OMG, I read the comments.
I’m a guy who showers daily and tries to make sure I don’t smell (breath and body). Today, however, I am off from work and only washed my face. I’ve had that not so fresh feeling all day.
I’m going to take shower right now.
edit - shower complete. also, i was trying to quote ghostbusters in the beginning but messed up it. it should have been “I looked at the comments, Ray”.
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Your poor skin.
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I used to work for Star City Games.
Enough said.
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I’ve heard this point a lot but given the fact that until the industrial age, most people had open flames in their kitchen and bedrooms so if i had to guess I’d guess most people smelled of woodsmoke.
Spend a week roughing it, or in a cabin away from running water, and you’ll realize very quickly that smoke only sorta covers how bad humans can smell
If anything it mixes eventually and makes a whole new nasty
If anything it mixes eventually and makes a whole new nasty
Definitely.
That just helped cover the asscrack smell.
Swamp ass with hints of mesquite or a cherrywood smoke.
I’ve had some exes tell me they love the way I smell after a couple days camping, but also that I can’t touch them because I am grimy.
A friend of mine in the military said when he was deployed and everyone starting stinking. He could be eating with a load of stinking guys. But he could smell if a woman came into the room.
I guess we aren’t too far removed from the animals after all.
Back then people would stuff flowers in their shirts to cover up all the bad smells.
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I love it. Sadly it’s also carcinogenic
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Death doesn’t. Well, unless you’re the one doing the embalming or applying makeup or making the coffin…
Yeah I love it. Sad to hear it is. Wonder where the state or synthetic chemistry is on it
For the first few hours. Stale woodsmoke in your hair smell awful.
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Or a metal concert
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Those are just to help provide more grip to the floor for moshing
Yeah I need antiperspirant or I stink.
Antiperspirant or deodorant? Sweating is natural and some antiperspirant ingredients are harmful.
https://www.realsimple.com/beauty-fashion/skincare/bath-body/deodorant-vs-antiperspirant
I think body odor has an evolutionary reason to exist, and that reason applies to prehistoric humans living in small gather hunterer societies of <150 people only. Whatever that reason was, is not necessary for our survival in modern society where you meet thousands of people over your lifetime and run into new strangers constantly.
Pretty sure body odor would have worked against them. Once a predator detects body odor of a human… it knows that body odor belongs to human meat.
lol…
A lot of predators avoid humans though
I feel like feline predators seem more likely to approach regardless of the situation. By feline I mean like Bob cats, leopards, panthers etc…
I dont think body odor ever played an evolutionary role. As far as I know body odor is caused by bacterias eating and multiplying whenever we sweat. If this is the case body odor is here because we sweat which isnt that common within the animal kingdom.
(Although dont quote me on any of this, this is just what I seem to remember and Im lazy to look it up - tldr i might be lying)
That doesn’t exclude it having a purpose. A lot of our existence we owe to bacteria inhabiting our body
And a lot of what happens in evolution is passed down the generations not because it’s useful but because it doesn’t hinder reproduction.
Body odour does hinder reproduction, though.
But it doesn’t though. Before people bathed consistently, everyone smelled. It wouldn’t have been a factor in partner selection.
I’m absolutely not an anthropologist, but if we evolved in small <100 person communities, often settling near water, I’d imagine keeping everyone relatively stank-free wouldn’t have been impossible.
It wouldn’t have been a factor in partner selection.
This is pretty presumptuous, as there appears to be a lot we can pick up about potential mates based on their body odor.
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Nope, evolution is chaos. The current planet is the output of a chaotic system. You seriously think koalas play an evolutionary role? Platypus? Hell even humans have about 20 design flaws. Sometimes nature just threw shit at a wall and called it “good enough.”
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Lol don’t be mad
Not everything is an evolved functional trait, like the first poster was saying.
Loosing our hair and getting greasy was a functional adaptation. That grease getting stinky is just a byproduct that didn’t introduce a negative selection pressure.Evolution doesn’t have a plan, it just takes the shortest path towards better that doesn’t make things worse.
