It's official, older people smell different- from age 40 upwards!

[Princessfluffy]

Article in today's Times details how people over 40 smell different due to the presence of a chemical called 2-nonenal. The older you get the more you smell of this chemical.

Seemingly eating mushrooms can keep this smell at bay.

OMFG. I am 56. A daily mushroom it is then.

No thanks.. I'll stick to eating garlic, onions and surstromming.

🤪

It must be a nice "different" smell, because I'm often asked what scent I use and I never use perfume! Am mid 60s and rocking the bar soap.

I eat mushrooms daily. Good to know.

Persimmon soap neutralizes the smell.
Used very widely in Japan.

Aah it seems that the Japanese are wise to this much more than the Brits.

Is it a bad smell? Why must it be kept at bay?

I thought the different smells at different ages had to do with changing skin microbiomes??

Where did the Times get their info? And did they tell us what is wrong with the smell?

It’s probably got more to do with being too old to reproduce than old enough to abandon.

@HumanWrites 😂

maybe maybe maybe it’s what makes the invisibility cloak of older age! Could it have other uses? Could we bottle it and make a fortune??

My grandpa's house always smelt a certain way, a stale musty smell, which i put down to all the old stuff in his house (old books and furniture) and his stinky dog.

In the last couple of years I have noticed my parents house has started to smell just like grandpa's house did. They are late 60s and early 70s and also have a dog but redecorated recently so this must explain the smell!!

Well, is it something the human nose can pick up on? like, if you smell somebody but don't see them, can you guess if they're over forty? I've never noticed anybody else smelling ''over forty''.

Eau Vert Forté

This is such a creepy idea

"Eau Vert Forté" 🤣
Excellent. Chapeau.

I came home the other day to realise my house had this smell about it 😱😱😱bloody horrified

Let me guess, no one ever notices this alleged smell in real life but someone wants to sell us a product to stop us “smelling old”.

Or... a wonderful marker of the complexity and sophistication of the human species.

I LOVE this stuff.

ooooooooh…I’m wondering if this is the answer to why on earth my skin smells different in perimenopause!

As much as I like to embrace ageing positively, "old person smell" is generally agreed to be somewhat unpleasant, and I'd rather not have that smell about me...

Er yes they do! It's so marked in older people's houses

My mother and MIL don't smell of old lady and they are 87.

I hope DH and I don't either.

But older people do smell ... different. Not over bloody 40, though, more like over 70...

I read the old people smell is really hygiene going downhill with age. Such as getting lazy about washing yourself daily and/or your clothes after one wear.

They absolutely do notice it.

There's been threads on here about it before, referring to middle aged men starting to smell weird. I've noticed it on my dad and my husband. I've not heard of it affecting women though.

It's called middle aged oily odour syndrome.

What a load of nonsense.

People, all people, smell of soap, or perfume or shampoo, of whatever they use to wash their bodies and hair, or of sweat if they don't wash, or cigarette smoke if they smoke or weed if that's their bag, or booze, or bad breath if they don't clean their teeth.

Houses smell of pets, cooking, coffee scented candles, furniture polish or whatever else is in the house.