to think is gross / to be worried?

[listyle]

a friend of mine has been telling me for a while now she's suffering with smelling of body odour on her armpits even after showering.

She asked me do I ever smell after showering & I said no. She asked what am I doing different from her so i asked about her diet/what body wash is she using etc we got talking about shower routines and I explained I use a loofah and that I literally scrub my body from head to toe, and that I shower everyday & use deodorant afterwards as well as body lotion etc.

She was shocked , first of all that i shower everyday , she said she showers AT MOST 3 times a week and when she does shower she jumps in, rinses her body with water, whacks shower gel on her hands puts it on armpits and bum (nowhere else) , rinses that off and hops out (excepts for the days she washes her hair, she'll do that) and she'll only use a deodorant when she's bothered. I said to her "no wonder". I wanted to be as nice as possible. I explained that she needs to start washing her full body and washing armpits 2/3x and preferably with a loofah & ALWAYS use deodorant afterwards. She was like "but the issue is only my armpits I don't need to be putting body wash anywhere else I only wash my armpits and bum"

I was being so so nice to her but also trying to get the seriousness across and the importance of personal hygiene.

It's shocked me to be honest she's a close friend and she doesn't come across as dirty. I've never smelled anything bad off of her, she comes across as clean and presents herself well.

I feel a bit concerned is it mental health related? We're very good friends and I've never once thought she has bad mental health but I suppose it's not always visible.

She just seemed so shocked that I shower everyday. She couldn't wrap her head around that I use a loofah and I wash my arms/legs/belly button/back , literally everywhere. She literally only rinses with water, uses hands to wash armpits and bum and that's it. She said her showers are no longer than 3/4 minutes (unless washing hair which would make it 10 mins)

She also mentioned if she wants to shave she'll take a bath but won't put anything in the bath. Only put body wash on armpits and bum and when she rinses that off the suds will go into the bath.

She said she thought this was the norm and what most people did.

I don't know, I haven't stopped thinking about it all day. Am I crazy? If it was your friend would you be worried? I'm not sure if she took on what I said about what she should be doing. She seemed like it would be so much effort for her to do.

(I know she doesn't use mumsnet)

Can’t believe some people don’t shower daily.

you’re all gross 🤮

It's not gross to smell like a person

I actually consider it gross to smell of perfume or laundry products.

You are a bit late to the party @Kittynoodle

I assume you are quite young

I got a loofah love for this comment.

Get some help

But you do and no one will tell you. There's some batshit posts on here. OP you're totally normal keep as you are !

Some people just don’t smell.

They do though. They just do but they don't think they do. But the stale/slightly off/BO covered with a bit of perfume smell is evident but who will tell you? No one. And you can't really smell your own stink (I know this as I've had to tell colleagues before that they smell and they need to wash daily before coming to the office and they were genuinely surprised)

Can confirm that I have a very sensitive sense of smell, the scent of sweat gives me a migraine - if DD or I smelled I would definitely notice!

Why is it so bizarre to you that some people don’t need to have a vigorous shower every single day to be clean?

Doesn't need to be vigorous but does need to be daily. 'The smell of sweat gives you a migraine' 😂 so random. But yes but you can't smell your own stink and you're probably immune from your old child's smell too so kind of irrelevant.

And it also totally depends what is happening during the day. If you are running up a hill ( or even for a bus) I would be surprised if you didn’t stew up a bit of a tangy odour. But arguably if lying on a chaise longue reading, the bus chaser might smell worse by lunchtime than the reader by the next morning.

It’s silly to be too rigid about what’s needed. In theory some days you might need none and other days several.

The problem is we don’t know who is who if we start saying the Stinkers are completely nose blind.

Of might be all the loofah-ers who are giving off the vaguely rancid notes because of the dead skin cells and bacteria they smeared across themselves that morning.

The smell on public transport is often from the chairs, the coats and the smokers.

People definitely don’t wash their coats/jumpers enough.

Public transport smells, I smell it on my clothes when I’ve used public transport- and I don’t meet the washing frequency demands of the people on this thread!

Well yes.

always confuses me when people say they can tell when someone doesn’t shower daily.

how do you know? That person who smells may have showered that morning, or they may have showered two weeks ago.

unless you’re asking all those randoms on the tube you have absolutely no idea when they last washed. Or whether they’ve scrubbed themselves with borax or had a quick rinse.

like pp said, back when I was young fitted showers weren’t standard in houses. We had those rubber tube things you attached to the bath taps, otherwise it was a jug. The hot water tank was rationed and if you ran out, you ran out. Which also meant bath water was often shared between multiple family members.

i don’t remember anyone smelling, and we all usually had a bath once or twice a week.

in fact I often find modern smells much worse, overpowering laundry detergent, strong perfume, creams, lotions etc.

There is a moving thread on MN from November (“ Fed up of fucking smelling “) which I noticed in the similar threads suggestions below. Poor OP was tying herself in knots getting to the bottom (ha!) of the odour. So some people try very hard and it isn’t because they didn’t shower that morning.

As another poster said. I often notice a stale whiff as people manoeuvre their coats about. In reality, outer layers ( which tend to need dry-cleaning so are less often laundered) come into contact with far more dirt than our clothed bodies.

Oh and jeans can stink. Why do people resist washing jeans?

You sound like you have an ott regime. No one’s body needs scrubbing to within an inch of its life every day with a loofa. I shower every day and wash my hair every other day. I put deodorant on every day. Feeling like you to need to scrub your skin like that sounds like some kind of cleanliness anxiety. If your friend is only showering three times a week though (I think that’s what you said) no wonder she smells.

That sounds like a skin condition rather than poor hygiene, but you carry on mocking your colleague.

She may be a bit dehydrated, that can lead to underarm smelly, but not typically so other people notice. No amount of washing will get rid of that. Drinking plenty of water will, loads of it. Question then is what leads to the dehydration.

This, and the few other people saying the same are the most sensible people on here.

If OPs friend has noticed a recent change in her smell, but is doing exactly the same thing she's always done, there is likely to be a medical reason for it, rather than because she's not washing in exactly the same way as the OP.

This thread does have it all though. The competitive cleanliness and dirtiness, the shock that other people are different, the 'oh, I think its disgusting if you don't do what I do. Except if you have a disability then I think it's fine' well meaning but actually offensive posts. People washing their vaginas (or meaning vulvas but saying vaginas..).

And don’t forget the MH problems as she doesn’t loofah daily!

I reckon OP’s friend is OP and she was venturing it on MN to see what we thought while “ hiding behind a loofah”!

Some people really don't smell! DH has very dry skin, doesn't appear to sweat, doesn't need deodorant. Shower/hair every few days,does wash man bits daily. Has to use unperformed soap. He could wear the same pair of socks for a year!

Same here. My dp never wears deodorant. In 14 years I've never smelt bo

Did you mean soap for “ non performance” ( on his man bits?!)

It's the disabled comments that irk me the most. We all shower ever other day and apparently everyone in my family is gross, apart from me, because I'm disabled...