Why people smell bad

Last winter when 99% of us were worried about our energy bills there were loads of posts about drying clothes .

Many people drying indoors with a de-humidifier, often in a cold bathrooom , Or those heated rails with only a tiny bit of the fabric touching the rail . (I bought one of those Dri-Soon gadgets with the zip up cover . It sits near an open window and is a game changer . Cheaper than a tumble dry but obviously still need to keep an eye on the time using it )

I certainly noticed an increase in 'damp smell' out and about .

Really, jumpers do not need washing every time you wear them! (Barely ever if wool- airing) I reckon more non natural fibres might be part of it- sweaty polyester washed on 20 is hard to get clean. And maybe people not using flannels/soap, just shower gel.

I wash my hair once a week. It’s very thick and not greasy at all, in fact slightly dry. And it doesn’t smell. And I’m not particularly sweaty or smelly and don’t have greasy skin but shower every day and find gel or oil - and aqueous cream on my bum and vulva - perfectly adequate. And as for clothes - I wash at 30 or 40 degrees apart from towels, use Persil bio and don’t have any issues with my clothes smelling. I don’t use fabric softener though, maybe that makes clothes retain smell more?

Shower gel contains detergent, just like soap.

People are just swapping urban legends on here, seriously.

I don't know. From my experience a bar of soap cleans considerably better than any shower gel I ever had. It made difference to me whdn I went back to them

I have a couple of friends who don't use deodorant, nothing in their pits at all , they just don't want any type of chemical on their bodies, but They have never smelt bad, as they shower daily and wear clean fresh clothes once. BO is usually from stale sweat.

People not showing daily or wearing clean clothes I presume, mind you some people try their best but still have issues but I can tell natural smell over unclean smell

Sometimes I've popped to the shops after the gym or exercising. I shower x2 a day and always wear clean clothes and am very careful with hygiene, but it's possible I may have stunk in a public place while still being a clean person. I probably won't get on public transport like it, but I'm just in a shop for two minutes

Some families live in small spaces - our lounge is connected to the kitchen and I have to be careful when cooking a curry if I have laundry drying as it will make the clothes reek. It could be allsorts of reasons other than not choosing to wash - money, MH and just logistics/lack of education around hygiene or washing/drying clothes. I find it odd on here how people just jump to the lazy bustards can't be arsed to wash assumption. It's just very typical British lazy thinking.

I find it odd on here how people just jump to the lazy bustards can't be arsed to wash assumption. It's just very typical British lazy thinking.

There are plenty of keyboard warriors on Mumsnet 🤷‍♀️(I dunno if they’re all British).

If you are a bit sweaty, a clean cotton cami top worn next to your skin (changed everyday!!) can be a helpful thing.

Now fewer people have manual jobs I think clothes care (or lack of it) can often be the cause, clothes don't sem to get "dirty" so are often worn longer.

I grew up in a working class farming family and they all had a horror of being seen as dirty or smelly.

Work clothes were changed as soon as you got in, we were never allowed to wear night clothes downstairs or to eat in, "best" clothes were laundered and aired properly, we were always taught to change anything that was worn next to your skin every day.

I think everyone did the same, therefore smelt the same so it was more the norm.

This fits into why I think a lot of smelliness is due to inadequate clothes washing. Until relatively recently, washing clothes daily wasn't a thing. People would have a daily flannel wash and bath or shower once or twice a week. Apart from underwear, clothes were worn several times before washing - but crucially - they were washed and dried well.

Now, lots of people put their clothes in the machine after a single wear, but at a low temperature and then dry them indoors.

You don't get BO in the short term after sweating. Body odour is caused by the bacteria, staphylococcus hominis, which lives on the skin of a lot of humans. (They actually very rarely live on people of east Asian ethnicities and as a result most east Asian people don't get stinky underarms.) The staphylococcus hominis feed on our sweat and multiply quickly the more sweaty we are. As they feed on our sweat, they produce an aerosol acid that is what causes the horrible smell. But it takes a couple of hours to go from working up a sweat to being stinky.