Giraffes have a nerve that runs from their brain, down to their torso, then back up to the top of their neck. There’s no reason or benefit to this, it’s purely because when what the nerve runs to evolved in reptiles, it was at the top of the torso. Neck gets longer, nerve follows since there’s no pressure to select against stupid nerve layout. There’s a species of toad that evolved to become so small that their ear bones can’t actually pick up the sound of their species mating chirp. They still chirp, but none of them can hear it, and instead they signal based on seeing the motion of chirping.deleted by creator
There has been some research in this area pointing to being able to smell if someone is sick. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10550911/
That’s not how evolution works.
It might just be there was not enough of a selective pressure to remove it. Or something else that causes it has a more important function than smell.
Enter a random bus in summer
Man I can fucking smell this post. People will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify being lazy and gross.
I don’t think it’s mental gymnastics I think it’s a lack of actual gymnastics, so to speak. Body odor mostly comes from sweating so if you don’t sweat much you don’t need deodorant near as much. Someone with a healthy body weight living a largely sedentary lifestyle in a cooler climate might not need it at all and might smell perfectly fine with showers every other day or even every third day. However, that’s best case scenario and most people don’t check all those boxes. If you’re overweight, move around a lot, or just live in a warmer climate then that’s not going to work.
The guy craves Stench. Just one door down from the scat room
I remember the first time I went to an anime convention, and was SO EXCITED because they were going to host a DDR tournament!
Then I went into the room where the tournament was supposed to be held and almost died. They were routinely shutting down the room just to try to air it out, and were doing routine announcements of “I do not care if you think you do not smell. Everyone needs to go back to their hotel and shower before coming back. We are serious.”
I didn’t enter the tournament.
What’s the point of showering if the dont wash their clothes
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Man, thatd be super disappointing. I wish DDR was an active scene still, went with my kid to an arcade recently and for half a minute I thought they had DDR, but it was a copy cat that only had diagonal arrows and a center button (don’t remember which, in the groove maybe). Luckily I have a metal pad and my PS2 still works.
Turns out neurodivergent people think showering is what keeps them from smelling and refuse to regularly apply Anti-Perspirant.
Or worse, nobody ever told them ‘Deodorant’ lasts a whopping 2-4 hours compared to anti-perspirant. YMMV but most people aren’t the lucky ones with great skin or genetics that don’t make you rank like others who can last ‘48 hours’ with one application…
Like flushable wipes, yes, it says it lasts 48 hours, it’s bullshit. A few swipes in the morning in each pit, a few swipes every evening especially if you’re even lightly active. That means light-moderate pressure swipes too. Not so hard you’re leaving a visible layer which is why so many highschoolers shirts end up with white armpits, but not so softly that no material is literally coming off the cake. Reapplying more to already caked on pits is doing little. That means it’s time to shower and put on less next time. And wait until your pits are fully dry!.. then let the antiperspirant dry before tossing on a shirt and it’ll help with that shirt crud.
Try smelling your pits a couple hours after getting out of a good shower without applying any. It’s not the shower keeping most the stench off. It’s antiperspirant.
And yes, we will smell when you didn’t put any on Connor. Yes, we know you don’t think you stink because you can’t smell yourself. Yes, other people will always know when you smell. Air molecules travel at 500 meters per second.
Correct, you can’t wear the same thin hoodie 24/7 for more than a few days without it smelling. Yes, you should change your underwear daily. Yes, jeans can be worn for a while before needing a wash. Your thin ass comfortable nylon/polyester sweat pants only last a day with your stank. Wash your clothes. Wash your bedding ideally once a week unless you use pajamas. Even then, at least wash your pillow case once a week.
Start the routine now or set an alarm on your phone then actually follow through.
E: Additions.
Air molecules travel at 500 meters per second.
500m/s=1118mph. Seems unlikely
The stinky molecules move slower than oxygen but you get the point. This was calculated in the 1800s btw
actually they’re only slightly off. 3-400m/s
Though that’s for individuals. The average is near 0, since they’re all going in random directions, canceling each other out.
There are ways to manage odor without antiperspirants, however they are even more work than just applying deodorant. Meaning they’re functionally worthless when it comes to the trogs stinking up your average MTG tournament.
The rest is spot on, though, wash your stuff regularly and not only will you smell less - your skin should clear up too.
