Help: Stinky Customers

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

What's worse tho... people who don't wash or people who smell like they bathe in their perfume? O_o

I'd have to say the people who marinate in their own cologne/perfume. The stinky people's odor is natural based and will dissipate fairly quickly.

Manufactured fragrances are designed to be stronger and to be smelled to ridiculous levels measured as parts per million or even parts per billion. Which is why a woman can dab three drops of it on their bodies and smell nice for hours. It is also designed to stay airborne for as long as possible so the scent lingers in an attempt to draw attention to the wearer.

So when some person marinates themselves in perfume/cologne they are putting a long lasting fragrance into the air in a quantity far in excess of the designer's intention meaning that you'll smell these people for hours.

Considering that the real trick of perfume is to let it mix with your natural body chemistry to create a unique fragrance (hence the reason to tap a bit on your wrist and then sniff it) they lose that effect and all people smell is the raw fragrance. Which is also annoying when you consider that many perfumes out there do not smell as nice until it hits a woman's skin.

M

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Oh, perfume is worse.

Because funk is just funk. When you put perfume OVER the funk, you get perfume AND funk. The funk doesn't go away and hide. And the smell of funk and the smell of perfume do NOT play well together.

I guess I'm just used to being around funk, being in the SCA and quite used to the smell of guys roasting in plate armor all day in South Carolina heat. Too much perfume, on the other hand, even on a clean body, can really be overpowering.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I guess I'm just used to being around funk, being in the SCA and quite used to the smell of guys roasting in plate armor all day in South Carolina heat. Too much perfume, on the other hand, even on a clean body, can really be overpowering.

Well Stick-Jock funk is in a class of its own. That stuff could make a three week dead squirrel get up and find another place to finish decomposing.

M

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, true, but once you've experienced Pennsic Stick Jock Funktm by being forced to sit next to it on the haywagon all the way down from the battlefield, anything else pales in comparison. I think many of the cells in your nose and parts of your brain that process odor dies and the smell of funk just isn't that offensive anymore.

[Noelegy]

I was the customer in this case

I was due for an upgrade on my cell phone (overdue, actually) and went into the Red Checkmark Place on my lunchbreak yesterday to get my new phone. The guy who helped me out was well-dressed, polite, helpful, answered all my questions...and had breath that would have peeled the paint off the wall. It wasn't smoker breath. I'm not sure what it was.

Fortunately, I developed a "listening attentively" pose that had my freshly-Purelled hand just under my nose.

[Mighty Girl]

Keep either Oust or Febreze around and spray him, and go to a beauty supply store and pick up a large box (usually pretty cheap) of plastic gloves. In fact, if your employer expects you to pick up his trash, you should make them buy the plastic gloves.

I too, used to be a smoker and know exactly what RK is talking about. See- my husband and I never smoked inside our home, EVER. One woman I worked with had such a strong tobacco odor on her, it was obvious that her clothes were marinated in it every single day. And another culprit- diet. One girl I worked with at the heating/ac place had the absolute worst breath. She worked out all the time, and was a vegetarian. Well, she may not have eaten meat, but all the garlic, asparagus and beans were like noxious gasses coming out of her mouth.

[morgana]

Well, true, but once you've experienced Pennsic Stick Jock Funktm by being forced to sit next to it on the haywagon all the way down from the battlefield, anything else pales in comparison. I think many of the cells in your nose and parts of your brain that process odor dies and the smell of funk just isn't that offensive anymore.

Although opening up the armor bag to get out the fighting clothes, in a 4 x 7 foot unventilated laundry room, can be a brain- and sinus-searing experience.

[tollbaby]

She worked out all the time, and was a vegetarian. Well, she may not have eaten meat, but all the garlic, asparagus and beans were like noxious gasses coming out of her mouth.

That's not necessarily why she had bad breath. I'm an occasional vegetarian (I don't eat meat often, but I'm not consciously "not" eating meat... I eat meat maybe once a week). And my breath isn't bad.

