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.

Maybe they smell of money.

or wee????

Not these days!

Does that mean in September I'll start smelling of piss? I hope not!

I'm early 60s. The perfume I wear now is £250 for 100ml. The perfume I used to wear wear in my late 20s is £50 for 100ml. So yes, possibly.

Apparently the odour characteristics are orris, fat and cucumber. How lovely!
On the plus side I have need reading about the benefits of microdosing mushrooms so this might provide added impetus :-)

A (male) teenager is very effective in masking the smell.......

I must be odd because one set of my grandparents houses had a distinct old person smell but I didn’t find it unpleasant.

I’m lucky to have one grandparent still around and their house genuinely doesn’t have the old person smell.

My parents and in-laws are all in their 50s and 60s, I haven’t noticed that smell on them or their homes.

I can definitely smell a difference in myself and in other 40+ people. Breath particularly. I think it’s more digestive than anything else.

This is interesting. I often go into nursing homes and residential homes and do notice a musty smell.

Yes but more like 70 on not 40!

Yes to this, 70+. Can smell it in their houses. It permeates everything. How do we not smell younger people though?

I don’t know; I was at a work event lately, and I could smell stale milk and old breath when speaking to people; maybe it’s hydration. Men and women; men worse than women. It’s not BO, definitely coming from their mouths 🤢

I never noticed this in my GPs' or my DPs' houses - if older people's houses smell it is nothing to do with a smell produced by the actual people.

I have several friends in their 70s and can assure you that their houses do not smell (other than of something nice, like flowers or baking). You must know some rather odd people!

What does "old breath" smell like?

Milk breath, like tuna breath, on adults of any age, is unpleasant.

This. None of my friends or their homes smell.

At what age is one marked as 'older'?

I must ask my children if my house smells (yet)

Do they shower regularly? Clean their houses?
Have pets? Old furniture?

I just Googled Persimmon Soap and one of the links that came up was this https://www.amazon.co.uk/nonenal-soap/s?k=nonenal+soap on Amazon UK and it had "nonenal soap" in the search box at the top of the page!. As I'm 70 next month and my husband is 77 I think I may be getting some of that.

Utterly thrilled to have yet another excuse to keep stuffing myself & DH with mushrooms. I am basically a bloodhound and the old man smell makes me gag. (Neither of us are in the first half of our lives, btw)

Just read up on B.O., etc in Japan and the word for “sold Person Smell” is kareishū. They have another concept, “Sumehara”, (Sweat Harassment) that I agree with profoundly as I live in a very hot, humid part of the world. (Sumehara is a very important concept in Japan, especially in cities, where a lot of people live and work together in close proximity. It is such a considerate society in so many ways. Sumehara is also important to think about when removing your shoes as is required in Japan when you enter a home or workplace.

The smell referred to is one I've always thought of as a "bloke" smell, not all men, or older, but only men, and I thought due to habitually putting on unwashed clothes. A bit charity shop-y. I know a mid-80s couple well. Their house is scrupulously clean and free of all odours, no animals, lots of clothes washing and showering and yet I've detected this smell coming off one of them occasionally. Neither of my parents, nor my MIL smelled this way, so I'm guessing it's not universal, just common.

Younger people do smell, though it's usually because of not having washed so well and not laundering clothes enough. I don't mean a socks smell, but real body odour.

Now I think of it, DDs have remarked that I don't smell of anything, though as I'm in my late 60s I imagine it's the neutrality of post-menopause and before the dreaded charity-shop smell kicks in. I imagine smells do change over time. I'm no more or less hygienic than I've ever been but my feet don't honk as quickly as they used to, nor do my pits.

Sounds highly unlikely to me. I’ve never noticed old people smell, though I obviously know people who do smell and are over 40. Is it both men and women?

I've found older people often have worse breath. Not 40s but 50s upwards.