To hate the smell of silk

[HeavyPlantCrossing]

Inspired by the thread where some people think rapeseed oil smells of fish, does anyone else hate the smell of silk?

I can’t stand it - I can’t wear silk clothes, gag when I walk past the cushion department in John Lewis, and hate going to homes with silk cushion covers.

Everyone I’ve mentioned it to says that silk doesn’t smell. Is this a thing or just me?!

Ive had silk shirts over years and they've been fine but also had some knitted silk tops which smelled so unpleasant I had to ditch them. Oddly enough the smell reminded me of the raw beef bones my cousin's dog would slobber over!

Silk can absolutely have a distinctive smell.

Agree that it’s usually that type of rough knitted silk that has the scent.

So we’ve established:

• Only some people can smell silk.
• For those that can, some like the smell and some find it unpleasant - meaty, damp, sickly.
• It could be the dyes used on silk that emit the smell.

I feel vindicated that I’m not mad and some other people can smell it too. I will keep on avoiding it!

Thus concludes the science part. 🙂

Eh?

It smells like slightly sour milk to me. But it’s subtle and actually not unpleasant, just a bit weird.

I do think the clothes I had in the 90s had a stronger smell of it but it was also more popular in a woven sort of knitted form back then I think.

Woven sort of knit? What is this hybrid?

Iys either woven or knitted😁

On reading this I pulled my silk scrunchie out of my hair and stuck my nose right in it. I don’t think I can smell anything, maybe my shampoo a tiny bit.

Sure, whatever. As my teenager would say, it’s not that deep. 😊

I have an aversion to silk and people wearing it. I don't know what it is, but I feel like it makes people smell, and any sweat or fluid clings to the surface in an unpleasant manner.

Is it actually polyester/nylon you can smell? That definitely has a strong smell too but different from silk.

It's so strange how different people's perceptions of smells are. I can't smell silk at all! But I used to have a colleague who had a (very plain and ordinary!) tin of soup for lunch every and the smell of it almost used to make me gag. Everyone else just said they thought it had the very slight, pleasantly savoury scent you'd expect it to have. To me, it absolutely reeked. No idea why as I'm not usually bothered by smells at all - if anything, I'm less sensitive about smells than most people. But to me, that perfectly dull and innocuous soup was smell-hell.

@KreedKafer

I’m a textile nerd. I taught Textile science? Why the biscuit? I was just interested!

I've never noticed silk having a distinctive smell. I have a few silk scarves, a couple of silk shirts and a silk dress, and I've just been and given them a good sniff.

They don't smell any different from my cotton or linen ones.