If you are starting to get smelly during or very quickly after exercise, that's your clothes. Clothes that have trapped odours in them after being washed, can still smell slightly of detergent before they warm up on your body, at which point the trapped bo smell will start to come out. Clothes that we sweat in while we are colonised by staphylococcus hominis really, really need to be washed regularly at higher temperatures or soaked in vinegar/a baking soda solution, to actually remove the smell. The other option is to effectively kill the staphylococcus hominis on your body with a shower gel containing salicylic acid and/or gylcolic acid. A daily wash with those will completely stop you from getting bo.

Actually, it’s not that East Asian don’t have the bacteria living on them; it’s that the sweat of most East Asian people is much lower in the chemical that the bacteria break down.

It’s apparently controlled by a single gene, and the same gene controls whether you have crumbly or sticky ear wax! (Sorry, gross).

It’s not an either/or thing, though, definitely; some East Asian people have the “stinky sweat/sticky earwax” gene, and some black, white and South Asian people have the “less stinky sweat/crumbly earwax” gene.

I wish I had the second gene! It must make life easier. I live in Japan and have to be careful about hygiene as people are less used to smelling strong stale-sweat smells on people.

@Wanderingowl @user1477391263 This is the Mumsnet I want, where a standard AIBU query tumbles me through a portal of fascinating scientific discovery!

Eaat Asians (and black people) also have different skin structure to white skin hence the lack of wrinkles (+collagen high diet in many cases as a bonus).
I furiously googled after getting hooked on Korean stuff on netflix😂

Bodies are fascinating

@cardibach , many people who couldn’t have a bath every day (which was most of us, hardly anyone had showers then) would have a daily ‘proper’ wash instead - face, hands, pits and bits - and when I was young and agile I used to put my feet one at a time in the washbasin to give them a good do, too.

That's fascinating. My earwax is dry, and I sweat and smell very little. I think; nobody has ever told me otherwise, and DH isn't slow to comment on imperfect dental hygiene!

@TheAOEAztec , nothing to do with them religiously keeping out of the sun,,then, for fear of turning darker? (Speaking as someone with Singaporean Chinese relatives who shun the sun as much as any vampire!)

Yes. As I said I grew up with it.

Apparently it's skin, Black people have similar. Iirc the middle part is denser hence less prone to wrinkling. So not only can we be jealous of sweat gene😂 also skin structure. 😂

For anyone that struggles with body odour it's really worth checking out some of the videos on YouTube that go into what causes it and what you can do about it.

There are some fairly cheap solutions that will probably be quite life changing!

AFAIK, the gene mutation affects the ph balance that makes the body inhospitable to the bacteria. I assumed that was the skin but maybe it's the sweat. We can mimic the affect with salycilic and glycolic acid. I use Cerave SA wash on my armpits and occasionally a glycolic acid toner. I don't get bo anymore. I exercise a lot but don't need deodorant as long as I keep using the SA wash.

MMm, you could be right, I need to research more. Whatever genetic effect it is, I wish I had it!

I haven't watched this video, but I do agree that there are easy fixes.

There's 3 simple methods to combat the bacteria:

1. Starve it of the sweat that it feeds on with antiperspirant (not the same thing as deodorant.)

1. Make the pH of the skin inhospitable to the bacteria via an acidic product. Cheap Aldi AHA toner, a cheap salicylic acid toner, various creams made to the purpose. Put these on before the antiperspirant and you're going to see a big difference.

1. Kill the bacteria, itself. A medical wash like Hibiscrub (or Hibicleans in some countries) works great. (It also works on very stinky feet and is good for bacne.) You may encounter this as part of the preparation for a scheduled operation - it's used to combat staph. Anyway, washing your pits with this will knock it out.

A combination of the three will be extremely effective.

As for the bacteria lurking in clothes, a multi approach will help. Make a paste of bio powder and rub it in the armpits before you toss it in the laundry. Wash on hot if at all possible. Add some zoflora (or the cheaper Fabulosa or Astonish - these contain the exact same chemical as Dettol and smell much nicer. That's the chemical that cat owners are warned about not leaving on counters. I can't look it up without losing this page. Pheno something.)

You do all these things and you won't stink anymore.