You work in an open plan office that starts to smell like microwave food by midday. Sometimes you’re met with a delightful aromatic curry, other times, pure bile.

And then a waft of sunshine, meadows and spices comes through. It’s a colleague that you don’t normally talk to but he smells like a Greek god and you hesitate to tell him.

What if he thinks you’re being too forward? What if the office judges you?

After all, no one wants to be thought of as inappropriate, in front of an office full of prying eyes and ears (even if they actually don’t give a sh*t).




Essentially, telling someone they smell good is not weird or creepy – who doesn’t want to know they have a pleasant fragrance? But it might be more to do with its connotations that puts it in the grey area.

We compliment people on how they look and smell good when we’re flirting as we’re trying to get them to look at us favourably.

Some consider it as blatant flirting, especially when accompanied by other tricks and techniques (using the person’s name in conversation is supposed to get them to like you more – you’re welcome).

So whether you meant it to be flirty or not, do you really want it to be construed as such?

It really can be as simple as saying ‘I like your perfume’

There’s a lot to be said about scents and attraction, as we all know from experience – anyone who smells good becomes more attractive to us (and the opposite is definitely true – if someone is drop dead gorgeous but smells like dog shite, you wouldn’t look at them twice).

But consider this, an older colleague tells a young girl she smells good. Depending on the way it’s said and generally other variables i.e whether said older person is a creep, it has capacity to turn very inappropriate.

Maybe our perception of office etiquette and boundaries are changing, especially considering the rise of harassment cases being reported and revealed since the #MeToo movement.

Sure, telling someone they have a nice fragrance is innocent and pretty harmless, but context is important, what are the power dynamics between the complimenter and their subject?

It’s about personal space too, if they can smell you, it means they’re near you (unless you’re the douche that bathes in perfume). And depending on the kind of person you are, you might not feel all that comfortable. Someone who doesn’t enjoy being in close proximity with others, for example, might not appreciate being told you enjoy the smell they emit.

Natural smells are an even bigger indicator of attraction and compatibility,

‘It’s known that women can detect genetic compatibility by smell—it’s not that men can’t but that so far no one knows—the onus is on females to sniff out a suitable squire’ says healthcare writer Bryant Furlow.

Humans can use their natural scents to announce and excite sexual availability, he says. ‘The magic scent is not some romantic elixir but the aromatic effluence of our immune system’ which basically means you can judge whether your bae is your real bae from their their natural body odour.



But back to the office matter, whether it’s appropriate or not mostly depends on the subject. Some people feel niceness often gets misconstrued as flirtation. If you just want to compliment someone on their smell, frame it in such a way that they know it’s not all that deep and you really just mean that they smell good and there’s nothing more to it.

There’s nothing wrong with complimenting someone on the way they smell, as long as there’s no ulterior motive.

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