Teens Turning Green first targeted Abercrombie & Fitch last spring, when the group sold environmentally friendly products at a temporary storefront at the Village at Corte Madera shopping center. Organizers said they noticed a strong smell wafting from the nearby Abercrombie & Fitch store.
"I got headaches just from smelling it all the time," said Kate Smith, 18, student co-president of Teens Turning Green and a senior at San Domenico School in San Anselmo.
— The Teens Turning Green advocacy group asks Abercrombie & Fitch to turn off the perfume dispensers. Read the whole story at Marin teen group pressures Abercrombie & Fitch on store perfume at the Marin Independent Journal.
I do not like posting first, but this is too good to pass up. I used to bring my daughter shopping at A & F and the fumes about gagged me, and I’d stand outside. Now that she’s older we revisited last year and it was so overpowering we left. Not before I spoke to one of the SA’s about being overdosed. Surprisingly, she told me that the company rule is to dispense scent every 20 minutes! I’m so happy that TTG are taking a stance. My daughter and I laughed so hard about how it used to be so cool to shop there and now that she’s grown up the fumes alone stop her at the door. Shame on A & F!
It is really awful over there — the smell is so strong I’m surprised to hear they aren’t dispensing continuously. If the fragrance industry wants to do something proactive to prevent bans on public fragrance, they should start with A&F.
I just experienced this for the first time the other day, when I had to go to an enclosed mall to pick up a gift. I didn’t see an A&F store, but I’m guessing that it was in the wing I visited. The whole mall seemed infused with the smell of some sort of cheap-smelling fragrance. Yuck!
It’s quite strong, usually when you smell it you can find A&F nearby…
I’ve never had the pleasure of passing an Abercrombie and Fitch, so I can’t comment on the stench. But I will say that I hate when stores do things like this, because it increases people’s hatred of perfume. Hopefully this really will do something to end the constant blasting of perfume.
I do think it’s unwise in the long run, esp. when the do it at the levels that A&F does…
I’ve never been to an A&F store, but I would like to ban LUSH from Westfield – our local shopping centre. (LOL! The largest inner-city shopping mall in Europe.) You can smell their stuff from the first floor down to… *everywhere*. It’s horrible.
Lush is also really stinky, but don’t think they’re actually dispensing perfume into the air, right? Just comes from the products.
I’m right with you, Bela! The LUSH store in Bluewater (largest shopping centre in Europe) makes that part of the mall unbearable, upstairs and downstairs. I have to hold my breath and rush past it or I feel ill. I have no idea how the assistants get through the day.
That’s even worse, isn’t it? One can’t even ask them to stop spraying.
Yeah, would much rather smell chocolate chip cookies.
🙂
Or Cinnabon…
Oh, yeah!
Karin, you might change your mind if you had to smell Mrs. Field’s cookies all day in the mall:o
Walking past the Abercrombie store on Fifth Avenue in NYC, ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE STREET, you can smell that dreck as it’s being pumped into the air. It’s awful. Being a member here, I clearly have no issue with perfume….but the scents they sell there barely qualifies. Now, if they’d only scent the air with Mitsouko or Jicky, then they’d be onto something!
Across the street, even? We have A&F in our local mall and it’s bad. Reminds me of the bad old days when the SAs would sprtiz liberally all who passed by. I’m really surprised A&F still does this as it’s sensitizing and could trigger allergic reactions, I avoid passing it along with my over least-fav offender, Yankee Candle. **gassp!!** Makes me wish for a respirator! :0
The only thing these teens did right was asking the store to disable the dispensers near the front of the store so it does not affect other businesses. However, these teens threatening protests makes them sound more like fascist thugs. Do they have no concept or knowledge of due process and private property? Threatening a fellow tenant in the same mall where they are doing business is very bad form. Supposing Abercrombie had refused to acquiesce to their request, they would have been able instigate formal recourse quite simply with other tenants in the same mall who complained of the smell. Furthermore, fragrance is not hazardous nor is it poison (it is used in just about every public place in one form or another). The bottom line here is that these teens have an ideology they are pushing and so what they do must be viewed with the skepticism that is due all ideologues.
It might be unpolitic or bad form, but I don’t think that threatning to protest makes them “fascist thugs.” Protesting is part of a democratic society, they didn’t threaten to firebomb A&F (and all those vats of Fierce would go up like jet fuel, I’m sure!).
Maybe your right about them not being fascist thugs, but protesting is also not an appropriate form of free speech in a private mall.
I agree. I was shocked when they mentioned protesting. And boy am I tired of perfume being “poisonous.” Uh-huh.
I personally find The Body Shop to be the worst offender. They burn that horrific orange oil that has a very real Sphere of Evil, if you will. It’s on the second floor and if I pass under it, I can still smell it. Ugh. Makes A&F seem like child’s play.
I have to say, ours isn’t that bad. I walked past it on Monday, inhaling deeply after remembering all the comments…and discovered why I’d never noticed it before. Ours just isn’t bad. Whether they put less out there, or whether it’s because they’re near an exit, or whether it’s just because that mall is so enormous, I don’t know; but all I got was a very faint whiff of…something. I didn’t, however, venture into the store itself to investigate.
The scented air used to be my favorite part about shopping at Abercrombie/Hollister/insert-youth-centric-casual-clothing-store-here (since they were all doing it), but I do remember thinking it was a just a tad much after a while. Since those days my tastes in scent (and clothes) have changed, and I haven’t set foot in an Abercrombie in about five years, but I’m not suprised that people complain. A light bit of some refreshing scent is perfect to perk up the shopping mood, but maybe only once an hour.
This was interesting. I’d rank them from most offensive:
1) LUSH
2) A&F
3) BBW tied with Yankee Candle
4) Body Shop
5) Not in the mall, but the smell inside Aveda makes me heave.
I can’t stand the smell of Aveda either. I’d put Origins on that list too. There’s something really overbearing about all that white ginger/musky smell.
I never want to encourage those folks with “sensitive noses” but in this case- RIGHT ON. The AF stench is awful. Machines and oil burners are not the same thing as the cloud hanging around perfume counter. Body shop is awful as well- can you imagine a fire in Yankee Candle?
It’s’ horrible. We cover our noses and mouths when we pass A & F, and my daughter always offers to go in and have an asthma attack For The Cause.
In short, They Stink. Really, really stink.
@asuperlongusername–you should read the National Campaign for Safe Cosmetics findings on the chemicals that are in a lot of popular perfumes-including Abercrombie’s perfume, Fierce!
You can download their entire report at this link: http://www.safecosmetics.org/article.php?id=644
Read it and decide for yourself, but I think after seeing the informational you will change your opinion.