MetaChat - People smell:

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17 January 2006

People smell: One problem with quitting smoking is that now I can smell people. And it's not pleasant: overpowering perfume, cloying sweat, harsh colognes, and the occasional woman having her time of the month. Every person has a unique smell; large rooms are a noisome cacophony, an out-of--tune symphony of assaults on the nose. Please, more people who smell -- mildly! -- of bath soap and laundry detergent.

post by: orthogonality at: 12:47 | 35 comments

I think people wearing perfume should be banned from buses.

posted by goatdog 17 January | 12:48

Ugh. I'm a smoker, and I can still smell those awful perfumes and colognes that people wear. It makes me gag. I can't imagine having to smell those corporate chemical baths even more strongly.

Mad props to the people who just use Dr. Bronners and go on with their lives.

posted by cmonkey 17 January | 12:49

It should settle down in the coming months while your brain learns to tune the smells out. For the time being it's payback for the smoke odor you've been carrying ;-) . Congratulations on kicking cigarettes!

posted by Feisty 17 January | 12:53

Ortho,
If you can stand it, fill your sinuses with altoids/mint vapors (I just mean chew lots of altoid and so on), that's how I've been doing it. I'm two weeks quit and I have to say, things smell strongly. If I was a dog I would never have been able to quit smoking.

posted by Divine_Wino 17 January | 13:02

If I was a dog I would never have been able to quit smoking.

Only because you'd never be able to get the patch to stick, and even if you did, you'd just lick it off.

I friend of mine quit, and soon after we went to a bar, and she ordered a pint of her favourite, tasted it and was like "this is swill!"

posted by Capn 17 January | 13:05

I've learned to take my coworker's post-prandial perfume soak as my cue to leave the office for lunch.

People won't ever smell better. You'll just get complacent to their stench. People smell worse and worse as their amount of leisure time and the value of their spending money goes up, and they start buying all kinds of chemicals and foodstuffs that, though made for humanity, humanity wasn't made for.

I relish the smell of work sweat, even crotchy work sweat, when compared to the stench of chemical compounds after the average lazy body has been through 'em. Thick, warm, human, waxy, and rancid; that's how most folks smell. Like a slab of suet left out for a day.

posted by Hugh Janus 17 January | 13:13

Only because you'd never be able to get the patch to stick, and even if you did, you'd just lick it off.

laughed my ass off.

posted by shmegegge 17 January | 13:19

smells, unique? great!
smells, b.o. or too much smell? not nice!
perfume, sparingly? nice!
perfume, bathed in? no!
fabric conditioner? need more people who smell of!
sweaty women? sexy!
period smell? lovely!
man smells? pass a peg!

posted by flopsy 17 January | 13:20

What you need is an allergy. Stuff those sinuses right up.

posted by ooga_booga 17 January | 13:20

Everyone smells. Most smokers exceptionally so. *shrugs* C'est la vie.

posted by Frisbee Girl 17 January | 13:22

My best friend quit smoking years ago, and she still has a really acute sense of smell. This is beyond women always telling men they stink when they don't notice, too -- this is e.g. smelling "freshened" cat litter from the other side of the house and up one story.

posted by stilicho 17 January | 13:24

The terrible smells was one of the things I allowed to halt my last serious quitting attempt a few years ago.

I had NO idea the city smelled so bad. Incredible smells. Dead things in storm drains from a mile away. Hideous perfumes. Rancid people in stiff looking sweat pants on the bus. Terrible.

That, and I could smell a burning cig from 10 miles away.

posted by loquacious 17 January | 13:29

Fuck the bullshit it's time to smell suet!

posted by Divine_Wino 17 January | 13:35

Women, even if they don't wear perfume, you can smell their makeup.

And college-age guys with their greasy hair festering under a knit cap.

Fucking hippies smelling of patchouli oil and stale pot.

