What do you do?

This is a quick post. Its in here because it relates to workplace communication (and thus to my ARP).

I've had a headache for two days straight now. I know the cause but I'm not completely sure how to deal with it. The cause is the perfume worn by a colleague. In the past this colleague worked at the other end of the building, so I was rarely exposed to the perfume. Now that our office geography has changed and we are all in the same area, I am unable to take a non-perfumed breath and I find that I am quite allergic to it. Unfortunately I don't know this particular colleague well enough to have a sense of how to approach her about it. She gives the impression of being under constant stress and strain. I am quite miserable but I don't know how to approach her in a way that won't cause her to feel defensive about her right to wear the scent she chooses. It has been suggested that I ask her manager (who has known her for some time but who is not my direct manager) how to approach her - but I fear that by bringing it up to the manager at all would give the appearance that I'm asking her manager to do something about it. I'd ask my manger for advice, but my manger is loath to become involved in any situation where there may be conflict and/or confrontation of any kind and I believe he would perceive this as a potential conflict even if that is exactly what I want to avoid. (The avoidance of all conflict/confrontation or situations of perceived conflict/confrontation is a whole other discussion that I should blog about at some point).

It is interesting that this kind of situation has never come up for me before. I'm allergic to most perfumes, but generally am only exposed to them for short periods of time (such as in an elevator) or in environments where I can choose to remove myself from the proximity (such as a movie theater, restaurant, or store). The is a completely different case. I cannot move my workspace because her duties require her to make frequent stops in various offices in this area - so the scent is everywhere. I've tried taking allergy pills and headache medicine... but that is only a temporary solution. I do know that other people are bothered too, but for them it is more of an aesthetic matter than a matter of health.

So - how does one approach a colleague (with whom no real relationship as yet been established) about the fact that one is allergic to their perfume? How do you do this in a collegial and non-threatening way but still get the desired results? I certainly don't have the answer yet, and I don't want to approach her w/o some thought about how.