A Whiff of Discontent: Challenging Office Etiquette Through Fragrance
Is refusing to confine oneself to traditionally "office safe" fragrances a challenge to the alienation and exploitation of the modern workplace?
I recently started intentionally wearing fragrances that are generally considered “problematic” at the office in an attempt to express my own discontent with the grind of late-stage capitalism and to sow discord amongst my coworkers in parallel. Reeking of tuberose helps to assuage the feeling of a lack of control over my own life and my reluctance to accept the necessity and indignity of work. If I have to be in that cubicle for 8+ hours, everyone around me is going to know it, whether they like it or not.
I’ve noticed that other coworkers are choosing fragrances that are assertive and not traditionally considered “office safe”—someone near me was wearing a liberal application of Burberry Her just the other day, its fruity aroma of strawberry and burnt sugared vanilla filled the hallway and persisted after she walked by. But, we're not talking about fragrances that are merely strong. There needs to be an element of subversion and incongruence in its wear for a fragrance to fit into the category of “office noncompliant”. For example, Mugler Angel has a notorious olfactory presence, but we’ve probably all encountered a receptionist at one time or another who wore it daily. It somehow still fits into the zeitgeist of office culture. Similarly, the pantheon of sweet ashy ethyl maltol bombs that play off of Baccarat Rouge 540 (i.e. Ariana Grande Cloud, Mancera Instant Crush, the aforementioned Burberry Her, etc.) could be found on a significant percentage of 20-something art director girl bosses. The head of the department I worked in at my last job wore Frederic Malle’s Portrait of a Lady—a chic, elegant, powerful (and tastefully expensive) choice perfect for someone of her rank. She left a gorgeous rose and patchouli trail snaking around the office, a constant subtle reminder of her presence.
Perhaps this is part of a greater trend as return to office policies start to become more common and people find small ways to preserve the autonomy they gained while working from home. No one wanted to be the “smelly cologne guy” in the Before Times but maybe now it’s worth the risk in order to stay true to your olfactory aesthetic. Even the fact that I have to make the distinction between scents that are merely strong and those that are office non-compliant points to a shift against the prevailing standard that wearing anything stronger than a light, citrusy “clean” musk—the classic office safe option embodied by scents such as CK One or Clean Reserve—is rude, anti-social, and a health hazard to your fellow coworkers.
A good office disruption fragrance should meet some or all of the following criteria:
Enormous projection: it should radiate above the flimsy walls of your cubicle and disperse throughout your environment.
Associated with, or widely considered primarily appropriate for, a distinctly non-office setting or occasion: we’re talking date night, clubbing, attending a gala, blasting cigs in the backyard of your favorite alt-lit party venue, etc. Anything but the daytime grind.
Popular enough that many people will have associative memories of it: smelling like your coworker’s first girlfriend or beloved granny will maximize the distractive power of your fragrance.
Not too challenging: you do not want to overspray a big stinky oud bomb and have some philistine uninitiated with fragrance spread a rumor around the office that you shit your pants.
Here are a few of my favorite selections to wear when that rebellious mood hits and I need everyone I work with to know that I am Not Here For It:
Big 80s florals—the ur example here is Giorgio by Giorgio Beverly Hills—infamously banned in restaurants during its heyday, and for good reason, it is completely incompatible with food. Subtly encourage your fellow office drones to take a real lunch break away from their desks! Other options like Poison or Opium could work here too for a similar effect. Essentially, you want to capitalize on the scent cloud these types of fragrances create, which is pervasive and impossible to escape from.
My other current favorite fragrance of this type is Elizabeth Arden Red Door, which can be found at TJ Maxx for about twenty dollars. I recently wore four sprays of it while wearing a pair of leopard print pants and felt a bit like Peg Bundy from Married With Children as I sat around doing my spreadsheets. The two fragrances smell similar, but Giorgio has a sunny sweetness to it and the tuberose note in it is more present to my nose, whereas the white florals in Red Door are sharper and it has a plastic-y honey note in the base that gradually asserts itself over time, giving it kind of a creepy feel.
Alien by Mugler is a modern perfume that essentially acts like an 80s floral bomb—its synthetic conceit is particularly suited for those of us in the tech world as a nod to humanity's rapidly accelerating decline and our increasing irrelevance in the face of our new AI compatriots. This is also one of my favorite fragrances due to its constantly shifting character—sometimes it smells super trashy, like a community college sophomore nursing major going out clubbing, sometimes it smells stately and otherworldly, the kind of thing a sort of chic, super confident hard femme art curator would wear. Don't ask me how both of these things can be true at the same time, they just are.
Fracas by Robert Piguet. As Ruby McCollister has truthfully stated, tuberose is the scent of tragedy—and there is something a bit tragic about most 9-to-5s. Wear it on the days that you (like me) want to mournfully convey that you are meant for something greater than the sad desk job grind.
Aromatics Elixir by Clinique. You've come a long way, baby! Though Revlon's Charlie was the first fragrance advertised with the image of the liberated career woman, Aromatics gives me a similar sort of 70s feminist vibe. Maybe because it's kind of hippy-dippy and bitter and green smelling, vaguely androgynous, but in an earthy, human way rather than in the sexless anemic citrus and laundry musk way that classic “office safe” fragrances often are. Though it's a woman's fragrance it has a kind of a sour masculine butchness to it that rings as something a take-no-shit business lady would wear. This is the fragrance you wear when you want to pretend that you are a very serious girl boss, 1980s business lady style, but you're actually not. Its room-filling prowess and aforementioned sour green patchouli character will impart a foreboding presence amongst your coworkers, rendering them fearful of you and thus giving you more time to scroll on your phone during the day since they'll want to stay away.
Maybe that's the real through line here: a nuclear office-inappropriate fragrance helps create a bubble of impenetrability around you. In the era of the open plan bullpen-style office we have less and less privacy and a loud fragrance can subtly send a "leave me alone" signal while also announcing your presence, a reminder that you are in the space (by force or at least economic coercion), but you're there on your own terms.
More soon.