Eau de au pair - how would you handle?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone. Our AP wears a lot of perfume. I am one of those people - my sense of smell is my super power and I am nauseated by strong smells. I am finding our car smells when I drive it.The part of the house where she lives smells. I hug her and then I smell. How would you handle? I don't want to offend, but it's making me nuts.

[Anonymous]

Our lovely Spanish au pair was hitting the perfume quite hard as well. I told her I am very sensitive to perfumes and have allergies to many scents, and it is not about her personally, because I have the same reaction to most scents. And I tell her that my mother is even worse and can't use scented hand soaps or lotions at all. So it's a gentle discussion but it's one that's about MY issue ("I am too sensitive") versus HER issue ("you wear too much perfume").

[Anonymous]

How did it go? Has she dialed it back? Ours sprays in her room, but it follows her everywhere. I am thinking of asking her to step outside to spray (she has sliding glass door outside her room with ground level access). ?

[Anonymous]

"Hi Larla. I am very sensitive to perfume and feel nauseated by any strong scents. Please use less or stop wearing perfume at home."

You need to say something. Our AP is similar and actually got worse over the year. It's like she stopped being able to smell herself, so sprayed even more. The baby smells like her perfume after a day with her!!!

[Anonymous]

I get headaches from perfume. It is spelled out in our handbook and one of the first things we address with the au pair. We tell her if she is going out, to apply perfume after she leaves the house. And, if she does if at home, I call her out on it .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did it go? Has she dialed it back? Ours sprays in her room, but it follows her everywhere. I am thinking of asking her to step outside to spray (she has sliding glass door outside her room with ground level access). ?

She now reserves it for special occasions. Much more livable.

[Anonymous]

I put in my household rules that I am very sensitive to smells and can't have perfume, insense, scented candles etc. in the house.

[Anonymous]

We have an au pair who would literally bath in Men’s Sandalwood/Oud bath and body works lotions, shampoo, and cologne. It would stick to our furniture for hours, and smack you in the face if you walked into a room after she left. I finally asked her to stop wearing it around the house. I told her it was giving me a headache and was too strong. She said she didn’t notice any smell and sounded surprised that I noticed (?) but stopped wearing it. About a month later she switched the Bath and Body works Cool Water for men...... Which is more tolerable for me, but still she missed the point.

[Anonymous]

We have a house rule- no perfume in the house. It's in our AP manual.
When a new AP wears perfume, I tell her directly that we have a rule of no perfume in the house, and that are other APs would put it on after they went out.
-6 year host mom