How do people not know they smell?

[sioermt]

I’m not talking “it’s hot, I’ve been sweating and headed home for a shower” or I’m disabled and can’t shower so have a sink wash or even showering every day

went to the supermarket today and was hit with a wall of body odour from someone in front of me to the point in caught in my throat. Every aisle they went down stunk of it, people were moving away and looking who the smell was from. It was acrid beyond belief. it was a couple who were driving and seemed perfectly normal apart from this smell as if they hadn’t showered in months

When I were a lad, and up until leaving university, 1 bath a week was the norm.
Now I have a shower at least once a day, more if I've been exercising or am going out out.
As a Head of Dept some years ago, it fell to me to have a word with a new recruit about his godawful smelly feet. He was really quite grateful, and ditched his ancient trainers.
A lot of single men have musty clothes caused by not drying them adequately. I can smell it a mile off, and it's really gross.

Try googling "bromidrosis"....

Perhaps they were pig farmers.
Years ago a pig farmer used to come into the bank every Friday. It was the worst smell I've ever known. I used to serve him as quickly as possible.

Ha, ha - I always find these comments confusing! I live in the U.K. but I am not British so I always wash everything on 30 degrees or cold water. I can confirm everything comes out lovely and clean!

That is some ableist bullshit right there. Rhee are plenty of reasons why they might be able to shop and drive but not wash.

A chronic illness where you only have a small amount of energy to expend per day, so it’s either buy food or have a shower.

Homelessness might mean no access to proper regular bathing and clothes washing.

Maybe they don’t have a sense of smell and just don’t realise. Covid damaged many peoples sense of smell. And didn’t always return.

Maybe they have a medical condition like bromhidrosis or fish odour syndrome and cannot do anything about it.

Teen boys t shirts need to be pre treated under the arm holes with a good amount of sunlight soap and then put in the washing machine.
Works better than any other remedy I've tried.

They might have just been in a smelly environment, like the pig farmer mentioned above.

It was very definitely body odour. I’ve been around farmers, muck spreading and every kind of animal shit imaginable and it wasn’t that! Chicken shit muck spreading is the only one that I’ve gagged at

😆

I once was delegated the horrible task of telling a coworker he had a severe personal hygiene problem.
It was one of the most awkward conversations of my life

That interaction should have been handled by either HR or his boss, not you !

i lost my sense of taste and smell for 2-3 months when I got covid (and was scared I was smelly cause I couldn't tell), who knows what afflictions people have. but yeah it does suck when people smell, but some people get sweaty and smelly easily even if they showered within the past day.

I think some people do know they smell but don't care. My husband has a mate that absolutely stinks of B.O. He's a builder out working all day so we obviously don't expect him to be smelling fresh after work, but we've been at his house before when he's got back from work, he's gone and had a shower and changed clothes, and the smell came back after about an hour. Clean clothes aswell. So don't know if he doesn't wash properly or what

I’ve lost most of my sense of smell since Covid.

i do worry about smelling.

I wash my clothes and have a bath or shower at least once a day.

I don't know why, but it drives me mad. I encounter so many people like this. I understand that some people do not enjoy washing and find it difficult for MH or sensory reasons, I just don't know how they can hate washing more than they hate their own festering stench. It's the same with people who simply refuse to clean their teeth.

The BO is bad enough but when you can smell that their clothes and their hair and everything about them hasn't been washed in a very long time either, it's just nauseating.

Unless they are literally living on the street with no access to soap and water or a washing machine there is no good reason and no excuse.

I don’t get it either. We have an acquaintance who is known to overstep and share her “opinions” and “advice”. She is an anti-vax, alternative-therapy pusher” and she shared her opinion once too often when I was feeling very vulnerable. (I had a two year old and newborn twins, one of which was being investigated for cancer at the time) She had shared her opinion on everything like vaccinations, diet, nappies, etc, and then she picked up my deodorant and told me that it would give me breast cancer, and why didn’t I use the crystal she used? It’s just as effective, blah blah blah… I couldn’t help myself… I said, “Actually, it’s not effective at all. It’s about time someone told you. You have sweat stains and you have terrible BO. Everyone has mentioned it and nobody’s wanted to say anything, but I would want to know if it were me they were talking about.”

I hate this YANBU. A few weeks ago, I went to my daughter’s graduation. Two people came and sat in the row in front of me and they STANK. I had to put up with that for 1.5 hours and I was not happy.

Imagine being such a skank that you can’t even be bothered to have a shower when you’re going to someone’s graduation?!

What was amusing was that as soon as they sat down, the people either side of them started covertly sniffing themselves, no doubt worried like most normal people would be, that it was them.

If you live in a house with running water there is no excuse for this at all.

You needn’t worry, the people the OP are talking about are people who don’t wash for weeks on end. Not people who have a bit of BO - it’s people who are so dirty and haven’t washed all over that they smell like an actual fart. It’s disgusting.

Must be getting old, but I agree with you.

There used to be a lady that lived in our town, she must have been at least in her 80s, and every time I or my mum went in the local co-op for about three years, she'd be in there aswell. She was able to shop by herself and pay etc, so had capability to wash herself, but I've never smelt anything so strong as her, it would literally follow her up the aisle. It was the strongest urine smell I've ever smelt, poor lady.
the lady that worked the fag counter used to spray air freshener just after she walked away and always said "dirty cow" 😭

Lovely. What a fantastic employee she sounds. If the lady smelt of piss it’s quite possible she was incontinent. Also walking around a shop to get food isn’t the same as bathing.

It can be old sweat but it can also be hormonal and produced by anxiety. I went through a phase where if I had a job interview my underarms would smell even straight after showering and scrubbing with soap and shower gel. Sometimes I’d have to go to the toilet and wash them during the day when it wasn’t even hot bc I was really stressed about something - but I was ‘clean’.

I also worked with someone who I’m sure had autism and every time there was a presentation in his room the whole place would smell very strongly. He didn’t smell all the time but I do believe it was linked to his anxiety (and no I’m not saying all ppl with anxiety have autism - tho of course some do - but his traits definitely led me to suspect he was on the spectrum and perhaps found social interactions really challenging, among other things). It is definitely not simply a case of not washing in all instances.

Some crunchy types are really against washing/deodorant. And there's always articles in The Guardian about how bad washing is it seems😄Also, some ppl leave their clothes in the washer too long and they get that musty smell.

I can tell you what's (likely) worse than that. Maggot farmers. I had to try to serve those men without breathing once!

I notice a lot of smelly ppl on busses; have to work hard not to visibly recoil sometimes.