Oh for sure. And ideally everybody could be doing them too. I’ve gone green or at least more eco-friendly wherever my budget can allow, but genetics are a fickle bitch.
Some people are lucky with their genetics and don’t have stank sweat, eat healthy food, don’t have physically intensive jobs, so that homemade deodorant can work or a couple swipes of regular deodorant will last 24 hours (and they all say reapply as needed).
Is your skin complexion already ‘bad’? Do you leave sweat stains on your bedding? Do you not have problems with breakouts from aluminum oxide? Do you eat bad and don’t have the no stank sweat genes (east asian)? Chances are you need to change up your antiperspirant or deodorant routine if you still stink.
To be fair, deodorant can last longer than 2-4 hours if you don’t stink. But most people doing a lot more than sitting are probably putting some wear on that 2 hour minimum.
I’d imagine one could stink as soon as 20 minutes after application if they are sweating.
changing underwear daily was a fake problem invented by big underwear to sell more underwear and thanks to the patriarchy it has thrived
The issue is that antiperspirant is generally considered bad for one’s health, iirc, because it takes away the body’s ability to cool itself. Now of course, I’m not defending the sort of person that generally gives not one fuck about the most basic measure of hygiene, but…
There are alternatives. Bad body odor is generally produced by the bacteria on your body which thrives and emits odor in the moisture of your sweat, so legitimately taking a shower or applying hand sanitizer to your armpits will help. Though, I dunno if applying like, a rubbing alcohol mixture to your pits would be a wise decision to do frequently since that’s are pretty sensitive body part.
They need like, armpit probiotics, or something. Some sort of stick full of bacteria that smells like lemons or strawberries or something, and then just outbreeds the other bacteria. Somebody should do that, sounds awesome.
Plus, nothing starts or ends a day like a good shower.
It depends on the kind of bacteria, too. Just like with your gut, having a healthy skin biome is important. Not just for odours but also for various skin conditions and infections. Having a healthy skin biome can be the difference between an infection taking hold and giving a nasty sore or dying off due to too much competition (or maybe even predation) without you noticing anything.
Part of it is cleaning the textiles that come in contact with your skin. Especially towels, though clothes and bedsheets are also important. Towels are important to clean properly because their whole job includes absorbing water. Always hang them so that they can dry properly. But even with that, the frequency of them getting wet means bacteria or fungus can start to thrive over time. You can smell it when this happens, it’s one of the nasty BO smells. Let those get established on your towels and they’ll transfer that life to your hands or body whenever you use them. I use bleach with my loads of towels/washcloths (which also means they’ll go longer before they do start to stink, too).
I’ve come to believe that for those who often stink but do shower regularly that it might actually be their laundry practices causing the odours. Maybe there’s some piece of clothing they don’t wash regularly, like a coat or backpack, that is carrying the stink. Or maybe they aren’t washing their clothes effectively. A little bit of bleach once in a while can help with that, too. You don’t need much bleach to sanitize things and most clothing won’t fall apart or lose colour from one exposure. Air drying in direct sunlight could also help with that, since UV light can also sanitize. Also, don’t leave your clothes in the washer for a while before drying them. You’re sometimes better off not washing them at all than doing that.
And another reason why towels are important to maintain properly is that soap can mess with your skin’s pH and make it more difficult for the healthy bacteria to survive. And using hand sanitizer is just blasting away the good and bad so that whatever is the most aggressive ends up taking its place (hence the higher potential for infections). If you blast all the competition away and then rub a towel full of bacteria on your skin right after, you shouldn’t be surprised to discover you stink a short while later.
There’s pre- and pro-biotic soap and lotions that can help support and replace healthy skin biomes.
If I don’t wear antiperspiration my armpits start chaffing when I’m doing yard work or working out and have never overheated because the rest of my body is sweating, but maybe that’s just me or something.
Yeah that definitely varies from person to person.
Except that what they call “Deodorant” doesn’t really stop any odour but just adds a synthetic stink on top of the BO. Essentially, it’s a perfume that, instead of giving a mild floral smell, is made to give off a smell strong enough to numb the sensory organs to BO.
Have enough of that in a venue just adds to air toxicity, which, at the same time, people are unable to realise, making it much worse than toxicity from natural BO.
