choose the right fragrance when you’re in a store for a limited period of time and there are so many scents to test out?
RB: When choosing a fragrance, spray the scent on a blotter card to pick up the top note or initial impression. Blotter cards are a great way to sample multiple fragrances at once. Next, you want to determine which scent you liked most and spray it on your wrist. Don’t rub your wrists together, but rather pat them lightly together and smell throughout the day. It’s important to notice the fragrance evolving from the top, mid and base notes through the day and to fall in love with the fragrance as it dries down.

DC: Where should you spray your perfume to get that great scent to last all day?
RB: Spray on your pulse points: wrists, neck and décolletage. If you want a little extra scent, spray it in your hair and the fragrance will linger as your hair moves.

DC: What notes and fragrances are going to be most popular throughout this season and into next?
RB: We follow trends across all categories very closely and macro trends for fall are focusing on notes from nature, such as honey and rose. But this rose is modernized from traditional roses. For example, Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb Rose Explosion is a rose oriental scent that combines rose and honey!

Shop Bukowski's picks are in the picture above:

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What happens when a woman wears Axe fragrance for a week?

Probably if I had watched the commercials first, I would never have undertaken this whole stupid experiment.

Axe commercials? Awful. They are the media equivalent of the fragrance itself. I mean, naked ladies covered in tiny congruent triangles assault bemused middle managers. These are commercials that could have been made backstage at a Victoria’s Secret fashion show, if angels really liked feathers in their strawberry milkshakes.

Nor did I come to Axe men’s fragrance by sniffing the air at the U.S. Supreme Court, which I cover. Me, I discovered Axe the usual way, through my 13-year-old nephew, for whom the whole prospect of a lifetime of boom-chicka-wah-wah is perhaps still too much to contemplate.

My own boys, at 8 and 10, are too young for Axe, or for fragrance, or for wah-wahs of any variety — or so I shall insist to myself until they are about 40. But after a single day at the beach in August, when they shared a bathroom with their big hockey-playing, Axe-scented cousin/hero, even the 8-year-old was smearing his small hairless self with the body wash, deodorant and spray cologne.

Dinners quickly became unbearable, with three Axe-drenched young people fogging up all tastes and smells. On it went, until the final weekend at the beach, when I found myself trapped in the shower with only a bottle of three-in-one Axe (shampoo, body-wash and conditioner). So I broke down and used it.

It was the most sublimely powerful fragrance experience of my adult life. Truly. After decades of smelling like a flower or a fruit, for the first time, I smelled like teen boy spirit. I smelled the way an adolescent male smells when he feels that everything good in the universe is about to be delivered to him, possibly by girls in angel wings. I loved it. I wanted more.

When I told my husband that I was planning to wear only Axe men’s products for an entire week, his answer was a foreshadowing of things to come: “You’re planning on wearing that stuff to bed every night for a week? Man. Axe really does work. It’s only been a few minutes and look, you’re already single again …” 

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Lady Gaga Warns Fans Against Her Pee Perfume!

Lady Gaga wears an iridescent coat as she leaves the Sirius XM Studios after promoting ARTPOP on Tuesday (November 12) in New York City.

“NAPTIME, zzzzz zzzz. Album release week is kicking my ass! #ARTPOP IS OUT NOW! (sorry they programmed my robot to say that.) #PromoGa” the 27-year-old entertainer tweeted after her interview!

“So @Andy told me they made perfume out of my pee from the trash in WWH dressing room (long story) U HAVE BEEN WARNED IF HE TRIES TO SPRITZ U” Gaga wrote earlier in the day about her appearance on Watch What Happens Live – watch out for her pee perfume! LOL!

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Axe Body Spray Shuts Down School, Sends 8 Students To Hospital

A school in Brooklyn was shut down this week following reports of a noxious odor, which turned out to be Axe body spray.

In a statement, the Department of Education said eight students were taken to the hospital Wednesday for reactions to a hazardous substance at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, according to the Smoking Gun. Two other students of the Crown Heights school were also evaluated by private doctors.

The musky fragrance was released in a sixth grade classroom around 1 p.m. School officials are investigating the incident and may take disciplinary action.

As Time notes, this is not the first time students have fallen ill from exposure to copious amounts of Axe. Earlier this year, a Pennsylvania high school banned students from wearing the body spray after one teen was hospitalized.

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Get Ready To See Tory Burch’s Gold ‘T’ All Over The Makeup Counter This Fall

As if we didn’t see Tory Burch‘s signature “T” medallion enough on shoes and handbags, the brand has major beauty plans in the works. This September, Tory Burch is launching fragrance, a makeup collection and a line of bath and body products. So prepare to see that famous gold “T” all over the makeup counter.

This whole move into beauty is a long time coming. According to an article released today by WWD, Burch has been working on her fragrance with Estee Lauder since 2011. The scent will come in three sizes, retailing from $62-$110, and she’s also doing a solid perfume inside a pendant necklace that is, of course, topped with Burch’s gold “T” ($150).

