No need to fear the perfume seller – 1990s hoax about fainting after sniffing perfume still not backed by evidence
IN SHORT: A hoax message with its origins in 1990s email chain letters has once again resurfaced. Social media posts describe horror stories of women fainting and being robbed after sniffing perfume containing a powerful drug. But just like the original email, there’s no proof of this.
A decades-old warning about robbers posing as perfume salespeople has resurfaced on social media. A series of posts on Facebook and Instagram detail similar accounts of women being “put to sleep” from just a sniff of perfume offered by supposed salespeople in public parking lots or bathrooms.
(Note: See more examples of these posts at the end of this report.)
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The posts claim that the fake perfumes contain “Axter”, which causes the victim to faint, after which they are robbed:
Recently, a lady was put to sleep in the bathroom of a movie theater & everything was stolen from her – she doesn’t remember anything, only that a woman gave her a perfume to smell.Another lady was also approached recently in the parking lot of a mall by two men who asked what kind of perfume She was wearing…From what we know, there are people who approach women in shopping malls or parking lots offering for you to smell the perfume that they are supposedly selling, however it is NOT perfume, but AXTER.Smelling Axter causes fainting, whereafter the culprits take advantage of the opportunity to steal everything of value you carry. Please share this with all the women & ask them to pass it on. Sharing caution is better than sharing victimisation.
Smelly origins of an urban legend
This dramatic warning appears to be an enduring hoax from the 1990s that crops up every few years with slight variation.
Snopes, a US-based organisation that has been debunking false stories since 1994, first reported on it in 2000. They traced it back to a 1999 story in which a woman in the state of Alabama reported an alleged robbery to the police. The woman apparently claimed she sniffed a perfume sample from a salesperson in a parking lot, and woke up half an hour later having been robbed of a large amount of cash.
But even this initial story had major inconsistencies, according to Snopes. Apparently no unusual substance was detected by lab tests in the woman’s body, around the time of the alleged incident.
In the decades since, this urban legend has been debunked repeatedly in various locations, in the absence of any credible evidence. In 2025, Snopes reported receiving almost 1,300 emails asking about the claim over the past decade. And in February 2026, users asked Africa Check to look into the claim.
Inconsistencies are red flags
Different versions of the story mention different substances causing the fainting. Earlier versions blamed ether, an early anaesthetic drug reported to be sweet-smelling and primarily administered via inhalation. But no good evidence ties this to incidents of theft in the contexts claimed.
The drug mentioned in the messages later evolved into “Axter”, which might be a misspelling of a discontinued anti-migraine medicine Axert. It could also refer to an anti-allergy drug advertised in India, containing the ingredient hydroxyzine.
Hydroxyzine is used to control allergy symptoms or anxiety, and could cause drowsiness. But this is quite different from causing someone to instantly lose consciousness with one sniff. And there is no evidence it has ever been used for this purpose.
How can you tell the message is fake?
There are other clear signals that the message is not legitimate. It provides few details that could be used for verification, instead sticking to vague mentions of places like “shopping malls’ and “parking lots”.
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It also encourages people to share, in the style characteristic of chain mail, messages that suggest an urgent need to spread them and pass on the information to others.
Many of the messages end: “Please share this with all the women & ask them to pass it on. Sharing caution is better than sharing victimisation.” And while it may seem harmless to share a message like this, “just in case”, this is not true. Sharing without verifying information can create unnecessary anxiety or fear about being a victim, or detract from legitimate risks that people should be wary of in public places.
If you encounter a message like this, you can verify it for yourself by doing an internet search for scientific reports or coverage from reputable news outlets. In this case, there are also many fact-checks and articles debunking the story available online.