Bad breath is often an indication of an internal medical problem. People who have chronic bad breath often have a condition or illness that has not yet been diagnosed or treated. One of the major causes, from what I'm told, is intestinal parasites. Yum.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I asked the question cuz the smell of people who bathe in their perfume literally brings tears to my eyes and makes me feel physically ill whereas BO people just stink and their stink tends to leave when they do. I remember this man coming up to the till and he smelt like he'd not only bathed in cologne, but had also washed his clothes in it too. It went right up my nose and down my throat, I was gagging the whole time and thought he'd notice, but he didn't. Afterwards, the cloud of cologne just lingered in the air like a poisonous gas cloud. X_X

[NightAngel]

Since we're on the subject of perfume I will once again reiterate my utter hatred of Patchouli and those who wear drench themselves (their clothes, their hair, their everything!) in it creating a toxic cloud of spicy funk that sucks away all oxygen in a five mile radius.

[iradney]

Since we're on the subject of perfume I will once again reiterate my utter hatred of Patchouli and those who wear drench themselves (their clothes, their hair, their everything!) in it creating a toxic cloud of spicy funk that sucks away all oxygen in a five mile radius.

Y'know, I only recently got a whiff of what Patchouli smelled like, and it got me to wondering - why, oh WHY would someone want to wear a scent that makes them smell like they rolled in something dead?

The way I have always applied scent is a spritz on the cleavage, a spritz on the wrist (on one wrist and I dab the other on it) and a spritz behind the knees. If I can smell myself, I've put on too much!

Then you'll get the people who use the matching scented body wash, body cream, talcum powder, deoderant AND scent. Ok, ok we get it - now please stop suffocating us!

[Ackee]

Thanks

Thank you guys for all your help. Its good to know I am not the only one.
I guess I am going to have to put up with this dodgy behaviour for much longer. I am going to invest in cleaning wipes for the keyboard and Dettol spray.
He asked me a question today, I kept ignoring him but he kept saying excuse me and I had to get up.
The closer I got to him the sicker it made me feel.
Now I have dealt with lots of stinky readers before, they are really nasty. I have had people smelling of pee, sweat, other bodily secretions. Those that may wash their bodies but not their teeth or their clothes (for years, so that their clothes beome stiff and holey).I can't understand why as second hand clothes don't cost that much. Plus would a charity shop refuse to give someone who desperately needs them ? Anyway I digress.
Despite all the bad noxious odours I have never, ever actually met someone that made me feel like retching. Proper food pushing up from the bottom of my stomach retching.
I wonder what he did to make him smell like that...
No, must not think too hard about it. I am already trying to get the Freddy thing out of my mind.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

The problem with patchoulli is that many people who use it use it liberally to cover the funk of and unwashed body.

It doesn't work.

I've smelled a few perfumes that contained patchoulli in small amounts to spice up an otherwise bland floral. These perfumes were wonderful. However, it's not a scent that is used well on it's own. It's just too strong.

That, and my husband associates it with hippies.

[Ackee]

Just do what my best friend and his roommates used to do to their stinky couch-dweller. Spray him with the Febreeze when he's not looking.

Oh, and make sure you have Clorox wipes and such about to wipe up after he leaves, for your health and the health of others.

Yes, this is a brilliant idea. I have wipes for the keyboard too.

[XCashier]

What's worse tho... people who don't wash or people who smell like they bathe in their perfume? O_o

That's a tough one. On the one hand, people who haven't bathed or brushed their teeth in a long time have billions of bacteria built up, secreting waste and causing the foul stench. Any injury they receive is going to get infected pronto, and badly, which will only add to the stink.

On the other hand, perfume-bathers are using noxious chemicals far in excess of what they are suppoded to be used for. Anyone who has a chemical sensitivity will be in a world of hurt when one of these idiots walk by.

And both BO and excessive perfume linger. I still remember the disgusting filthy guy whose funk lingered for an hour after he left my small store.

Don't they teach hygiene in schools anymore? Sheesh folks, just buy soap, shampoo and toothpaste and use them daily! You'll have a lot more friends!