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

I have suffered with horrendous depression and attempted to take my own life before.

I was still able to make sure I didn’t stink of BO when I left the house. There’s just no excuse for it. None at all.

I've just read an award-winning book about someone who grew up "poor", in a chaotic home. She was taught how to wash and change her clothes by a wonderful teacher in primary school, and later she realised she had never been taught how to clean her teeth. It's a fabulous book and a powerful illustration about the complexities of poverty.

I suspect these people are brought up in families like my own. I was taught that cleanliness was washing your face and hands and brushing your teeth once a day and having a bath and washing your hair once a week. My mother taught me that becuase that was what she was used to and I was told what a great concession it was that I had my own bath water and didn't have to share with the rest of the family (my mother was born in 1945). Deoderant was apparently unecessary and an evil ploy of the toiletries manufacturers to get people to spend money. If I hadn't gone to university and lived in a succession of shared houses and observed that most people washed more than that, and if the internet wasn't a thing, I might well have passed down the same habits to my own children.

I doesn't help that there isn't a basic understanding of the minimum necessary washing required. A peruse of MN will reveal some people who like to shower more than once a day and wash clothes very frequently and insist that anyone who doesn't is unhygienic. I never thought I smelt even with my limited childhood washing and I have no idea if I do. On the other hand I find people who use more than light perfume and fabric conditioner overpowering to be around..

Dh grew up in a house where bathing was optional. They were also very poor, his parents genuinely struggled to put food on the table, so it was possibly to keep the bills down. It was perfectly normal to him to go several days without a bath until he met me. I've obviously insisted on it and he understands now but at first he genuinely didn't know why I was making a fuss about it. I think he honestly just didn't know any different.

It isn't an excuse, it is a reason. I hear that you didn't stop washing when you had depression, but I was talking about other people who report that it has affected them that way.

I hope you are better now, and continue to stay well.

I knew someone at uni who smelled really badly of BO all the time. She had a medical condition where she was sweaty constantly so she smelled. Lovely person but her medical condition and neurodivergence meant she never stopped hugging people and putting her arms around them and leaving BO smells on them. It was really hard to deal with.

I work with someone now whose mental health and hygiene levels are clearly linked. We’re in a public facing role so he often looks really scruffy and unprofessional. He’s been spoken to about it but it only gets sorted when his mental health is better.

It doesn't need an excuse. People can do what they want. Your finding it unpleasant is your problem, that's the truth.

I know what you mean OP. In one of the heatwaves recently I was surprised how many colleagues smelt of old sweat and unwashed body smell. I can only think that a lot of people don't wash their bodies properly/frequently and also don't wash tops after a wear/wash clothes properly to get rid of the sweat. Except in the colder months it doesn't create such an issue. I kept gagging at the smell and was sniffing myself to see if it was me! So I don't know why people can't smell it on themselves 🤷‍♀️

I've never understood the it takes two minutes to shower comments - it literally doesn't

My ex (when we where together) washed just enough not to whiff when we where together

Then he ran off with my best friend and we didn't see him again for 9 years when I happened to bump into him in the street

God almighty,I've never smelt anything like it

Poo,vinegar,stale sweat and bo-the smell was so strong

On a scale of 1-10,he was 20-it was that bad

I watched him walk down our towns city centre (which was so busy people where moving shoulder to shoulder) and as he moved down it,the crowd parted like the story about the sea in the bible

I loaned him a pair of pyjamas and no matter what I washed them in,I couldn't get rid of the smell

He didn't see the point of washing his body as 'soap is a waste of money'/'your body/hair self cleans'(it doesnt),deodorant 'gives you cancer' and 'washing powder is a con'

His new girlfriend smelt lovely but didn't seem to notice his smell (god knows how,she had a nose)

My school bully (who made my life hell at school) popped back up when our ds's went to the same school and became besties

She stank (not as bad as my ex) due to a condition

She ponged of sweat,fish and poo-she was really aware of it and did everything she could to tone it down

You could smell her from down the school corridor

Despite her torture of me at school,nobody deserved this condition but at least she was aware of it and did everything she could to minimise it

I'm happy to be able to bathe/shower every day (and I do) and do laundry as often as I want. However, in periods of poor health, washing and/or getting dressed wasn't an option - I could maybe do one, not both, quite often neither. However, I don't think I was particularly smelly as I was pretty much bed/sofa bound (and not incontinent).

