Faux Pas Fixer Clears the Air

You saw it on “Seinfeld”: good friends sitting around the coffee shop finding fault with just about everybody’s personal foibles.

Just as Jerry, George and Elaine discussed their disdain for “close talkers”--those nudgy types who invade your personal space--L.A. businesswoman Anne Ford found herself talking with friends who brought their people phobias to the table while they dined.

One common topic, and frequent source of frustration, was the poor hygiene they saw exhibited by friends, co-workers and family members.

“What we found ourselves saying over and over was, ‘I wish someone would tell them,’ ” Ford says.

In August, Ford’s Internet company, gentlehints.com, became that “someone.” For either $7.95 or $14.95 (depending upon the affliction and necessary remedy), Ford’s online business will send an anonymous letter to the perpetrator of 13 off-putting social sins--bad breath, body odor, dandruff, greasy hair, ear and nose hair, facial hair on women, flatulence, talking too much, interrupting, cologne overload, bad table manners, not covering mouths when coughing or sneezing, and not washing up after using the restroom.

Recipients get a note that begins, “Someone who cares about you and doesn’t want to hurt your feelings wants you to know . . . ,” and, where applicable, an enclosure suggesting ways to rectify the situation (i.e., body odor letters include deodorant; rampant body hair, an electric trimmer).

Ford says that when her site was launched, bad breath sparked the most requests, but it’s since been bumped by flatulence. Body odor wafts in as the third-best seller.

“It’s hard to believe in this day and age, when everything is soap and deodorant, [and] we’re so bombarded by Madison Avenue,” Ford says.

Still, those who track social trends say it was only a matter of time until the Web was used to address societal faux pas. With the Internet, “there’s a kind of freedom in dealing with very intimate subjects because you are anonymous, and the other person doesn’t see you,” says Arnold Brown, a futurist and chief executive in New York City.

Ford’s site does seem to be meeting a demand. She estimates gentlehints.com fills an average of 260 orders a week.