When I was pregnant, I couldn’t stand the smell of almost anything. I hated how I smelled, my old stand by perfume made me nauseous, and my husband’s natural scent made me gag. The dishwasher actually made me puke it smelled so horrid to me. Heck, I couldn’t even open the fridge without holding my nose.
The fact everything in our brand new house had a horrible stench should have been the first hint to me I was pregnant. (The second being my record low blood pressure when I went in to get help with my anxiety. Due to always having a panic attack whilst at the doctor’s office, it was always high.)
It got worse the longer I was pregnant. I longed for the day when I’d be able to wash my hair with my old shampoo that didn’t cost an arm and a leg and dried my hair out. I couldn’t wait to not gag when I threw things in the trash.
Now, I’ve had a sensitive nose for as long as I can remember. Certain smells have always made me sick to my stomach, my nose itch, or gag. When I walk into houses, the first thing I notice is the smell. If I cannot stand the smell, it’s likely I will not return. I’ve crossed houses/apartments off our house/apartment hunting lists simply because the place reeked the second I walked in. It’s gotten to the point I can’t STAND artificial smells, like air fresheners. A house we recently looked at had a Yankee Candle hot oil air freshener. I had a headache when I left and refused to live there.
This is tragic, as my old standby was those hot oil air fresheners. I was the Air Freshener Queen. I had them upstairs, downstairs, and if I’d had a basement, there would have been on installed there. I was always changing the smell out when I got tired of the old one.
I threw them all out after our rental agent informed me they leave residual on the walls that stains.
So, in the next house, I tried various candles, sprays, and Fabreeze when I was desperate. Nothing worked. Even after I was no longer carrying around a child, my scenes of smell were still stronger than average. (Though, I could load and unload the dishwasher without puking in it, but I still gagged.)
With my moving around a lot, I stay in hotels a lot. All hotels smell different, depending on what they use to clean…or who ever cooked-and-or-ate something stinky before you got there. The last hotel we stayed at (not the one I’m currently sitting in) smelled like curry. Now, I don’t mind the smell of curry…when I am eating curry. Or I am someplace it makes sense for it to smell of curry. And for the entire two weeks, we were there, the whole suite reeked of curry. It would not leave. No matter what I sprayed or how long the windows were left open. It didn’t leave till after Basil Bea threw up in her bed and we failed to notice. The last night we were there, the room had a wafting order of stinky feet. An hour before we were checking out, I discovered the poor dog had gotten sick in her bed. It was why she smelled and the room reeked.
So, we left and moved to another hotel because when you PSC you can never just stay one place. You have to move hotels across town, hotel rooms within the same hotel, and sometimes stand in the hallway for an hour before they send you back to where you were before.
I was so hoping this new hotel wouldn’t stink. While it didn’t have the humidity issue the last room had, it still smelled dreadful. It wasn’t as strong a scent as the curry, but it was still an off putting aroma. The spray I had gotten to try to fight the curry smell didn’t do anything, so today I bought something from…Bath and Body Works.
GASP.
Bath and Body Works: the strongest smelling stuff on the planet. Even during the heyday in middle school when everyone was wearing it (and wearing too much), I couldn’t really stand the stuff. I remember friends getting into the car to go somewhere and my eyes watering because they were over powering my poor being with Lilac or Sun-Ripened Raspberry.
I’m sure I was an offender as I did have a rather large collection of the various products (Country Apple being my fav), but I think I got over it faster than the others. I’ve always been paranoid I put too much perfume on, too much smelly lotion on– sometimes to the point I rub myself down in rubbing alcohol before leaving the house.
So, I was standing in a store that sells about everything under the moon and found the Bath and Body Works display. They had those oil warmer things but I didn’t think those were a good idea for a hotel room. I also didn’t want a candle or to wear super smelly lotion. I was about to give up when I found a tiny bottle of room spray.
The first one I spritzed transported me to Key West, right to the lobby of the fancy hotel we stayed at. I stared at the thing: Mint Eucalyptus.
I sprayed it in front of me again to make sure I was smelling it right, as it was not over powering, it was not sickly sweet, and it was actually something I liked.
A lot.
A guy walking passed gave me a stink eye as I sent another puff of scent into the air, but I ignored him and my child’s pleas to allow her to spray it. (She’d already doused herself in a whole collection of Juicy Couture perfumes, so she stunk.)
I bought it.
I hurried on back to the hotel room and I sprayed it. Multiple times. And have enjoyed (oddly) being brought back to that overpriced hotel in Key West, where Pilot Boy never wanted to eat breakfast at and when he finally caved all he did was complain the rest of the day how overpriced it was and how he hates expensive hotels because they don’t feed you for free.
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