Well you can literally shower in 2 minutes if you put your mind to it (and aren't doing extra things like removing body hair or washing hair). I do that after going to the gym (get in shower, soap myself all over, wash off). But the act of showering takes rather longer by the time you factor in taking clothes on and off, leaving the shower clean etc. and if you do do the extra things.

You're a better person than me. I'd have been gleeful on both accounts!

I get this at work. There are loads of people who just don’t wear deodorant. Mangers aren’t allowed to say anything so I just tell them to move me. I refuse to smell that for 10 hours a day

Look at people falling over backwards to either try to make you feel judgemental or like you’re exaggerating.

I don’t know OP, I’ve thought the same before. I suspect it’s a combination of lack of smell, getting acclimatised to it, and/or mental health issues.

It can’t just be lack of smell as you’d still think to wash yourself and change clothes daily in this heat, even if you didn’t know you smelt. Plus what’s the odds of two people having no smell.

I wonder if people just get used to their smell and no longer smell it. Sounds gross but similar to when you do a poo. If you sit in the toilet long enough, you no longer smell it.

Ah - I was taking the literally 2 minutes to take a shower as being the whole thing. I don't think I could even take my clothes off and put them back on again in two minutes!

There was a young trainee in my office who stank. It was really sad as they were bright and ambitious. But they were temporarily homeless and sleeping on a friend's sofa. So although they were showering daily, they didn't have the facilities to wash their limited business attire and it was the clothes that really stank. HR had to get involved and they never got offered a permanent position. I often wonder how they are getting on now.

It literally does. Ten seconds to get clothes off. 90 under hot water. 20 to get out and towel off.

It literally does. Ten seconds to get clothes off. 90 under hot water. 20 to get out and towel off.

Your last paragraph - I wonder too if that's the case (ie getting acclimatised to your own smell). It's like when I'm in a smokey atmosphere, it reeks and I'm very conscious of it. To begin with... Then I'm acclimatised to it and don't realise how much I'm smelling until 1) taking my clothes off when home, and 2) waking up in the morning, wondering what the smell is and realising it's my hair. Ugh

Ten seconds to get clothes off - WTF are you wearing to disrobe so quickly? 🤣 I'm envisaging those male stripper trousers! The 20 seconds to get out and towel off - do you not get dressed afterwards? I hereby declare the literally 2 minute shower the equivalent of the Mumsnet legendary chicken

My DS’s former TA always stank of BO. It was so bad I was paranoid people would think it was me when we stood chatting or whatever. She was otherwise clean- hair looked washed and tidy, nails done, clean clothes etc but really bad smell. Presumably bad or no deodorant and they become nose blind, I don’t know. I think some people shower in the morning and don’t put deo on believing the wash is adequate.

Part of me was gleeful (I'm only human!)

But my ds and her ds where best mates (he is a lovely lad-i have to give her credit for that)

I just saw it as her karma (I don't believe in karma as such-its just the closest word I can think of)

She was the sidekick to the real bully who has the most miserable life ever now

Both have left me with a hatred of bullies and I will stand up to them and always stick up for the underdog (as a few have learned over the years)

Some people have conditions that mean they smell despite all their best efforts.

I am more likely to have to cross the road to avoid an over chemical smell - too many products - that triggers asthma - than a BO smell which is just ( very) unpleasant

I do the former regularly and the latter not even yearly

I've only ever noticed people who really smell occasionally, a couple of times it was a urine smell on someone very elderly and a couple of times strong BO coming from somebody.

The worst though was a woman in a big supermarket who absolutely stank of garlic, it must have been pouring out of her skin and breath as several other people visibly moved away from her. She appeared totally oblivious, was not badly dressed or particularly elderly either. She just reeked.