THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994             TAG: 9409160272
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER       PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   58 lines

THAT STRANGE SMELL IS PROBABLY FROM ME

I recently threw away my favorite bottle of perfume. I'm tired of hearing that I smell like bug spray.

About 10 years ago I started an investigation to find the source of a scent I liked. It was earthy and spicy, and I smelled it most often in Oriental gift shops, health food stores and Indian restaurants.

I discovered what I liked was ``patchouli,'' a powerful smelling Indian herb usually identified by people over 40, as ``what hippies wore in the '60s.''

I bought a small bottle of patchouli essence oil, and I realized right away that like the old Brylcreme ads, ``a little dab will do ya.'' I could put one drop of the stuff on my wrist at 7:30 in the morning and have people comment on the scent at 2 in the afternoon.

For the first couple of years I wore patchouli, I thought it was just a coincidence that fellow workers often complained of odd smells when they walked past my work space.

I heard, ``It smells like a moldy refrigerator around here,'' ``Has someone just been to the dentist? It smells like a dentist office over here,'' ``We need to get housekeeping in here; it smells like someone spilled a bag of potting soil,'' and ``Has somebody been smoking pot in here?''

Then kind, and not-so-kind relatives and friends said it was me. Some of them actually liked patchouli, but most of them enjoyed teasing me about smelling like incense, old newspapers or pepper.

My sister in Salisbury says the letters I write to her smell like me, and my daughter in Elizabeth City says even the dishes she borrows from me smell like ``my house.'' Apparently, not only I, but everything in my home, carries the scent of patchouli.

At the office, when co-workers come in later than I, they'll say, ``I knew you were here. I smelled you.''

The last straw, however, was when I was working on a story recently, and I was waiting to see someone in a city office. It was about 2 in the afternoon, and I certainly couldn't detect any trace of patchouli on myself.

But, as I sat in the outer office, waiting, a man came in and said to the receptionist, ``Has someone been spraying for bugs around here? You can smell it all the way down the hall, but it's really bad right in here. I'm gonna call someone and tell them not to be spraying during work hours.''

I just couldn't bring myself to let him know it was probably me. Instead, I was resolved to go home and throw the offending stuff in the trash, which I did that very afternoon. Enough is enough. I don't want to stink.

When I told my husband of my plan, however, he said, ``Ignore those people. I like the way it smells. It's different.''

So do I.

Yesterday I picked the little bottle out of the wastepaper basket and set it back up on my dresser. But I've switched to a lavender scent for the rest of the summer. I can hardly wait to hear what that smells like. by CNB