I can't handle perfume or other fragrances. If you have the same problem, politely let other people know. No one would want you to suffer.

You are not the only one, a recent report in the Journal of the American Board of Family Practitice concludes that employees in health care settings should be prepared to treat colleagues who have been assaulted by patients wielding .... perfume. A female medical assistant with no history of asthma suffered an allergic episode of near-suffocation after being spritzed with perfume three times in the face.

For those of us who react to perfumes, paint fumes, cleaning solvent fumes, etc, have many problems to overcome in this world. Most of us can't even go to a beauty salon, we have to hack our hairs off ourselves. The chemical smells overwhelm us.

Perfume today is not made from flowers but from toxic chemicals. It's about as romantic as hazardous waste. More than 4,000 chemicals are used in fragrances. Of these, 95% are made from petroleum. No agency regulates the fragrance industry, yet perfume chemicals are as damaging to health as tobacco smoke. In many hospitals no perfumes are allowed!

Links for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity/Environmental Illness