I never realised how bad people smell.

[Nonplusultra]

I’ve had a weirdly sharp sense of smell for the last couple of days and when I’m out shopping, I can smell everyone around me and it’s surprising how few people smell nice or even clean.

I’m not talking about properly stinking - just that mild fug of cooking smells, pets, smoke, sweat, occasional halitosis.

I don’t normally notice, and of course, even now, I’m oblivious to my own pong. I’m not even getting up close to people; this is just the drift of air as you walk past someone who’s a couple of feet away.

Some of this thread is like The Princess and the Pea. With noses.

I know right?

Hot wash all your clothes after every wear, including jeans and jumpers. Remember that if you're going to be around people in the evening (for example, on an evening flight), that after washing off the offensive funk of a few hours' existence, you should change into a fresh set of clothes — one single clean set of clothes per day may not be enough. Don't forget that if you're not lucky enough to live in a mansion, drying clothes inside might make them smell of cooking or mustiness, so you'll probably need to dry all this clothing outdoors or use a tumble dryer. And make sure to do extra-thorough rinsing to avoid any scent from your detergent. Wash your coat regularly and make sure you haven't walked past a smoker or cooked anywhere near it since you last washed it.

Showering/bathing every night isn't good enough, because then you'll have night sweat (ew) on you all day, so you must wash in the morning too/instead (as well as a second time, if you're going to be around people later in the day too), even if that's inconvenient for you. Whatever your hair type, you must wash it frequently. Brush your teeth and gargle at regular intervals throughout the day, lest people detect the smell of plaque on your breath.

And when you go on holiday, have a shower at 3am before your early morning flight out (and brush your hair in case someone can smell the tousle), and for your evening flight home, make sure to find somewhere to have a strip wash and a full change of fresh clothes immediately before travelling. (Even if your hotel checkout was at 10am, and your luggage space is limited).

Bugger that — I haven't got the time, energy, money, skin resilience, or inclination to spend hours every day washing jeans and jumpers that have been worn for a couple of hours, or making sure I'm never around people unless it's less than 8 hours since I last fully decontaminated my body. Nah… if I get on an early morning flight after a bath (plus antiperspirant etc., obviously) the night before and clean clothes that morning, or an evening flight having had a shower that morning, and the person next to me really can smell me for the first minute or so until their nose habituates — oh well. Never mind. There's probably something about them I can detect and don't much like, too.

We've all got a responsibility to do what we reasonably can to get along with others. That includes making sensible efforts to avoid being disruptively noisy, smelly, or otherwise offensive, but also being tolerant of moderate or unavoidable noise, smells and disruption from other people too.

brush your hair in case someone can smell the tousle 😂😂

How would some of you cope living in the countryside

They wouldn't, without a large dose of sniffing salts!
The closest a lot of people on mn will have come to the countryside is a nice, sanitised park farm with the children.

I remember the stink of people in the metro in Paris. Especially first thing in the morning, all jam packed in together: garlic, sweat, coffee and cigarettes morning breath... unforgettable. 🤢

None of the smells described can compare to a dead sheep that’s started to bloat. Even I draw the line at that. 🤮

Ugh. I still vividly remember a school residential which involved a standing canoe race down a river, at one point of which we came across a swelling, floating sheep corpse. If your canoe prow hits one of those, you won't be worrying about your canoe-mates' oral or indeed other bodily hygiene for quite a while.

😂
There was a farm behind one of the schools I went to, and more than once we visited and were shown various things. The cowshed is particularly memorable 😂
All the grown ups saying 'but cows smell lovely' - yeah they probably do but what comes out of them, all of them collectively, really really doesn't 😂

I've come across quite a few women who seem to take pride in not washing their hair very often.

I was giving my friend a lift to work and he asked how often I washed my hair, because it smelled so nice. He said his wife does hers once per week. I exercise most days, cook every day, have a fairly physical job. My scalp and hair would be rank after a whole week and you'd definitely be able to smell it!

Lived my whole life in the sticks, still believe it's easy enough to keep clean

(Previous caveats apply)

I've only encountered heightened sense of smell twice before. When pregnant and at the onset of COVID recently.

Yes it’s easy to keep yourself clean but farms and animals smell.

I have to weigh up how my hair smells against how it would look if I washed it every day. Which would be fuzzy, wild and almost permanently wet underneath. Washing and drying it is such an event it has to be scheduled into my life!

Totally agree, @Pigeonqueen .