Like, I travel around for work and I’ve met plenty of people from all backgrounds.

Why is there a demographic of people who don’t seemingly bathe regularly, or at the very least wear something to cover up their BO? I could understand if it’s an allergy, or even religious reasons (though the people I’ve met that smell bad are usually you’re average American young adult man) but recently (like in the past week, recently) I’ve met a concerning number of people who don’t seem to wear any kind of deodorant or possibly don’t even bathe regularly; it’s starting to become an issue for me, as I don’t even want to interact with them when I can smell them walking up from 3+ feet away yet I need to for work.

Does anyone have any possible insight?

  • Wahots
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    1 year ago

    For me, it was because my mountain bike gear was being washed on cold as heat screwed up the Eva foam in the knee pads and body armor. The jersey also got washed cold, so bacteria never got killed off. When it got hot, the heat would activate the smell, but it’s hard to tell when you are going fast down a trail.

    Once I started washing everything possible on hot, it stopped a lot of the smell.

    I assume people are doing that with non-mtb clothing and getting similar BO results. So it’s quite possible it’s also not necessarily them, but their clothes.

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This doesn’t make any sense…there is a huge movement to use cold water to wash clothes, and hot water unless it’s extremely hot, isn’t staying hot enough to kill off bacteria. Were you using detergent correctly?

      • Wahots
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        1 year ago

        Yup, always the same amount (Pods). The only thing that changed was the temperature of the water.

      • Nisaea@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        It doesn’t make sense if you think the heat is here to kill bacteria. However, heat helps detergents do their job, and most likely helps loosen biofilms given their composition.