Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

Here's how to not smell.

1)Stop washing your body with the awful, artificial-perfumed crap sold by P&G and the likes. Guess what all that artificial perfume crap smells like after a few hours? Use naturally scented soaps and shampoos, with a washcloth or loofah (gently) to remove dead skin, and rinse with the washcloth or loofa unsoaped to removed excess soap.

2)Stop using fabric softener (which you shouldn't be using on sports clothing anyway.) It's basically rendered fat loaded with artificial perfumes. And people wonder why their clothes are rank...

3)Stop using scented laundry detergents. On sports clothing, use a "sport wash." Atsko band is the cheapest I've seen. If you want to "test drive" it, Penguin Sport wash is the same stuff, just sold in retail stores for more $/oz. Exactly the same stuff.

4)Use a bit of vinegar in the first or final rinse. You can get 20% vinegar in some places for convenience, just beware that it will knock you on your ass if you get a really good whiff of it, and you should rinse it off your skin quickly. Vinegar will among other things help kill mold spores (bleach does not!)

5)Clean out all the nooks and crannies in your washer, the dispensers, door seals, etc. Once in a while run the hottest cycle and a cup of citric acid, or a bunch of vinegar.

My expensive-ish cycling clothing, after a ride, goes straight into a bucket of lukewarm water (spandex/lycra deteriorates in strength and stretch very rapidly at surprisingly low temperatures) with about a third of the bottlecap of sport wash. I give it a good swish and go shower. I give it some agitation after I'm done showering and changed. At some point I'll rinse it thoroughly. The cycling shorts get rolled up in a cotton towel and stepped on to wring them of excess water. Everything goes on a clothes hangar out in open air. If I'm riding again in the morning, or if it's humid, I point a small fan at everything so that the pad dries out quickly

I don't use deoderant. Multiple partners have complemented me for my body smell, or lack thereof. Because I don't coat my body and clothes in shit cranked out of some frankenlab at Proctor and Gamble.

This may work for you, I’m not positive that the recommendations are globally applicable though…

Argument based largely on things not occurring in nature… especially loaded phrases like ”frankenlab,” “artificial perfume crap,” and “naturally scented” actually weaken your argument here by appealing to some sense of “what’s natural” instead of a less inflammatory description of what’s worked for you.

Body odour is surely partly genetic though - some people just never seem to have it, others do even straight out of the shower. I'm more curious though whether your laundry habits help lycra/sportswear last longer - it typically starts to wear embarrassingly thin and fade within 3 years of regular use for me.

It has mostly to do with whether you’re infected with a stinky bacteria or not. That part is chance. Also, how much food you produce for them while sweating, genetic.

I learned this the hard way—never share bar soap with anyone else. Once you have been introduced with a stinky strain it’s too late.

>> Body odour is surely partly genetic though […]

> It has mostly to do with whether you’re infected with a stinky bacteria or not.

The bacteria is determined (partly) by your genetics and the type of sweat glads you have. Eccrine sweat glands go directly to the surface of the skin (secrete: water, NaCl, K), while apocrine sweat glands connect into hair follicle (secrete: protein, lipids,): the bacteria feed off the latter.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_gland

The gene on whether you have (more) apocrine glands is ABCC11:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABCC11

Asians are more likely to have to have the gene variant that makes you less smelly (Allele A).

Bacteria is determined by bacteria. Yes, the rest expands what I wrote, regarding food.

I love the laundry advice.

Upping one's laundry-fu is, seriously, one of the biggest life upgrades a person can make.

It is a money-saver and a major life upgrade in various other ways. All for very little effort.

It's more likely diet. Lower iron and sulfur diet if I had to guess

i stopped using ALL personal hygiene products except for generic unscented soap over a decade ago. for laundry i use unscented arm and hammer detergent. i used to stink after workouts or stressful workdays but now i basically do not smell at all, ever. confirmed by multiple partners after sexytimes over the years.

as i entered my late 20s i got weird scalp issues and that prompted me to look into it - turns out NOT using the products is what helped.

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