Yes, I avoid all crowded places. I am not in Japan and would rather be late to work, waiting for the next train than take the train when it is too crowded.
Exactly why I harped on the fact that Antiperspirant is the important part of the Deodorant combo…
Maybe it’s a strategy. Smell so bad your opponent can’t concentrate.
That’s just mutually assured destruction at events, plus all the bystanders in the area might get hit with a clinger BO. Unfortunately some of these curdled ballsacks do do it on purpose, like at smaller Smash tournaments. But are they really winning when their own community doesn’t like them?
Smash brothers players smell even worse than the average expo goer.
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All natural deodorants and antiperspirants ARE scams. Regular deodorants are what pretty much everyone needs, regular antiperspirants don’t get rid of odor and stopping your sweat glands is probably fucking terrible for the human body.
I think the anime fans are just traumatized by the overwhelming stench of axe body spray from the high school gym changing room, and are now scared of deodorant
i mean it doesnt have to be anime conventions its usually any kind of gathering where said yopic. of convention has a gathering of introverts, in particular, ones that have 0 sense of self awareness.
in terms of worst to less worse:
Card game tournament(sweaty, generally lack of AC, small venue cause cheap) < Video Game tournament (similar but in a room full of electronics, usually helped out by that their venue is larger) < anime conventions
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Just look at the skid marks left on chairs at wrestling events.
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Well, it’s not only that, a lot of people are wearing costumes, that may or may not cause them to sweat far more than their normal day. A friend of mine wore a costume that involved a dress shirt and a coat, and Sept isn’t really cold in GA. He used menthol to cover for his sweat though, so it wasn’t too bad with him. My last costume (several years ago, I dunno where all the stuff is and can’t afford to remake atm) involved dress shirt, a vest, and a heavy coat (trying to emulate this character) and it was hot as hell, especially in lines outside in the sun.
Even with baths and deodorant for some people in such situations it’s not really enough.
ofc the cosplays have an effect as well, but theyre typically the minority at a convention vs those playing TCGs or Video games, who are often the majority.
the triple threat funny moment was San Jose 2016. Genesis 3 (Super smash bros tournament) took place at the same time and venue as Furcon, as well as a female volleyball tournament, all 3 generating sweat differently.
Something tells me the sweat wasn’t even the worst part of the Smash Bros. tournament, knowing that community…
Went to a horror con and the scariest thing there was the BO
The article gets quite a lot right. Both sets of products are solving problems that didn’t exist, and create problems that very much do. These range from psycho-social problems to physical environmental problems.
The answer is don’t buy either. But that means being ok with being able to smell one another. That would be a return to the default state of probably a million years. But how are we all going to do that at the same time over night?
Nope. Wear your deodorant. It was invented because it makes people smell more recently cleaned, which has always been more hygienic and therefore more appealing. The problems do exist absent of culture and marketing.
I appreciate the advice, but I already do wear deodorant. I guess whether they are problems or not is subjective. I’m not convinced that being sanitised is a good thing. Microbiome of the skin is a thing. Being more hygienic and therefore more appealing is also subjective. Hygienic isn’t high up on my list of qualities of value. Obviously, there’s a threshold and everyone has a different value for it.
Honestly I prefer slight body-smell over the typical Axe mix with sweat.
Another thing: you smell less when you’re not constantly using deo (and washing your skin with soap etc. water is enough most of the time).
Just have good hygiene and eat/live healthy, you"ll be surprised that you don’t need deo most of the time.
Yeah, my experiences during COVID when I couldn’t leave the house and stopped wearing deodorant is that the smell doesn’t become less. I didn’t wear deodorant for over a month and it was the same.
Have you tried just using just water while washing armpits? This had by far the greatest effect of reducing BO for me. I mean it’s still there, but not that it concerns me most of the time, I’m also sometimes washing armpits with water during the day, when I’m sweating more than usual.
I’m no expert, but there’s a chance you’re just getting used to the smell (Of course everybody is a little different and some people barely smell and others, like myself, have quite a strong smell). Which, ironically is kind of the point. I believe before deodorant people had ways to make themselves smell nicer, but I don’t think they had anything that completely stops the BO like deodorant does for such a long period of time. So, I guess it kind of did solve a problem that didn’t exist, because people normally would smell.
