A recirculating TikTok video in which comedian Rick Glassman said women should not wear perfume because it “smells like poison” has touched off a new wave of posts in which women deliberately douse themselves in fragrance before dates to leave a scent trail on a partner.
The clip, originally circulated by Female Comedy Clips and later reshared by creator Mikee, shows the 41-year-old Undateable alumnus saying, “We don't want you to wear perfume. We don't like it. It smells like poison,” and adding that perfume is “a chemical” and “nobody wants it.” He suggested one spray might be tolerable and asked, “What are you hiding?” Mikee’s response video, in which she heavily layered fragrance, ran with the suggestion — writing on-screen, “Spray that perfume,” and captioning her post, “You hear that ladies!!! Perfume is man repellent!!!” The creator’s account has roughly 70,000 followers.
Women responding to the clip on TikTok and other social platforms described a range of motives for intentionally wearing strong scents before encounters with men. Some said the practice was meant to make it obvious if a man later returned home smelling of another woman, potentially alerting a partner. One commenter wrote, “I think it's because their wife could smell it later.” Another likened the tactic to last year’s glitter trend, which involved single women covering themselves in glitter so that an intimate partner would be visibly traceable; a user said, “It's the same effect of wearing glitter, it's evidence.”
Others framed the choice of fragrance as personal rather than performative. Multiple users noted they select scents they enjoy or that appeal to other women. “The hilarious thing is them thinking we're wearing it for them AT ALL!!” one TikTok commenter wrote. Some posts pointed to a perceived double standard, noting that many men wear strong cologne without comparable scrutiny. One user described the opposite problem: “Meanwhile I'm fighting for my life in the back of an Uber with a male driver dripping in cologne.” Another recounted that certain perfumes draw compliments and attention in public: “Sir... I get stopped in public, complimented and asked what I'm wearing because it's so alluring.”
The conversation included references to pop culture and music. Some users cited a K-pop song, "No More Perfume On You," which features a narrative about a man telling a side partner not to wear perfume because his girlfriend would be able to smell it on him; the song’s music video ends with the man giving the side partner the same perfume. The K-pop reference has been used by several commenters to explain or lampoon the motive behind deliberately scenting oneself before a date.
Social media users and Reddit threads also circulated lists of perfumes they consider particularly noticeable or effective, naming mainstream and niche choices. Among fragrances singled out as especially arresting were Prada Paradoxe, Juliette Has A Gun Not a Perfume, Glossier You, and Parfums de Marly Delina. On Reddit and other forums, sweet and vanilla-forward scents such as Kayali’s Vanilla Candy Rock Sugar and La Belle Le Parfum by Jean Paul Gaultier frequently appear on lists of scents some users describe as “sexiest man magnet” fragrances.
Commenters on both sides of the debate drew a line between intent and consequence. Some argued that intentionally leaving a scent on a partner is a form of evidence that could expose infidelity; others said wearing perfume is about self-expression, scent preference or attracting people, not about entrapping or testing partners. The debate has also underscored a broader conversation about trust in dating and the ways social media amplifies and recycles cultural practices.
The perfume-as-marker trend builds on earlier online tactics intended to reveal or discourage unfaithful behavior, most notably the glitter strategy that gained traction among single women the previous year. That trend, like the scent strategy now in circulation, relied on leaving a physical trace that could be detected later. Participants and observers framed both trends as creative, performative responses to concerns about dishonesty in dating, rather than as industry-driven beauty movements.
Industry figures and fragrance houses have not widely commented on the most recent social media flare-up. Retail and consumer conversations on platforms such as TikTok and Reddit suggest that, regardless of the motives driving individual users, perfume retains a multifaceted role in contemporary dating: as a form of personal taste, an attractor in public spaces, and, for some, a deliberate marker meant to surface a partner's fidelity.
The exchange prompted by Glassman's clip and Mikee’s response illustrates how a single comment can spark a broad cultural conversation online about intimacy, evidence and gendered expectations in modern romance. Participants on both sides of the argument used the same platforms to assert differing priorities — some defending the right to wear fragrance for pleasure, others endorsing scent as a tool for revealing unfaithfulness — leaving the social debate to play out across TikTok, Reddit and comment threads.