What do you do when a customer's cologne is lowering your IQ by the second...

[Peter_Tryba]

@Mark.Ricca

What wine would you have paired with that Ken?

Punta Final 2009 Sauvignon Blanc smells like the locker room at the Y.

[Brent_C_l_a_y_t_o_n]

I have had a couple of incidences where a customer’s cologne or perfume was so intense it made me light-headed. I also have a seriously weak gag reflex, and once I nearly puked on a woman. No lie.

I pretend to wipe my nose with my shirt, instead covering it to dull the scent. Also, since that is not necessarily viewed as the most acceptable move (grab a tissue to wipe your nose?) it also helps create separation distance.

[Ken_V]

@Mark.Ricca

What wine would you have paired with that Ken?

Definitely something French!

[Drewt]

I used to work in a bank and this guy and his mom would come in almost weekly, the teller used to run when they saw them, customers used to leave and come back in if they were waiting in line the stink was so bad. We literally used to have to lysol the place and open the doors after they came in.

[Steve_Manzi]

The stuff should be outlawed. When I come across some nitwit doused in perfume/cologne, it shuts down my lungs immediately. I can’t think straight (brain fog), and feel a bit of a rage/panic attack. I hold my breath when I just have to walk down the aisle in the food store with the detergents. If I walk into a shop or a section in a store, with potpourri, I have to run out. I always buy scent free soap, detergent, fabric softeners. Never ever wear cologne nor does my wife wear perfume. Hideous stuff.

[John_Davis]

@Drewt

I used to work in a bank and this guy and his mom would come in almost weekly, the teller used to run when they saw them, customers used to leave and come back in if they were waiting in line the stink was so bad. We literally used to have to lysol the place and open the doors after they came in.

Happens all the time in the grocery business. Almost daily if not weekly in the summer. BO, cologne, just have to deal with it…Unfortunate part of dealing with the public.

JD

[Daniel_Posner]

What is wrong with cologne and wine?

[Michel_Abood]

@Daniel Posner

What is wrong with cologne and wine?

It adds too much flavor to the wine.

[Tony_V_e_l_e_b_i_l]

At the Wine Exchange in Orange, CA, they had a sign near the entrance to the tasting room that asked customers not to wear perfume/cologne or anything else strongly scented that would interfere with being able to smell the wine.

Well, this young couple walked into the tasting room area and the female had quite a bit of perfume on. You could tell they were fairly new to the world of fine wine.

At any rate, person running the tasting quietly takes them aside and explains the no perfume/cologne rule and why it is in place and then nicely invites them to stay. He opened a side door to the outside to let in as much fresh air as possible. It helped quite a bit, they learned something without being embarrassed and hopefully they returned.

[andy_velebil]

The cologne thing drives me nuts, but cigarette smoke is the worst when I’m trying to enjoy some wine. A few years ago in Portugal, back when smoking in restuarants was still legal, this guy, his wife and kid sit at the table next to us in a small restaurant. He was a serious chain smoker. He was litterally holding a smoke in one hand and eating with the other. he’d take a bite, take a drag, take a bite, take a drag, etc. As soon as he was done with one, he light another. It was driving us nuts so we decided on some payback. We grabbed a couple cigars and proceeded to blow the smoke from them toward him. We were quite obvious in what we were doing and you could see him getting more and more upset at the cigar smoke. But he got the hint, quickly finished their food and left. Ah payback was bliss that evening

[Ken_V]

@Michel Abood

@Daniel Posner

What is wrong with cologne and wine?

It adds too much flavor to the wine.

Especially if you’re wearing Serge’s A-hole cologne!

[johngonzales]

@Bruce Leiserowitz

@Roberto Rogness

but his cologne was SO strong and pungent that I was literally losing the oxygen flow to my brain as I talked with him.

Um, you DO know the difference between “literally” and “figuratively,” don’t you?

Strong perfume/cologne is one of my pet peeves. I’ve been in restaurant situations where we all were upset at the next table’s perfume–we asked to be seated at a new table, and we spoke just loudly enough that the adjacent table could hear it.

Bruce

Surely you have a better story than that. I know you do, because I was there and it was a classic off-line moment. Pinot Bistro.

[C_Bowman]

Roberto,

I just had the wife of your guy in here. I’m going outside for air

[Richard_Leland]

We used to have a woman come in once or twice a week to buy a bottle of wine. She must have kept a leaking perfume bottle in her purse because the moment she opened it up to get some money - she always paid cash - there’d be a strong blast of cheap and nasty perfume. Adding insult to injury, the bills she’d hand us reeked as well. As soon as she walked out the door we’d take the bills out of the cash register, rush them to the back of the store and drape them over the edge of the trash can to air out.

[John_Davis]

Add patchouli to the list too…

JD

[Steve_Manzi]

@andy velebil

The cologne thing drives me nuts, but cigarette smoke is the worst when I’m trying to enjoy some wine. A few years ago in Portugal, back when smoking in restuarants was still legal, this guy, his wife and kid sit at the table next to us in a small restaurant. He was a serious chain smoker. He was litterally holding a smoke in one hand and eating with the other. he’d take a bite, take a drag, take a bite, take a drag, etc. As soon as he was done with one, he light another. It was driving us nuts so we decided on some payback. We grabbed a couple cigars and proceeded to blow the smoke from them toward him. We were quite obvious in what we were doing and you could see him getting more and more upset at the cigar smoke. But he got the hint, quickly finished their food and left. Ah payback was bliss that evening

You da man Andy. I would LOVE to have been there AND participated!!

[M_M_c_C_a_l_l]

@Terence T-Bone Livingston

Note to self:

Enter Roberto’s store wearing 3 types of Sex Panther…wait for him to pass-out…then bring in 3 floor stackers WITH POS and vacate premise. Send in decoy buyer, and when he regains consciousness, have the customer pick up new wine from floor stacker and exclaim “I love this stuff!”

POTN. No, POTY. No, this is the best post on any topic, on any board, ever.

[Thomas_Keim]

When I was a retailer in Chicago in the mid-1980s - there was a local restaurant that partnered with a local newspaper and held a huge blind tasting every year - this was the rage with all of us young whippersnapper retailers and restauranteurs and we would study like hell for this event (that literally would crown “the champion” every year with a big article in the newspaper - a very prestigious award to carry around with you -

Well, every year we would all stand around the tables of unidentified wines and take notes for hours before we would turn our ballets in - and every single year, right before the end of the event - this woman drenched in Giorgio perfume would saunter in - walk through the lineup - write her notes down in five minutes (or so it seems) then turn and swish out the door -

And every freakin’ year - this woman would win the award - just destroy us cocky bastids’ - I knew she was a retailer - worked for an “iffy” local store (don’t remember the name of the store) - and every single year - embarrass the hell out of all of us -