Seeing the person behind the grossness-- any tips?

Post Reply New Topic

It's not overly insensitive to suggest, "You smell like a noxious mixture of rotting vegetable matter and rancid lard! Would it be too much to take a shower every now and again?"

There is an old couple who frequent the local Asda(Walmart) store here. She used to come in alone but then he started coming in as he had had a breakdown and kept himself away for 4 years.

But she always stinks... it is absolutely so bad you can smell her from quite a long way away. I do not know if it is the clothes or the body that isn't washed but although she is a very sweet lady, I know she has a home and he has a home and cannot get why she doesn't do something about it. It literally makes me feel sick and I have to turn away. I have toyed with the idea of saying something or asking why she doesn't wash her clothes, but I know it would be hurtful.

OK, that's definitely a cultural thing. I wear cologne, not a ton of course, just a couple of spritzes, every day, it's part of my routine. It's a much more polished 'look". Women, the pretty ones anyway, love it and always say, if they get close to me like with a hello kiss "OH, you smell GREAT!".
I have great hygiene, and I live in the land of hot tubs, so I'm not hiding anything except a well scrubed and toned body.
Of course, you don't put on cheap cologne or you'll smell... like cheap cologne. My favorite is "Terre" from Hermes, I've never had so many people tell me how nice I smell, it's woodsy and mixes well with my skin, but it's a whee bit too expensive for me to use everyday... I'll use it if I'm pretty sure I'll get intimate with someone.
Usually, I'll wear Armani, it's fresh and citrusy, great for everyday...
I find body odor revolting. There is no excuse. Take a long soapy shower.

I live in a postcommunistic country where many people from an older generation still have bad habits concerning hygiene. For example my mother - she was born in a poor family living in a small peasant hut in a village - their house was divided into two parts: one of them was a cow barn while the second one consisted of only one big room which was also a kitchen in the same time. They didn't have a bathroom or even a toilet there - if they wanted to relieve themselves they had to go out and well... simply look for a secluded place where they couldn't be peep at

I realize it sounds disgusting but it looked this way in poor Polish villages in a short time after the war (my mother was born in 1954). Even people living in cities didn't exagerate about hygiene - they often used to take a bath every Saturday evening.

My mother for a long time used to become furious with me every time she saw me shaving my legs or under my arms - she herself started to remove hair from her body only several years ago. When I was 13 I couldn't wash my hair more often than only one time every week (in spite of the fact I always had very greasy hair; now I wash it every day). I happened to listen to many stupid coments from other pupils because of it but I can't have a grudge against them - how should they have known it wasn't caused by my untidiness but by my mother's strange habits

Btw, even in 17th century doctors used to warn their patients that taking a bath weakened them so if they had to do it they should spend all that day in bed eating nourishing broth to regenerate their organisms.

Yeah, I wasn't making a value judgement. HECK, there may be a lot here that don't. There have been THREADS on some with AS not doing it for a while.

Still, I'm glad to hear you are a lot cleaner today. It really IS healthier. US soldiers get this drummed into them, and work towards trying to do it because the harsh foreing environments can be VERY bad. GRANTED those are the worst of conditions, but probably not that much worse from what you had as a kid. When I was in the hospital after major surgery, I had to STRUGGLE to take a shower, but I tried to every single day.

My mother always says that I occupy our bathroom very long (what is true; I like being clean and tidy) but she isn't angry - she doesn't take care of hygiene too much as I've already wrote so for her it doesn't matter whether there's somebody in the bathroom. When I was a little child she never taught me that it's important to wash teeth - as a result almost all my milk-teeth were more or less attacked by an enamel caries when I started going to kindergarten at the age of 6 Some of them were completely destroyed. She simply thought that those teeth were not important - "after all, they'll fall off one day"

Do you want to hear something even more disgusting? 5 years ago my grandma who suffered from a skin cancer then had to live with us for several months and she NEVER took a bath in that time. I prefered not to be too close to her. But she was born in times when people in the villages believed that cutting polish plait could cause a serious disease