To ask how I can smell better?

[Wdissb]

This is really embarrassing but recently I've noticed I've started to smell bad. I used to not need to shower everyday but now I'm aware of an odour part way through the day even after a shower. It's not normal BO - I use a good quality antiperspirant and the smell doesnt seem to come from my armpits.
I cant really work out exactly where the smell comes from, although it is more noticeable when I'm wearing a skirt or dress with tights and does seem worse if I'm hot. No one has commented on it but I'm so aware of it.

Can anyone suggest what I can do to combat it? I shower every morning and as well as antiperspirant I use a body spray/perfume.

If you have baths, put a dollop of cider apple vinegar in and have a soak. That will tackle any fungal infections anywhere on the skin and scalp.

Always use bars of soap and flannel - shower gel is shit.

If you have vaginal atrophy starting (perimenopause) that causes a nasty, musty smell like an old carpet! - use Balance Activ Pessaries before bed and you will hydrate yourself as well as smelling lovely.

Mitchum is the best antiperspirant.
Clean bra every day.
Once perimenopause hits, you never smell the same again. I remember smelling my own clothes when putting them in the machine and thinking "Ugh" like smelling a man's dirty t-shirt - you recoil from the dirty smell of another person. Doctor told me, yes, it's perfectly normal blah blah blah. It's the start of menopause. No-one tells you this stuff!

@NynaeveSedai

Discharge is normal and natural and certainly doesn’t and shouldn’t smell. If you have such smelly discharge that you need to change a panty liner twice a day then you need to see a doctor

I have seen a doctor (when I had my smear) there is nothing wrong with me but there is a noticeable smell after a few hours. I don't need to be told there is something wrong with my body! The same way your pits or your hair or your feet get musty throughout the day, so do your genitals.

Air flow around genitals making smells easier to detect. WTAF

WTAF yourself. It's basic biology! That's how smells circulate. It's called osmosis :)

Ha-your knowledge of basic biology is slightly lacking then. Smell circulates through air by diffusion, not osmosis

As it’s a new thing I’d probably go to the GP, just to discount anything medical.

@GhostCurry

Discharge absolutely does smell. I hate it when women says that it doesn’t. Of course it does, as does any emission from any orifice.

That doesn't make sense. Tears don't smell. Nor does snot.

Could be BV - balance activ pessaries if it is

Shower wise I shower with bar soap and a salux cloth, all over and I mean in between toes, belly button, legs, everything! Then a hydrating shower gel with a shower puff
Out the shower I put on one of the dove or sure cream deo (they're about £5 and you apply at night

If it's your clothes then make sure to use bio powder and dettol sanitiser and no fabric conditioner as it holds smells in and that they're dried well

Highly recommend using more natural fibre fabrics to allow the body to breath versus wearing a lot of seudo plastic fabric garments. Especially on the never regions (cotton preferably) less sweaty and likely to cause thrush.

Peri menopause is a great cause of weird smells and odd behaviours. Use vaginal body wash, less likely to cause thrush and off putting body smells.
Pessaires can also balance out the microbiomes in the vagina due to less oestrogen.

Do you change your bra enough? I noticed that they can get smelly quickly and sometimes they don't get washed enough. Especially if your like me and you have one or two favourites that are really comfortable! 😁

I found that I started to smell while going through the menopause.
Even Mitchum couldn't cope with my armpits.
As to my ether regions, I had to go through loads of products. Sanex soap was great but do try to eliminate thrush/ bacterial vaginosis.

Sorry if the lack of posts in this name has made some people think this thread is dodgy. I am mostly a mumsnet lurker, although I have posted a few times in a different name. I just didn't want any chance of people linking this to me as I'm embarrassed enough already.

A scientific check of my belly button suggests it is a bit whiffy and a bit moist so I guess that might be where I need to start. Although I will definitely swap the shower gel to soap and look at some of the suggestions around my clothes.

Ha-your knowledge of basic biology is slightly lacking then. Smell circulates through air by diffusion, not osmosis

whatever. The principle remains. Particles moving through space, diffusion and all that

Tears don't smell. Nor does snot.

I don't know what old tears smell like but I'm sure if you cried on a tissue and kept it in a warm place for a few hours it would smell. Snot absolutely smells.

@Wdissb

Sorry if the lack of posts in this name has made some people think this thread is dodgy. I am mostly a mumsnet lurker, although I have posted a few times in a different name. I just didn't want any chance of people linking this to me as I'm embarrassed enough already.

A scientific check of my belly button suggests it is a bit whiffy and a bit moist so I guess that might be where I need to start. Although I will definitely swap the shower gel to soap and look at some of the suggestions around my clothes.

Give your belly button a good wash with soap and use sudocrem in it. Works a treat.

Mine sometimes gets icky since I’ve had surgery over a year ago. I don’t know why, I clean it. It just goes odd.

I’m not the only one. Friends mother had the same issue post surgery because of scar tissue in the belly button same as mine.

@Ozanj

Are you sure it isn’t from the tights or shoes you wear with the skirt? Tights need to be replaced regularly because they can get mouldy. Shoes too.

What? Mouldy tights?! What are you doing with them that they're going mouldy?

Or have you tried halving an apple, tying it with red thread, and burying it on the night of a full moon at a crossroads?

Noo that's for warts . Or worms . Or Barvarian River Swamp Swine Fever . Or something else .

Ive found as Ive got older I get rancid BO under and between my boobs and under my belly flap. So im really careful to apply Mitchum roll on to those areas...... I sound so glamourous

I definitely stared to smell more in peri, and I shower twice a day.
I notice the occasional whiff from between my boobs if I’m hot.

I can sometimes get a cut in my belly button (not sure how) but it weeps and I have to put cream in there so it could be something like that.

But I would say it’s probably your bra or sweat inbetween/under your boobs.
The only way I’ve found to combat this apart from washing and changing my bra every day is to put roll on deodorant in between them.

@NynaeveSedai osmosis is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane from a region of high water potential to a region of low water potential, in the direction that tends to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides.

Fascinated by the in between the boobs smell I can apparently look forward to in 10 years or so! Can any doctors on here explain why this seems to be a common thing? I've never heard of it before! Though wouldn't come up in casual conversation I guess...

[quote Piglet89]@NynaeveSedai osmosis is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane from a region of high water potential to a region of low water potential, in the direction that tends to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides.[/quote]
Yes ok I honestly don't really care. It was clear what I meant.

I was going to suggest peri menopause, someone on another thread said she could smell people who were peri, a bit of a cheesy smell. Gotta love getting older!

In the summer I started washing my arm pits with a flannel and bar soap, as I found that I needed to ‘exfoliate’ yesterday’s deodorant off.
At the moment I’m using the Mitchum gel deodorant, but in the summer I had to up it to Perspirex.
Cotton clothes as much as possible.