The capsule cosmetic collection is all about “less is more”. Burch says she doesn’t have time to put on a ton of makeup in the morning (yeah, especially when you have three major beauty launches in the works) so she wanted to keep the collection simple and basic. The makeup range includes lipstick in the designer’s signature pink-nude shade ($32), rosy pink lip and cheek tint ($38), a bronzer-blush palette ($48) and a face brush ($48). Oh, and don’t forget, there’s still the bath and body line too. This collection includes body cream ($80), body lotion ($50)…wait what’s the difference between these two? It also has bath and shower gel ($50) and a candle ($60).


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This Sweet-Smelling Perfume Is A Bug Spray In Disguise

Listen, we hate mosquitoes as much as the next girl, but we're also not so keen on smelling like nose-burning chemicals every time we apply our bug spray. Obviously this is a total #firstworldproblem, but for those of us who spend the majority of our time outdoors, we're getting a little sick of being constantly enveloped in an unpleasant funk. Is it too much to ask that we have some options that are a little less, shall we say, pungent?

Apparently not, thanks to Harvard business grad Melissa Fensterstock and her husband. They've founded a new, functional fragrance brand called Aromaflage, and their debut product is a chemical-free, DEET-free perfume that claims to keep the bugs at bay. While many natural scents do have bug-repelling properties, sadly, geranium, tea tree oil, and the like — while lovely non-chemical alternatives — are not the most pleasant aromas to douse oneself in. Aromaflage solves that problem by using essential oils that are a little gentler on the olfactive senses.

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Leah’s Fancy Lanvin Perfume

I’ve never been someone who cared that much about having a “scent.”

When I studied abroad in Paris I discovered I really liked the Eau de The Vert fragrance from Roger & Gallet that was in every pharmacy so I just wore that from time to time. Then I scored this little purple bottle of Lanvin Éclat d’Arpège at a Lanvin event and now I’m hooked. This stuff just smells refined and sexy and not at all sweet which is really my only criteria in a scent. I love it and I’m dreading the day I finish it up and have to cough up the nearly $100 price tag to replace it. But I’ll do it because it’s that good.

Nice but very soft,it goes away in one hour.It s fresh and inofensive,the lemon is very present,at least on me,then it s gone. Wonderful spring / summer scent. Very lady-like and refreshing but in a very soft way, not your garden variety drugstore generic scent. Suitable for all ages without coming off as trying too hard. On its own the EDP longetivity is short but layered with the body lotion (at least on my skin), lasts at least 6-8 hours.

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Perfume is in the air: Lovely lilacs linger on the senses

When it comes to selecting shrubbery that smells good, it’s hard to beat the scent of a lilac bush. They don’t all have a strong fragrance, but those that do can perfume an entire house.

Unfortunately, the blooming season is only a couple of weeks long. It varies between midspring to early summer, depending on the species. Or you can buy an early, mid- and late-blooming variety and cut flowers for more than a month. The good news: Lilacs like colder weather and do well in New Jersey.

Some of the most interesting work with hybridizing lilacs today is being done by Russians in Siberia, said Anne Haines, a manager at Rare Find Nursery in Jackson.

“Lilacs are really native to colder areas, and New Jersey is on the lower edge of that area,” said Haines, whose email address includes the word Syringa, the Latin name for lilac. “Syringa vulgaris (si-RING-ga vul-GAY-ris), or common lilac, is what breeders work with when creating hybrids, and some are now working on lilacs for warmer areas.”

Lilacs don’t much like it below the Mason-Dixon line, where they are more susceptible to disease and insects. The most common problem here is powdery mildew, which doesn’t look great but won’t hurt the shrub.

Barbara Bromley, a horticulturist with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Mercer County, said one of the most important things to consider when planting a lilac is how many hours of sun it gets and the surrounding landscape. Some gardeners will plant them as stand-alone specimens or as a hedge.

“They will not bloom in partial shade,” she said, recommending full sun for the best success, but no less than six hours. “Remember, those 10-foot-tall trees planted near the lilacs will be 30 feet tall 20 years later.”

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Smelling good without a perfume

Everyone likes to smell nice, but not everyone wants to wear perfume. Some people are allergic to it, the scents give some a headache and some can’t handle a smell quite that strong while some can’t just afford it.

Scented Lotion: Scented lotions are a great alternative to perfumes. You can get a lotion that smells like just about anything – even that amazing perfume you can’t afford. If you want a light, barely there scent, you can find that as well. The best part is, you’ll be moisturized as well, so your skin will be soft and supple, and sweet smelling all day long!

Body Spray Body sprays are also a great alternative but it can be overpowering, so you have to be careful. They are way cheaper than most perfumes and you can find a great one to suit your budget. However, be careful about what kind of spray you choose, and remember that just a few pumps will do the trick. Do not over-spray it!

Powders Another great alternative is Powder. Babies smell so sweet and fresh every time you pick them up because of the baby powder constantly sprinkled on them. You can also get that kind of fresh smell with some powders. Apart from making you smell good, a sprinkling of powder will help keep you cooler in the heat. You can go natural or look for something that’s like a perfume. Loads of scented powders can be found in the market and the smell is not as overpowering as sprays or lotions.

Body Wash If you don’t want a heavy scent but you do want a fragrance to linger on your skin, then scented body wash might be the answer. It can linger long after you’re out of the shower, but it’s in no way overpowering. You can also look for complementary lotions and/or body sprays in the scent you prefer. For the ladies, Victoria’s Secret specializes in that kind of thing.

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