For days I have been suffering because of women on the subway wearing too much perfume. Or any perfume at all, unfortunately. I am part of a very, very small minority of people who are allergic to most fragrances. Much of the time, this results in me getting a mild headache - instantly, from the first sniff. But sometimes, when a person has doused themselves from head to toe in something particularly pungent, I end up with a nauseous migraine, and sometimes I become sick. I have tried running searches on this problem, and all I could come up with was this article from 2002, about air fresheners.

I get up early every morning to wash my hair and body, because I know how offensive it would be to stand next to me if I smelled of B.O. But I don't cover my cleanliness up with a whole new stink. I want to smell like I have been washed, not like a bouquet of funeral flowers. What's the difference between smelling like sweat, and smelling like rotting lilies (aside from the fact that sweat doesn't make me ill)? When you cover your body with a heavy scent, you might as well not bother washing at all. It's a whole new kind of dirty.

So maybe tomorrow I will wear Eau de PineSol, or perhaps a spritz of Toilet Duck behind my ears. So that I can be both clean, and reek like synthetic flowers. I just fear that the irony would be lost on all those smelly, inconsiderate people I have to travel with.