Old person Smell

MissAdventure

I know people still have a hard time...I am one of those myself.

But I am talking about homes without indoor plumbing
No hot water and often no heating.
Outside loo down the garden in the cold wet winter. that is what I was referring to and these were additional reasons for old people to smell.
She said that some of them were in such a state that they couldn't get and up to go to the loo, they just peed where they were.
I meant that sort of hard time. No pads to wear either.
Now we have Govt cuts.

How can people just deny the scientific evidence?

Lucywinter - you may not believe it but there are lots of people who do and there are lots of papers on it... these for example:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X15411984

www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jaam/7/6/7_6_60/_article/-char/ja/

link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1023046413846

I don't believe that nonenal rubbish. Have a bath or shower every day and you won't smell, no matter what your age.

Don't understand all this about teenage boys' rooms. My GSs are 18 and 14. Their rooms don't smell, and neither do they.

There are plenty of people who are having a hard time, still.

The fuss I had to make to try and get my mums carers to just give her a toothbrush so she could do her teeth was unbelievable, and social services were quite happy to fund the cost of 2 half hour visits morning and night, despite knowing that the reality was 10 mins per call, most days.

A lot of how we smell is down to what we eat.
I have noticed this in myself but also in people I know.
Whether we eat meat or not, whether we uses spices or not.

I asked a friend if he remembered the "old people smell"and he can from his childhood but not now......we both live in sheltered accom, in different places so we do mix with people older than we are and no-one smells old that we have noticed and he knows people nearly 100 years old!

Urine smell is very distinctive.....it is the ammonia which has a real kick to it.
Friend used to have a neighbour who used incontinence pads and the carers left them to pile up for a week.....the smell affected the whole building really awful.

I believe that a daily wash and clean clothes will be enough to stop the smell....I have a close friend who is 83 and I hug her, she does not smell. So if you wash you wash it off
Plus do not wear unclean clothes and clean your home......
Old wallpaper might be another one. I don't have any wallpaper. Neither does 83 year old friend. She used to be a district nurse and has told me horror stories of how people lived back in the say with no indoor loo, no hot water etc.....
yes they often smelt but they had a hard time.

Solonge, other mammals have primitive smell responses, usually far more developed than ours. They can easily tell the age group, sex, health status and even social standing of another - just by smell, (even of urine) then judge whether they're suitable as a mate.

It seems logical that those of breeding age would have the most interest and sensitivity to these olfactory clues. So young people probably detect 'old people' smells most keenly! I predict a huge increase in Persimmon soap sales!

Have been reading about Nonenol, its a smell that we emit after the age of 40 approx. its to do with the fatty acids in sweat which are combatted by antioxidants when we are younger but not as we age. The Japanese have undertaken lots of studies. Apparently you can scrub the smell off as its not water soluble and ordinary soap doesn't counteract it. Persimmon soap is apparently the answer, it strips the fatty acids, naturally the soap is quite expensive and also pretty drying to your skin. But the smell of older people is not to do with poor hygiene or not washing clothing frequently.

Oh dear, I have very little sense of smell! I could be stinking to high heaven and not know.
New Year’s Resolution to become obsessively clean, scrubbing self, house, cat and dog daily.

I was brought up in Africa and the Africans were pretty much vegetarian. They used to say that Europeans smelled of dead flesh because of all the meat we ate.

I wonder do Persimmon built houses made of soap?

When we looked around Homes for my aged Mother they ALL smelled strongly of pee. It was so horrible we decided to use home care for her.
I wonder if it could have been avoided with more attentiion to cleanliness and attention to inmate's personal needs? I'm sure someone will explain its staff shortages etc and thus understandable. But that's not the smell we're discussing.

I remember visiting my MIL when she was in a home and that smelled of old people. Also when my friend's dad was in a geriatric ward that had the same pong!

@Hetty58. not just Japanese who rarely have body odour, it is China, Korea and Mongolia too, my son travelled in Asia and ran out of deodorant, went to a supermarket for some. Here there would be shelves full, there there was only a small amount for sale.
Maybe if the norm is for most people not to need deodorant cos you don't smell, even if your hygiene is no tip-top, if people start developing an old people smell it is more obvious to them if that makes sense

I use bicarbonate of soda to 'dry clean' the bedside rug in my lodger's room. I spray antiperspirant in his shoes too. He doesn't smell bad and is very clean - but just seems to have his own distinctive smell (which I dislike) as he's a meat and dairy eater.

A classmate at school had 'fish odour syndrome' and nobody would sit near her. Apparently, the Vietnamese and American soldiers could smell each other, despite being in thick cover, due to their different diets.

I taught a middle aged student smelled really terrible due to kidney disease. I used to put Vicks up my nostrils when I had to be near her (tip from a fireman who had to deal with corpses) and I'd spray air freshener and fling the windows open when she left.

One day she returned to retrieve her USB flashdrive as I was doing that!

I bought some febreeze today!! And will be rather more liberal with the beeswax Polish when I do the table.

My mother, unfortunately, has no longer got a good sense of smell and suffers from almost continual UTI's. I have tried to point out that some of the things she does leave a whiff of eau de Pee but she gets quite angry and yells at me for leaving her no dignity. Last time she was away we had to rip out carpets and change her bed because it was so awful. She was not a happy person. However, when she was younger she would implore me to tell her if there was a problem. I have tried to be tactful but it is difficult.

My Japanese friend has a very keen sense of smell. Apparently, she was pretty horrified at how bad people tend to smell in the UK. The Japanese have different genetics and tend to smell clean naturally. She says old people do tend to smell bad in a particular way. Now, where's that strong deodorant?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_person_smell

I think it's natural to have a smell.
It's a shame to wash it all away and deodorise ourselves so much.

Everyone. whatever their age, smells – strongly, weakly, nice, nasty and so on. Every nation has its own smell too, depending on the prevailing diet. That's the main reason why occidentals have a reputation among the Japanese of being grubby.

I think we older people don’t have too much to worry about in comparison.

Maybe not, but it is still not very nice I think. ?

As a CAB volunteer I sometimes have to sit in a room working with clients who clearly have not washed or changed their clothes for days or weeks!

Another cause of being smelly is smoking, which lingers on clothes. Then the wet dogs already mentioned. Teenage boys.

I think we older people don’t have too much to worry about in comparison.

NotSpaghetti. Yes I has heard that about the unripe one being bitter until it is ripe . The ones DH are sometimes a bit hard so just in case I leave them until they feel a bit softer.
Here there are called Diospiros and very juicy and tasty they are too. Will have to find out if it says the variety at the supermarket.

My OH couldn't use the gym ( it's small) this morning because of the body odour smell. No old people in there.
Well there was one, OH, until he walked out ?