Things that should be illegal

A couple years ago I was walking down the road, and a car passed me. Within a couple seconds I could smell patchouli really strong. I thought: what the hell must it be like in that car, and what kind of being could survive such a thing?

I'm gonna move on from the patchouli in a minute, but I'm remembering the time I first even heard of it.

In my early 20's walking with my bf around one of those weird little places that wasn't quite a mall, but since it was indoors you couldn't call it a strip shopping center. One of those cardboard malls of the 1980's.

In this cheap ass mall they were having a cheap ass arts and crafts show/sale. All these card tables set up with god knows what.

Boyfriend stopped at one table where they were selling essential oils. I remember being bored and not paying attention and just wanting to go back to one of our places to have sex.
BF asked the guy at the table if he had any patchouli. The guy nodded knowingly and said "oh yeah....." I had no idea at the time what it was, or that there was the thing about it being used to cover up the smell of pot.
In my state of mind I made the association had something to do with people having sex, and felt offended/uncomfortable that he knew what I was thinking apparantly.

BF let me smell it, and I'm sure I said something like "Oh GROSS!"

So to this day I kinda still associate it with creepy cardboard mall hippie sex.

Tribal tattos, unless you're at least part Maori or Samoan or something.

Last month I was in the hospital for about 4 days recovering from surgery. The day I was supposed to be discharged the nurse tech (I'm not sure what they are called, but they are not nurses) would come in to check BP and other vitals. At 7 AM she arrived in a bilious cloud of obnoxious essential oils. It was so strong it triggered a migraine (honest to God). I asked her what perfume she was wearing, she said she mixed 3 essential oils together because she didn't believe in using artificial scents.......Swell, at least it wasn't artificial stuff that made me so sick.

That should definitely be illegal, wearing obnoxious fumes while tending to patients recovering from surgery.

omg, anyone that works in a clinical setting shouldn't be wearing perfume of any kind!

I know!!!!! It's enough to gag a maggot. I asked the nurse to please keep her distracted because everytime she came in my temples would throb (and not in a good way).

The first time I heard of it was in "The Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart. I had to look up the meaning because I'd never heard of it. When I read your post I started humming to myself.

I've been humming this song for ten minutes now, damn you patchouli!

Better humming than smelling it.

Relating to patchouli....chamomile.

Now while I acknowledge many perfumes that use patchouli in really small amounts as part of their blend can smell wonderful, for me, not the same can be said of chamomile.

You know those Celestial Seasoning variety packs of teas?
I couldn't pinpoint what it was by comparing the ingredients on the label why it was that some made me almost gag, and others where quite nice.

That is, until I smelled and tasted the straight chamomile.

I wonder if it's a genetic thing, like some people hating cilantro, or truffle?


I wouldn't want to make chamomile illegal, just put under strict control.

Not sure what patchouli smells like. I may hate it, there are many perfumey scents that I despise.

I also loathe the ugly (to me) smell of chamomile. A friend of mine drinks the tea a lot. I dread when he goes and orders it.

Then another friend who seems to believe the colognes he seems to pour on himself are appealing to the whole friggin world. I can smell the stench a full 10 feet away. (He doesn't seem to rinse soap or shampoo off well either. I can say this because once he visited and I mentioned the smell. He said he hadn't used cologne that day because he knows it offends me.

Not all smells bother me. I love garlic, onion and surprisingly the scents that waft up through the hallways in the building I live in from the scented candles store downstairs. Weird, I know.

I can't abide the smell of lamb cooking either.

Another thing which should be turned illegal is spandex. I don't care who is wearing it. Thin, overweight, old, young, male, female, genderless or anything else. I have no reason or interest in knowing every danged part of your body!

Ah, another chamomile hater!

I bet you don't understand either why that dreadful stuff is supposed to make you sleepy. I guess if it doesn't make you retch it works.

Oh man, you'd be lucky with patchouli if you could only smell it 10 feet away. I'm not kidding when I say you can pick up the scent of it 15 least 50 yards away.
It's the type of smell that's either there, or not there. No in between as in, "I can smell someone cooking with garlic far away, or next door, or in your house."

I can't name a specfic perfume, but I know some that are lovely that do have P in them. I have a feeling it must be very skillfully blended in very small amounts with other things that temper it and keep it from being the main event.

When I worked, there was this one UPS driver that wore it. She was just the nicest person. I would actually call her Ms Patchouli. She never knew I didn't like it. She seemed so pleased with her nickname.

Sometimes she would deliver when I wasn't in the office. I could still smell it hours after she had just walked in, put down a package, and walked out.

Maybe you like the candels because they are a fair distance away.

This is a weird one. I have to cover my nose when I go in a bakery. The smell of all that baking sweet stuff. Yuck.

Just thought of something. It floated up from way deep in my mind.

The only way I can describe the smell of patchoulli is primitive....and cheap.

Like if you were a Neanderthal and in some ceremony or burial put on some rotted substance found in the woods. It's really dense and deep and single purposed with nothing to soften it's ragged edges. It has to be one of the least subtle odors I can think of.

It's just like, f*cking THERE.

atchouli should be used in coat closets as a mild inect repellent. I keep my winter suits and coats in such a closet. My wife doesnt use it but I think women generally have NO SENSE OF SMELL WHATEVER. They wear really cloying perfums, and use these goddamm fruity smelling hand cremes that stink up the car and make me wanna puke.

SO keep yer opinions about patchouli to yaself and nobody gets hurt.

Theres a direct function law about cost of parfum/oz and its gag factor.

My fav odor for after shave and cologne was the old Gucci. It hqd a mild lavendar back. NOW , whatever they did to it it smells like some cheap crap they sell at those mall cologne kiosks. One reason Im glad malls are so yesterday.

Men like me like to smell like real cedar, lavendar, real citrus (not this chemical "near beer". I get off on suntan lotion sometimes (mostly when everybody was naked).

Im old enough to remember "Canoe". I think I till have a bottle mostly unused , cause Canoe smelt like a car deoderant.

Spaking of that ****. When you need a car deoderant I really think your problem is that the car should be put down.

What really oughta be outlawed are olks who smoke cigars in a car on a hot day. Even w/ AC at ic cream freezing temp, wvwry time you gt in or out of the car, that used cigar stink is there in the heat and it still makes me sick.
I used to smoke cigars down to the halfway point and only in the field in woods or on the back of a horse or back deck of the boat

And pine cleaner smell.

I remember that commercial where the woman was so happy her whole house smelled like a pine forest. Really? Why would someone want their home to smell like an artificial pine-scented sanitarium?

...and if you're so thrilled with the smell of a forest then go live in a hollowed out tree with squirrels and nuts!

Pathcouli reminds me of walking into the headshops in Boston around 1968-69 and the the song Crystal Blue Persuasion. Don’t ask me what brought that up.

THen there’s those dryer sheets perfume - Eau de Laundromat.

As for the smell of patchouli- it’s a tad better than fresh skunk spray but only by a scoche.