to be put off going out to restaurants because of the smell?

[toonoisie]

I don’t know if this is just me being fussy, but I’m starting to feel really put off eating out. It’s not the food or the cost, it’s the smell that clings to everything.

Every time I go somewhere, especially places doing grilled or fried food, I come home and my clothes absolutely stink. My coat smells, my hair smells, even my bag sometimes. It’s that heavy, greasy food smell that just doesn’t shift unless everything goes straight in the wash. I don’t want to be washing coats and outfits after every meal out.

It’s got to the point where I think twice before going because I know I’ll come back feeling like I need a full shower and laundry reset. Bit of a mood killer when you’re meant to be enjoying yourself.

I get that it comes with the territory, it’s a restaurant not a perfume shop but surely better ventilation is a thing?

AIBU to be put off by this or is everyone else just accepting that this is part of eating out?

Weird! Of course cooked food smells, it's supposed to, our taste buds and sense of smell are closely linked. If we can't smell our food, as happens to people after covid for example, they struggle to have any appetite for food. Smells of cooked food are an important part of enjoying eating. I wonder if you have a problem with food generally tbh

This also occurred to me, i love coffee and it's smell but i suddenly couldn't bear it, the taste or the smell, when I was pregnant, happily all returned to normal after I'd given birth.

I have a keen sense of smell, I think I'd know if I did and I don't and neither does anyone else I know!
It's your post, I was specifically answering your comment! Great that you're not suffering alone though!

If they have been cooking or eaten out in a restaurant then yes I can smell it on them.

I don’t know if this is just me being fussy

Yes, it’s that.

Omg I have noticed this! So many times, we eat out and come home smelling of food. Not everywhere but many places. I am bulk buying Febreze atm. A few times we have walked into places and heart sinks because you know you'll come out with your clothes and hair smelling. Yep, totally with you

I don't put it outside before we are going to eat it. We do eat hot food. The smell is minimised as I will have the door to the garden open and the extractor fan on high. I will cook a stew later on but put the leftovers outside to cool down and the smell stays outside.

I have a covered area so the food does not get wet.

It is not a hyper focusing issue - many other people have said the same. Why would we need to see a doctor?

I just don't like my clothes and hair to smell of food.

I am fine with food. No issues.

I hate cooking smells too, if we have fish or steak I go around opening all the downstairs windows and doors and closing anything leading to upstairs because if I don't, I can smell it in the whole house afterwards 🤢. If I've washed my hair that day and someone is cooking, I leave the room 😂

Do you eat at other people’s houses? Do other people cook in the house?

Does everyone have to sit in a cold house because you have to have doors open?

Do you eat at other people’s houses? Do other people cook in the house?

Yes

Does everyone have to sit in a cold house because you have to have doors open?

It is only the kitchen that is cold while I am cooking. The rest of the house is fine.

I don't have laundry drying in the kitchen because it would pick up cooking smells. I always have a window open when cooking but there are some things that are worse than others. I would never do a stir-fry if I've just washed my hair because the smell sticks so badly I'd have to wash it again.
Oven cooked food and baking are fine.
I'm long past menopause and don't blame that. I did have hyperemesis in pregnancy and had to wear a scarf round my face when cooking because any smell, food or otherwise, made me throw up.

Open plan living strikes fear into my heart at the thought that I couldn’t isolate the cooking smells / steam from the living room / rest of house.
The thought of frying fish or cooking steak and all that smelly fatty steam being free to roam with abandon all round the house actually genuinely makes my palms clammy.

And in all other ways I’m a total slob. But smells make me petrified.

I relented and bought smoked salmon for Easter Sunday and despite cutting it up with surgical gloves on my hands STILL smelled ALL DAY! It drove me so bonkers that I had to wash them in neat zoflora rhubarb. I remained suspicious of a fishy undertone all evening though.

I’ve got it in my head at mo that sofa smells for some reason of truffle. It’s repellant. I’ve febrezed it all and put all the cushions in the garden to let the wind do its thing.

We are definitely twins!

I wear gloves when chopping onions, ginger and garlic. I am cooking now and the door to the garden is open even though it is really cold so the smell goes outside.

We definitely are twins! I’ve got the back door and kitchen window open, plus attic window open, to create an odour funnel to blast last nights’ lingering stir-fry smell once and for all. I’ve filled the sink with zoflora, hoping that the air drifting over it from the window will pick up the scent.

I cooked oven chips last week with the back door open but can still smell them and it’s vile. The kitchen smells like someone sat next to you on a bus who’s just left Whetherspoons.

I actually made up an excuse to get out of my team annual lunch, as they were having it at a GREASY SPOON. 😱
The thought of grease in my hair / on my work clothes made my anxiety spike so badly I nearly cried.

Im an absolute scruffy slob about everything else, apart from cooking smells and grease on hands/face/hair/clothes.

I’ve been known to drive myself so mad with worry that my hands might still be buttery / oily that I’ve washed them in bleach. I love crisps, but can’t eat them whilst out and about as there’s no way of washing my hands immediately after.

The more I type this stuff out, the more I think maybe it’s a bit of a phobia 🤔

The curse of oven chips! My DC love them and the only I can cope is that everyone stays out of the kitchen. I keep the back door open. I even hold the food on a tray outside for a few minutes so the worst of the smell goes outside!

I am super clean everywhere else too.

I get what you mean about crisps. I only eat them at home so I can wash my hands after. If I am eating out, I have washed my hands in between courses if it is food that is eaten by hand.

This is me too! I wash hands between courses, and also have to wash around my mouth too 🙈.

Do you also lament the days where you’d be brought little lemon wet wipes between courses? They were the DREAM! (Although, I’d still have to shuttle off and wash hands too, just to be sure 🤪)

Havkng said I’m a slob - I’ve actually been disinfecting my bins and washing the insides of the cupboards all day. I told my ex husband off earlier when he tried to walk on the newly-washed kitchen floor 😹

My hands are so raw! Ironically, I can’t wear Marigolds when cleaning, or I get over-fixated on the lingering rubbery smell on my hands all evening.
So I bleach things with bare hands, but prep food with odorless surgical gloves.

I struggle with moisturisers too - they smell on my skin and I end up scrubbing them off.

I’ll look like a lizard by the time I’m 50.

I don't really see it now but I used to love the hot lemon wipes they would bring round. I could get my hands really clean. But yes, even though I would wash my hands thoroughly with soap until they no longer smelled of food.

I have scrubbed my kitchen floor today too! It is beautiful and clean. Luckily the cat stayed out of the way. Normally she would have dirtied in 2 seconds with her paws!!

I wear nitrile gloves when prepping food. I also refuse to use Marigolds.

I use O'Keefes working hands creams because my hands get so dry from all the washing!

Haha - snap!

And double snap