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Sep. 1st, 2004 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleOnce again, I find myself looking for ways to neutralize strong scents. Primo Levi wrote, "a chemist without a nose is dead," but I often wish I didn't have such a sensitive nose. I have a number of olfactory migraine triggers, including several common perfumes, and some of the chemicals used in hair dyes, hair curling/straightening goops, hairspray, and nail enamel. (For years, I avoided femmes altogether, though I eventually learned that hippie femmes were safe. Or other femmes could be safe if we were outdoors.) Most of the chemicals I need to use in the laboratory at work are relatively safe, but a few are problematic for me, even when the lab is ventilated well enough that everyone else is fine. With my current lifestyle, it's not a big deal for me to avoid beauty parlors for years at a stretch.
Now I'm concerned about my brother's wedding, and the duties of a bridesmaid. My mother is arranging for all the women in the family to have our hair professionally "done" the day before the wedding. As far as I'm concerned, if there's going to be that much mousse on my head, I want antlers...but they're going for piles of curls. After the pre-wedding party, I'm not allowed to wash my hair. According to the experts (and the relatives), leaving all the stinking goop in place overnight will make my hair more cooperative for when the whole wedding party has our hair professionally "done" in matching "updos" for the wedding itself. It's still important to be cooperative! I agreed to be a bridesmaid, and that means I ought to be a bridesmaid properly, without whining and balking at *everything* I'm asked to do. Yet I'm really not looking forward to being in close proximity to hair-doing chemicals and their associated perfumes for two days.
Can anyone suggest ways I might mitigate the effects? I know that adding more perfume (of a type that does not trigger migraines) does NOT help. My mother believes that people can only smell one thing at a time, so if you wear a perfume you like, no other scent can trouble you. My nose has never worked that way. A really, really, intense smell can overwhelm subtler smells, the way having someone screaming in your ear makes it hard to identify music...but it distracts from everything. And some of the scents trigger migraine even when I'm too distracted to recognize them. It has occasionally been even worse, because I didn't have my nose to warn me I was starting to be exposed.
Does stuff like Febreeze work if you spray it on hair? Does it neutralize, or just add more perfume? I've considered brushing baking soda through my hair before starting the first procedure, but I'm afraid it would react with the goop in unpleasant ways (or just cause them to need even more goop to get the appropriate effects.)
Now I'm concerned about my brother's wedding, and the duties of a bridesmaid. My mother is arranging for all the women in the family to have our hair professionally "done" the day before the wedding. As far as I'm concerned, if there's going to be that much mousse on my head, I want antlers...but they're going for piles of curls. After the pre-wedding party, I'm not allowed to wash my hair. According to the experts (and the relatives), leaving all the stinking goop in place overnight will make my hair more cooperative for when the whole wedding party has our hair professionally "done" in matching "updos" for the wedding itself. It's still important to be cooperative! I agreed to be a bridesmaid, and that means I ought to be a bridesmaid properly, without whining and balking at *everything* I'm asked to do. Yet I'm really not looking forward to being in close proximity to hair-doing chemicals and their associated perfumes for two days.
Can anyone suggest ways I might mitigate the effects? I know that adding more perfume (of a type that does not trigger migraines) does NOT help. My mother believes that people can only smell one thing at a time, so if you wear a perfume you like, no other scent can trouble you. My nose has never worked that way. A really, really, intense smell can overwhelm subtler smells, the way having someone screaming in your ear makes it hard to identify music...but it distracts from everything. And some of the scents trigger migraine even when I'm too distracted to recognize them. It has occasionally been even worse, because I didn't have my nose to warn me I was starting to be exposed.
Does stuff like Febreeze work if you spray it on hair? Does it neutralize, or just add more perfume? I've considered brushing baking soda through my hair before starting the first procedure, but I'm afraid it would react with the goop in unpleasant ways (or just cause them to need even more goop to get the appropriate effects.)