On the other hand, at this point most of modern society likes when people do not smell like BO, So I will be continuing to use deodorant.
ways to make themselves smell nicer
true, perfume etc. is nothing new, probably older than cultivating plants.
chance you’re just getting used to the smell
Maybe slightly, but as soon as I’m using soap, I quickly notice stink after a short time after showering as counter-example.
I think the body just has use less fluid to nurse the skin after washing with just water, and than there’s a slightly different skin-flora I think.
I sometimes use DIY deo (basically soda+coconut-oil) when I’m noticing stink, but rarely, that works quite well, while being somewhat neutral in smell.
most of modern society likes when people do not smell like BO
I’m not so sure about that. Probably not a strong stale-sweat BO, but there are studies, where fresh sweat had IIRC a strong arousing effect on the opposite gender. I guess it quite depends on the BO…
I may not be the norm, but I’m somewhat opposed to most of the often penetrant deo smell. I also would consider my sense of smell rather sensitive (I hate the fumes of motorcycles and cars in the road-traffic, and often hold breath there)
So what you’re telling me is, the solution to stop bacteria from producing smells is to let it multiply and thrive? Everyone who has ever given me the advice you’re giving me stinks of BO. Our ancestors stank. You’re not producing less stank, you’re just getting used to it.
Well the “stink” is AFAIK produced by bacteria etc. after sweating, i.e. stale sweat.
AFAIK fresh sweat has a somewhat arousing effect on the opposite gender.
I guess, when you’re not constantly drying out your skin by washing all the body fats away, it just needs to produce less body fluid to nurture the skin etc. which leads to less stink, because it can be washed away quite effectively (but less so the body fats) by just using water (not as effective as with soap etc. though, but it takes maybe 2 hours or so and then I’m stinking when using soap, btw. counter-example to that I’m getting used to the stink). I also think the different composition of the skin flora may add to that.
Before you’re judging, have you tried washing the skin with just water (my skin health has improved since using only water on the body, and I have rather sensitive skin)?.
Sounds like bro science to me. I’m a greasy mfer and my skin is fine with being washed
You’re not comparing apples to apples when you compare the worst and most overpowering body spray to “Slight body-smell”.
And you smell less after establishing a no-deodorant routine. You still smell, and a lot at that. Diet isn’t going to get rid of that. People still notice and you still stink.
Not everyone is the same, some people should wash more often or wear deodorant, some people don’t need to.
You still smell, and a lot at that. Diet isn’t going to get rid of that. People still notice and you still stink.
I haven’t said that I don’t smell at all, but just using water, and avoiding stale-sweat (by washing with water, which is rather effective). But I wouldn’t consider it a lot, at least not, when the people aren’t like really close, or straight up sniff my armpits ^^
Maybe worth adding, is that I almost exclusively wear merino-wool shirts, which likely helps further reducing BO
The ancient Greeks and Egyptians used perfumes to make themselves more appealing.
It’s like saying people never complained about the heat before the invention of the air conditioner.
I didn’t say don’t use anything, I said it’s valid to decide not use products marketed as “deodorant” and “Antiperspirant”. It’s not like I follow that advice. I wear deodorant, and aftershave. But I have experimented with not wearing any, and using “eco” ones.
What I am saying is that I do agree with what is in the article, which is summarised as both products have created a false problem, and used that to create a market.
And it isn’t at all like AC. Humans smell. It’s not a completely negative thing to me. I don’t want a completely sanitised olfactory experience. If you wash daily, most of the time, Antiperspirant isn’t needed. But depends on what you are doing and what the climate is. In temperate conditions, I can go a day without smelling any different, without deodorant on. It changes when the weather is hot, and if I do strenuous exercise. But you can just wash more often.
What I’ve found is that certain soaps change the situation, as does what I eat. Garlic and Cumin seems to have a significant effect.
But that means being ok with being able to smell one another.
I worked for an international company and during the company retreat, HR had to gently tell a few people to wear deodorant.
Not trying to shit on cultures and countries that don’t believe in it, but it smelled like a teenage locker room had sex with a mtg convention. Even the hippy developers were disgusted.