Car exhaust. Wool on a wet day. Old people.

posted by orthogonality 17 January | 13:36

cloying sweat?

posted by mullacc 17 January | 13:36

Ortho,
Maybe start smoking again.

posted by Divine_Wino 17 January | 13:39

Ortho,
Maybe start smoking again.

Well, quitting hasn't been all bad. Some things are bigger, firmer, and longer lasting.

posted by orthogonality 17 January | 13:43

This is why I always wimp out when I try to quit smoking. I know I'll get used to the odors sooner or later, but my weak brain just whines whines whines "But I need a nicotene fix," and I give in.

*slinks away, head hung*

posted by WolfDaddy 17 January | 13:45

Dr. Strangesmell: or How i learned to stop worrying and use Dr. Bronners...

I quit drinking and smoking at the same time, so I'm unsure if my favorite swill is unsavory now...but i have certainly enjoyed 10 hangover free days for sure! Perhaps I've also always enjoyed smells and hippies for too long to really mind how they smell...perfume and cologne on the other hand are gross and sometimes nauseating...

posted by Schyler523 17 January | 14:00

I'm two weeks quit and I have to say, things smell strongly.

Yeah. Sorry about that, but the bum needed a place to be and I was lying there. Besides, laundry's expensive.

Perhaps I've also always enjoyed smells and hippies for too long to really mind how they smell..

Depends on what kinda hippies we're talking about.

posted by jonmc 17 January | 14:04

There was a huge stink (aha!) when smoking was banned in bars in NZ -- people suddenly started complaining about how everyone smelled of BO in the nightclubs. I don't go clubbing any more.

On a positive note, bars that were restaurants claimed that they had more requests for meals because everyone could smell the food cooking and got hungry.

posted by tracicle 17 January | 14:09

Well, quitting hasn't been all bad. Some things are bigger, firmer, and longer lasting.

Word boogie.

posted by Divine_Wino 17 January | 14:09

This is all yet another reason for me to keep right on smoking. If I ever smelled myself, I'd probably commit suicide.

posted by jonmc 17 January | 14:12

Try fish instead.
≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by Hugh Janus 17 January | 14:16

You can smell women bleeding out of their vaginas?!

posted by Uncle Glendinning 17 January | 15:16

Multiple Miggs could.

posted by Hugh Janus 17 January | 15:20

Hugh, just put the fucking lotion in the basket.

posted by Divine_Wino 17 January | 15:22

I thought that was just because Jodie Foster's vagina is smelly.

posted by Uncle Glendinning 17 January | 15:24

?you cannot?

posted by flopsy 17 January | 15:35

You can smell women bleeding out of their vaginas?!

Not every woman every time, but often enough, yes.

posted by orthogonality 17 January | 15:40

If the lover will not relent on account of this persuasion, let her suddenly take out the menstrous rag before his face and bear it aloft saying with a loud cry, "Such is your love, such!"

I don't know why I'm suddenly reminded of this ... but I am.

posted by WolfDaddy 17 January | 15:50

I used to think that it was smoking that prevented me from smelling things but, after I gave up, I found that I have almost no sense of smell. Which can be a blessing in disguise because, when I come across someone that smells bad to me, I think that it could be a lot worse.

posted by dg 17 January | 15:57

I was in spin class yesterday and the guy next to me smelled quite stale. While I understand it is silly to have to shower right before working out, smelling as if you didn't shower the day before is quite distracting when I am trying to exercise right next to you. I mean, breathing is kinda necessary.

Actually, cologne or aftershave in Spin class would be just as obnoxious. Perhaps I should bring some Febreeze with me next time.

posted by bunnyfire 17 January | 16:18

This is just another reason to avoid humans and their environs.

Hang out with lichens and mosses instead.

posted by warbaby 17 January | 16:52

I don't like oppressive perfume, but I do like a tinge of B.O. And the smell of Garlic on someone elses breath.
I do smoke though, so I guess I'm not as assailed as other people.

posted by seanyboy 17 January | 17:11

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