cjsmith: (Default)
cjsmith ([personal profile] cjsmith) wrote2007-10-09 04:18 pm

Human oddities

I found out last week that there are people who find the scent of hair spray to be pleasant.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement.
mithriltabby: Serene silver tabby (Default)

[personal profile] mithriltabby 2007-10-09 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)
[livejournal.com profile] obsessivewoman and I are regularly perplexed by the panoply of goods that are designed on the assumption that adding scent to something is able to make it smell “fresh” or “clean”. If it isn’t already fresh or clean, adding a masking scent won’t help...

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-09 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't even have a clue about whether hair spray gets some kind of scent deliberately added to it at all. It doesn't smell fresh or clean to me, nor does it smell like flowers or citrus or fake pine. It smells like a railroad spike through the bridge of my glasses.

My boss puts it on in her cube, about eight feet from me.

[identity profile] racerxmachina.livejournal.com 2007-10-09 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I think everyone in my middle school was addicted to the smell of Final Net. Mind you, this was the late 80's, when the popular girls had peacock's-ass mall bangs.

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-09 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
If someone sniffs it a lot, does she see lots of pretty colors? Or does she just wind up in the school nurse's office again?

[identity profile] racerxmachina.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
Don't know, don't care. The scent of hairspray immediately sends my allergies into overdrive.

[identity profile] klwalton.livejournal.com 2007-10-09 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Aqua Net was my mom's hairspray of choice. The scent of it will always remind me of my childhood.

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-09 11:53 pm (UTC)(link)
It honestly never occurred to me that hair spray might smell like it does because that's considered acceptable. I always thought it was like road tar: you want the job done, you put up with the stench.

[identity profile] wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
(gag) Hairspray sends me straight into an asthma attack.

We've been having construction next door all summer long, and I have the thrill of sitting by the shared wall of the building that's being gutted and redone. Jackhammers six inches away from my desk. Random pounding and clattering. Dust, dirt (they keep digging up the street), mold, tar, and the ghosts of a hundred thousand dead cigarettes. It's been sheer hell on my sinuses and asthma -- though they did finally get a HEPA filter for me, hallelujah.

And if I were given the choice, I'd rather have the construction than the hairspray.

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
I am fortunate enough that I have no medical objection to hairspray. Sitting where you're sitting -- with asthma! -- seems to me like it would be absolute misery.

I'm bemused by the fact that there are people who actively like the hairspray smell, while I have hated it for years, and I never knew. I guess it's just not a subject that ever came up.

[identity profile] plymouth.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
I...um...like the smell of road tar. *sheepish look*

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
*similar sheepish look* I said the wrong thing. To me, road tar is strongly noticeable, but neutral in terms of like or dislike. I should have said roofing tar. I find that stuff nasty. Are you fond of that one? :-)

[identity profile] eichin.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
Oh god, aqua net was such amazingly wretched stuff. Just thinking about it is making my eyes water, and it's been at least twenty years... the web thinks it is still on the market, I'd assumed it went away with a lot of the other toxic aerosols in the early 90s.

(It brings back childhood memories, too. But not *good* ones.)
nosrednayduj: pink hair (Default)

[personal profile] nosrednayduj 2007-10-10 01:04 am (UTC)(link)
There's no accounting for taste. My housemate rather likes the smell of SKUNK, of all things.

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
I guess so! I'm surprised that I never knew some people liked it. I wonder if it took your housemate a long time to figure out that other people didn't like the smell of skunk.
nosrednayduj: pink hair (Default)

[personal profile] nosrednayduj 2007-10-10 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, I don't think she likes it when it's overwhelming, just when you get a bit of a whiff now and then. She does get that it's not anyone's favorite.

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
I feel like I suddenly moved to a new planet, one where the smell of hairspray is socially considered to be all right. It's a little bit like when my massive abdominal pain was diagnosed a number of years ago. I learned that despite the timing it wasn't "cramps", and only then did I find out that everyone ELSE has cramps in the MIDDLE, not out along the hip bones. I honest to goodness never thought to ask or to mention it.

[identity profile] hitchhiker.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
it might have pleasant (read 'pyrotechnical') associations :)

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I wondered about that. :-)

[identity profile] bigjohnsf.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 06:04 am (UTC)(link)
Um, I know someone who find the scent of pine needles and diesel fuel, especially in combination, arousing. Go figure.

I only vaguely remember the scent of hairspray, but my mother said when I was four I could hear when she put on hairspray from the other side of the house and I would come and ask where we were going.

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2007-10-10 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, that's great! It's amazing the patterns we learn when we're small. Kids are very perceptive.