Remembering the B&M fiasco, just to be on the safe side, IRL = “in real life” (as opposite to “on Internet,” or “online”).
Saturday Question #193:
How Many People That You Know in IRL Wear Perfumes?
Perfumistas only count if you know them independently from the common hobby. Family, friends, coworkers, neighbors and other “civilians” are the subject of this SQ.
My Answer
My parents and grandparents on both sides wore perfumes. My vSO from time to time allows me to spray him with perfume I choose from his collection, but I’m not sure if he would do it without my initiative. I could remember about 10 friends and 3-4 co-workers who were noticed wearing perfumes from time to time, but just one who would do it daily.
All-in-all, before I started thinking about it, I didn’t realize how limited my RL’s perfume circle was! It makes me especially appreciative of all of you who come here every week to share our perfumed loves, likes and nemeses. And adore Rusty.
How about you?
Undina's Looking Glass 
Hmm, hard to say. I don’t always get close enough to smell people, and they may not be daily perfume wearers. Sometimes I ask and find out it’s a lotion they just put on their hands. But probably less than half the time I see people, I smell fragrance. How much less than half, I really don’t know.
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It makes you wonder who are all those people for whom department stores sell perfumes.
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My husband and stepson wear perfume occasionally, plus one girlfriend. Other than that I don’t really notice perfume on many people. My SIL claims to wear Opium but I’ve never smelled anything on her.
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One would think that Opium is one of those perfumes that are hard to miss :)
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3-4 people, but they don’t seem to wear it regularly. One friend said, “I don’t have to wear it–I shower.” Hmm.
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That’s an interesting take on the modern perfume wearing.
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Yes, and I’ve heard it from more than one source.
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From my childhood I had both parents and my three older siblings who all wore perfume of some sort, not necessarily sprayed. My mother didn’t wear actual perfume every day but had a good selection of perfumed talc. She wore perfume when she was going out socially. I only knew my maternal grandmother and my memory of her is soap and cigarettes. Most of my friends wear perfume, and the same can be said of the people I work with, to varying degrees. My hubby likes wearing something fragrant 99% of the time, the other 1% is when he has to run out the door for work in a hurry.
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When I was growing up, there were no perfumes that could be sprayed. Spraying was reserved to deodorants. Women’s perfumes were applied via a stopper (or one’s finger to the bottle opening), and men’s colognes were poured into a palm and applied this way.
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My sister in law has three perfumes that she rotates, wears daily but not really open to trying anything new. I don’t know anyone else IRL who even regularly wears it, at least in my perception. I imagine most people don’t spray as heavily as I do these days so maybe I’m just not smelling it!
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When I think about it, it seems so strange that people don’t wear perfume. I loved perfume for so long that it is surprising to realize that it doesn’t play not even the same but any role in others’ lives.
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It might be different in Australia but there’s a very strong perfume wearing coterie. The best advertising ever was that you need perfume as the final touch before leaving the house. Aussies seem to have taken this to heart and almost everyone who finds out I’m into perfume has at least two or three perfume related stories and wants to tell me their whole stable of perfumes since birth.
Even strangers will ask what I’m wearing and as I go about my daily life there are often beautiful wafts passing or sitting nearby.
I think the rise of the perfume discounter drug stores have made smelling good affordable and acceptable above what we already were used to.
Portia xx
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I like Australia even more now! :)
I know that one should be careful what they wish for, and bad perfumes on someone sitting next to you on a plane or even standing in a checkout line might be annoying, but I wish for more people here wearing perfumes on a daily basis.
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HA! I’m lucky that very few perfumes annoy me. that could be a nightmare Undina.
I wish it for you too.
Portia xx
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Great question, Undina. I can literally count them on one hand. I end up being my friends and coworkers main source to the art of enjoying perfumes. They love the fact that they never smell the same thing twice. This is due to the fact that I’m always rotating my collection, and throwing in a surprise or two by wearing samples I don’t own.
Rusty looks comfortable.
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I was the same when I was still working from the office. And I remember telling co-workers that they can always tell me if they didn’t like some specific perfume – so that I could exclude it from the office-wear rotation in the future (since I has so many other choices).
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Dear Rusty in a very relaxed pose! Gosh he is lovely.
I always get the feeling that friends think I am obsessive about perfume (surely not!), and it’s not really an interest of theirs. My husband never wore fragrance until I “educated” him, and I now have my a monster of my own creation as he has acquired a taste for certain expensive and hard to get lines – but it is lovely to smell them on him. When I worked in an office there were at least three people who enjoyed sniffing me and would proceed to buy the scents they liked best (not convinced I was happy about that!). My sister has stuck with just two perfumes for decades, which is hard for me to understand.
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It’s not obvious on the photo, but Rusty is warm his hind lags on my laptop’s exhaust.
I’m sure my vSO would have never arrived at using perfumes if it wasn’t for me, but he doesn’t mind being sprayed with one of the perfumes we chose to join his collection ;)
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DH has a few bottles & always wears fragrance before he leaves the house. Both my adult children wear fragrance. The youngest still mourns the loss of Prada Infusion d’Homme. The eldest’s gf wears LVeB.
My group of friends almost all wear fragrance.
My friends from work are all scented.
I think there is a very different attitude to wearing fragrance between geographical areas.
Wearing fragrance continues to be the norm in Europe.
From my reading it seems less prevalent in the US despite there being vastly more choice.
So in answer your SQ almost everyone I know wears fragrance
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I envy you! :)
In my “previous life” (kind of in Europe), a lot more people wore perfumes. This is one of a few things from the past that I miss.
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I am really not sure, but fewer than I would wish, certainly. When I do inquire, I find that a surprising number of male and female friends simply don’t bother with perfume other than (at best) scented bath and body products.
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I don’t understand that! Probably it is going away together with wearing “proper attire” (vs. “something comfortable”).
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PS LOL at “the B&M fiasco”. ;)
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I would say 7 of my IRL friends and family wear fragrance. Three of these are very interested in perfumes and wear them daily, the others less often.
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I wish more of my friends were like that!
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