I have always been 'sensitive' to scents but lately, within this last year, has gotten a LOT worse. I can no longer go down the laundry dergent aisle, mom has to stick to one vanilla scented fabric softner, and any air sprays really affect me. It used to just be that I would get a little stuffed up and my eyes would start to water but once I was away from the scent, after about a minute or so, I would be fine and back to normal. No more. A lot of scents still do give the itchy watery eyes and stuffed up nose but I know get more intense issues. With some certain scents (such as my brothers cologne and his girlfriends perfume) though, I get a lot worse. Even with only the slightest scent of it my lungs start burning and I get a bad headache. The headache I can ignore but the intense burning in my lungs last for hours after smelling it. They have repeatidly come over to the house stating that they are not wearing anything yet are in jeans they wore the night before, or their coats are drenched in it or her perfume. Even just when J (her daughter) comes to the house, I have to stay away from her because she smells so much like it. When K comes home from a visit at their house he has to go in and change his clothes. Here is where the differences come in. First I will explain how it 'works' at our house:
They are not to wear cologne or perfume if they are coming over to stay at the house, but the scent lingers on them. However, at least once or twice a week my brother just 'stops in' (usually to borrow money or food) and will walk in the house and all around the house. But it's not just about his cologne though. Dad complains because he can no longer use his body wash he likes (I have asked him to just shut the bathroom door and open the window a bit for a while after a shower but apparently he doesnt like that option). Mom just rolls her eyes when I come up and ask what smells (carpet cleaner or cleaning products) and just tells me many times that it can't be controlled. It's not so bad when it is just the itchy, watery eyes but the burning lungs really hurt and makes me cough badly and I have actually put a rib out one night. Strangely we have one candle (a vanilla derivative scent) that does not bother me at all, so mom figures that the perfect 'fix' for the bad scents is to light the candle near me so that I can't smell the 'bad' scent.
Because of all this I was dreading Christmas this year. There were going to be 11 people in a small area for over 24 hours. I repeatidly asked my mom to ask my grandma to tell everyone to not wear any scents while we were at Christmas. Mom felt that overstepped things as we were going to be a 'guest' in the house and we couldn't dictate what was going to happen. I didn't have high hopes about this but was pleasantly surprised. This was actually a positive reaction. After weeks of mom saying she kept 'forgetting' to mention it to my grandma, my aunt called the day before we were going up to firm up plans. While she was on the phone I made sure to 'remind' mom about it so mom vaguely mentioned it. My aunt said she would pass it on.
We get up there the next day and notice that a few windows were open. She said that since both of them smoke in the house, she wanted to spray air freshener around so did that the first thing in the morning to hope that it was out of the house before we got there. I could smell nothing in the house. The next day when everyone got there, no one was wearing anything, which usually someone is wearing something. When we opened gifts the next day, nan had made me a 'goody' bag with different lotions and stuff and said she didn't know about the scent issues when she got the stuff but she had looked through all of it and pulled out the most mild scents to give to me. They were all nice and mild and there was only one item I wouldn't be able to use but I gave it to my cousin becasue she kid. With everyone running around the house I kept getting a whiff of something but as soon as we figured out what it was (it was a diffuser that was empty that she figured had no scent left so hadn't moved) she took it in to her room so it wasn't near me. Even more amazing is when my cousin's husband went to the bathroom and sprayed air freshener. As soon as my aunt smelled it she went in the bathroom to open the window and shut the door for a while and then mentioned to him that I couldn't tolerate it and he felt bad. All in all it was a lot nicer up there than when we have 'company' here.
Just amazing how much difference it can make when someone puts a little effort and a little respect into things that really don't matter to most people, but can really affect others.
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