What makes a smelly person

[pootlingalong5]

Bit of a random one. I’ve been out all day with dd at a NT place, in the woods, paddling in water etc. Didn’t bother showering before we went as I knew I’d be getting dirty and sweaty. Got home and knew I smelt a bit, probably not so someone walking past would notice me but I could tell I wasn’t fresh, as many of us probably are not in this weather.

I’ve had a bath and feel much better now but it made me wonder about people who really do smell. I encounter them a lot in shops and on buses and have been unfortunate enough to work with a few. That’s like a constant smell that you can detect a mile off and that lingers even when they leave the room. Would it be caused by them simply not washing for days on end? Or maybe I was one of them today and just didn’t realise.

Sweating on that bamboo material is really smelly. I had a few shirts that really stank and I thought it was me and googled it and non-cotton holds onto the urea in sweat and cotton holds on to the water so its easier to wash.

I find biological washing powder and laundry sanitiser also helps and some oxi action gel on the clothes armpits.

I definitely think hormones have an effect on the amount of sweat and the scent of it. I’m 46 so definitely perimenopausal and my body scent has changed over the last few years 😢

Yes, like puberty causes increased odour, so does perimenopause. Once you get through menopause (or get HRT) it will calm down but nonenal odour may be an issue and that's not something that can be dealt with unless you use specialist soap.

Shower and wash hair daily. Clean clothes daily. Couldn’t function if not. Worked with someone who was too tight to put the hot water on for a bath and didn’t appear to do any washing. Hair hanging in grease with the smell of fag smoke clinging to it. Clothes unclean. Just smelt unwashed. To be quite honest it was the smell of fags and piss. No need.

Some people do this but dont use antiperspirant so reek quite early in the day.

DH does all of those and uses antiperspirants (a strong, medicated one) and he can still reek by lunch. He's very aware of it and really embarrassed about it. So I'm always trying to be forgiving of people who smell of BO. Which is quite a different smell to "unwashed" or unclean clothes I think.

Agree. Some people are unlucky. Only sure max strength stops me stinking

I work with a woman who smells, she has curly hair and told me she follows the curly girl method and says she doesn’t ever wash it as it turns frizzy so she just uses conditioner every once in a while.
One particular time her jacket fell off her chair and I picked it up and hung it back but saw the inside of her coat collar and it was black with grime.
She doesn’t know she smells but her hair doesn’t actually look unwashed or greasy as it’s coarse, it just smells it.

I think some people have to work harder not to smell
I know I need bar soap, hibiscrub under my arms (medical), sure max at night, to use laundry cleanser on my clothes armpits and how to remove tonsil stones etc etc
if you don’t know or haven’t been taught or even don’t know what to do about a certain issue, then I would smell

Omg yes! Whenever I’m ill I’m SO disgusting. Breath smells. Pits and feet stink.

can someone shed light on why this is?

Perhaps there's a reason you are not aware of.

People smell because they don’t wash frequently enough. Clothing also needs to be washed and washed well to remove oils and odours. There are so many reasons people have poor hygiene - poor mental health, never having been taught good habits, some people seem just not to care, so many reasons.

Some people are very odd about hygeine. I once lived with a man and we went out shopping in town one day. Coming out of a large furniture shop I turned to him and said;
"Ugh! Someone really smelt of wee in there didn't they? Did you smell it?"

He responded;
"Oh yeh, I did smell it but I thought if I put my long coat on over the top it'd hide it"

So he'd gone out, knowing his jeans smelt of pee, but figured that if he wore a long coat it wouldn't matter.

You were outside not inside within close proximity to others.
It's fine to be a little stinky occasionally if noone else is affected.
There's also a difference between hard work sweat on a clean body (designed to be attractive to others) and days old sweat!

Proper bar soap and a wipe with surgical spirit on arm pits keeps the smell away
i guess it sterilises the skin

You can definitely smell unwashed hair, it’s very distinctive. I got a lot of backlash before mentioning that on mn. People think they can get away with leaving it for 10 days and it doesn’t smell.

Some people naturally have a weird smell and it's nothing to do with hygiene. I have a male relative who has always had a strange smell, the closest thing I can liken it to is a butcher smell. He showers daily and smells like this even after showering. It's definitely not a BO smell and I can even smell it even if he uses cologne. His clothes after being washed have his smell too. It must be something genetic, he's smelt like this for at least 40 years so not hormonal.

If I eat onions or garlic, I find I need to use deodorant. Some vegetarians say that meat/fish eaters have a stronger body smell

I read on here once that the Japanese (I think) feel that white westerners smell of sour milk and apparently there is some science behind it.

Possibly the attempt to use the skin/pores as one of the ways to expel the invading germs. A temperature rise often is part of it, as well, so this would also mean the skin gets to react in that way. There is a real hair smell and scalp sensitivity as well, though, I don't know why that is.

I had a serious infection in one kidney and it hit very suddenly. For a few days before I had really disgusting armpit smell though - slightly like overheated tyres skidding - that would not shower off. I would take that as a warning if similar came up again.

Dirty clothes and hair as much as the B.O. smoking.

Mine went through that phase, but weirdly, only under one armpit. She was fastidiously clean, mitchum deodorant,fresh school shirt(washed on high white wash) every day, but one pit reeked. I imagine shes grown out of it now shes in her late 20s, but she was highly sensitive about it.

I have hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) so very aware of trying to stay fresh and not smelly!
I often bring a change of clothes with me. After exercising I literally have to peel my clothes off, they are as wet as if they had just come out of the washing machine. I regularly use a paste of baking soda and vinegar on the armpits of my clothes as just washing alone wont get rid of the smell.

In a person who is able and willing to shower daily, I think it's sometimes down to using natural deodorant.

I'm not saying they don't work and maybe in cooler weather they do the job well but I'm not sure they work in this heat.

(This is coming from somebody who showers daily using dettol soap to scrub armpits and if not going out will skip deodorant in autumn and winter so it's not that I've any axe to grind. It's amazing but if I've not done any activity if I put my nose to my armpit there's no odour. Only if I run a finger under them there's a slight odour. I can live with that.
Dettol soap. Brilliant stuff. )

But if going out in THIS heat I'd just use a good-old fashioned Sure or something like that.