Published on October 21, 2025 12:40 AM GMT
An honest attempt to describe what you’re technically supposed to
do if you follow the posted policies. I don’t think anyone actually
expects you to do this!
Great to hear that you’ve decided to attend your first contra dance!
It’s really easy to get started, they’re a lot of fun, and it’s a
friendly and welcoming community. You just show up, the caller tells
you what to do, and in a few minutes you’re dancing. It’s got the best
learning curve out there!
There’s one minor exception, however, which is that some dances are
“fragrance free”. For these you’ll need a little prep: plan to start
getting ready about three weeks before your first fragrance free
event. I know this can be a bit more time than you were expecting to
invest before learning whether this is an activity you’d enjoy, but
trust me: it’s worth it!
It can be a little hard to figure out whether a dance you’re
considering attending is fragrance free. While some dances list it on the homepage,
you can’t count on that. For example, it could be at the bottom of
the code
of conduct or listed on a dance
etiquette page. The safest thing to do is to read the whole
website, but of course that’s a ton of work so you might want to
write to the organizers.
Once you find the policy, it probably looks something like:
These
Dances are Fragrance Free – please do not wear perfume, cologne,
or other scented products, as some of our dancers are chemically
sensitive, and experience discomfort when exposed to these materials.
Read it carefully! While many people initially interpret these
policies to prohibit perfume, “scented products” includes soap,
shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, laundry detergent, etc. I recommend
you start three weeks before the event, and spend a week noting the
ingredients on each product you use. Read them over, looking for the
words “fragrance” or “parfum”. If you don’t see those, there’s still
some chance that it’s a scented product, unfortunately: sometimes
individual fragrance ingredients are mentioned by name instead. I
recommend taking a picture of the ingredients and uploading it to an
LLM with a prompt like “are any of these ingredients fragrances”?
Note that some products will say “unscented”, but still have
fragrances. This is very confusing, but the basic idea is that an
“unscented” product is intended not to smell like anything, and might
include “masking fragrances” to cover the scents of the ingredients.
Products that say “fragrance free” are a better bet, but the term is
not heavily regulated and there are products out there like this
eucalyptus lavender soap bar that say “free from any fragrances”
but also have strongly scented essential oils:
Two weeks week before the event you should have your list of the
products you need to find substitutes for. It’s the same deal as
before: analyze ingredient lists on potential replacements, and again
LLMs may be useful. Here are some product lists that might be helpful
in getting started: EastBayMeditation,
FGC.
If the cost is a burden, and a full set of personal care products can
be a substantial investment, consider writing to the organizers to ask
if they have a fragrance-free fund.
With medical products, like a medicated shampoo that happens to be
scented, sometimes a fragrance free replacement is not an option. I’d
recommend talking to the organizers: they may be willing to consider
an exception. This is another reason to start early, since most of
these events are organized by committees and can take a while to come
to a decision.
About a week before the event you should have acquired all your
replacement products: now it’s time to start using them! The goal is
that by the time you attend the event you no longer have any lingering
fragrances on yourself or your clothes. For clothes in particular
scents can last a long time, so the safest thing to do is clean your
washing machine (wash the machine with baking soda, then again with
vinegar) and then wash your clothes twice. If you use a laundromat
there aren’t any good options, since fragrance free laundromats are
essentially not a thing, but if you ask around you may be able to find
a friend who has their own machine and either already takes a
fragrance free approach or is willing to help you out.
At this point, you’re ready to attend the dance! Make sure you’re
wearing clothes that have been washed since you transitioned away from
scented products. It’s also a good idea to bring your own hand soap:
it’s sadly common for fragrance free dances to have scented products in
their bathrooms. I hope you have a great time!
While this post is using satire to make a point, my core view is that
it’s fine for dances to have whatever approach to fragrances they
choose as long as they’re thoughtful about what they actually expect
attendees to do and communicate it clearly. When I’ve written
about this
before I’ve read a lot of comments from people who don’t see a
problem with the status quo. My target with the satire here is dances
that put a few words about a policy on their page that they don’t
actually expect people to follow, don’t put effort into ensuring
potential attendees see, and sometimes even blatantly subvert by
having scented products available at their dances.
Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, mastodon, bluesky, substackDiscuss Read More
