These things are relative of course. The smell of the wrong washing powder does not quite compare in magnitude and seriousness to the vast majority of sociopolitical, physiological, emotional, and ontological crises and catastrophes that plague humanity on a daily basis —— being sent to a war zone in South Sudan is definitely worse.
But it still matters to me. It really matters to me. The ‘bio enzymes’, the aroma chemicals that increasingly pollute the senses on a daily basis really do get to me at the nerve/ stomach level. In the UK, artificial neo- melon ozones I smelled everywhere this spring had me gagging the second I landed at Gatwick Airport , a form of curious reverse culture shock but which has obviously become culturally normalized on the Mothership : in toilets, on people, shop premises (“yes, don’t you think it’s something to do with the pandemic ?”, Olivia said to me wisely on the last evening – the need for an an oversanitized freshness post corona – ‘to put the virus behind us’) – and she is right : disinfecting, cantalouped calones by the gallon to make us forget about illness, grubby intubation, death. A swift backpedalling to those early 90’s, blinding, subarachnoid days of Calvin Klein Escape For Men and Arden Sunflowers and all the other piercing frontal lobe drillers – when inhumanly bright marine notes started being used en masse in functional perfumery everywhere — and headached the atmosphere.
Getting back from the hospital yesterday – though I have to return for a check up tomorrow as things are still a bit swollen – I warily washed some clothes that needed doing with a liquid laundry detergent that happened to there in the bathroom – Attack X or something : yet another of those blue green alien liquids in white plastic bottles that are becoming more and more intense and commercially ubiquitous wherever you go; so very, very far removed from our natural human origins — and I knew that I would immediately regret it. Usually I buy the cheapest powder I can find at our local supermarket : a crap product that barely dissolves in the washing machine, but which I like because it has a virtually odourless, light lemon / generic floral scent that doesn’t interfere with my perfuming once dried : – and this is the whole point. People, I need a BLANK SLATE if I am going to apply a quality scent to my personage, I need no contamination — but YE GADZ : ugh !! now the clothes I am/was going to wear for the appointment tomorrow smell horribly and indelibly like another person – and not a person I want to know. Call me neuro divergent, with my laundry detergent, but my hypersensitivity to an overly intrusive and unnaturally ill-smelling modern washing powder / fabric conditioner knows no bounds. And if the pollutants in question are then worn on my body, that crass, inescapable odour can wreck my entire day.
On the ward, all the nurses smelled universally lovely – they had got their shampoo/ hair treatment / clothes softener combos down to a very site-specific T – clean, calming, trustworthily fragrant: it elevated the air. Other people, though, out in the real world (men especially), often very obliviously combine rank personal body odour, with sour and vividly artificial laundry musks that linger so penetratingly in the air around them they jam up all my signals. Inhaling the smell coming from the clothing hanging out to dry on the balcony at this moment is equally disturbing – like being substituted by an alien life form. It’s only washing powder / liquid – whatever it is pertaining to be – I do realize this – yet purely in smell terms, switched out with another entity, as I inhale this smell I feel like Donald Sutherland, screaming noiselessly in the hope-crushing final scene of
My detergent hell twin! I have been whingeing for absolutely years about the noxious smell of so many detergents. It got so bad for me that I couldn’t bear to go to supermarkets as the miasma seeping from the bottles in the laundry aisle wafted to all other areas. People wearing clothes freshly washed in the bad stuff made me recoil from them as I feared I would throw up. I was told this was probably the “laundry musk”, but it isn’t just that, it’s all the other delightful fragrances they add to appeal to the customer. Not to this one. The curse of a sensitive nose? Of course in the scale of terrible things happening in the world this is not so important, but it does affect me badly! And nobody understands …… until now!
So glad you are home, and I am hoping the infection is gone and that you do well in your check up.
Delighted to have found someone who understands this profoundly. The UK is MUCH worse in this regard, as I realized first hand back in March. As you say, it goes way beyond ‘laundry musks’ into unnecessarily intense smelling, truly non-human odorants that smell nothing like laundry but cling to a person all day like a Clingon.
My sister, who has great taste in perfume and smells gorgeous in it, also at the same time, unfortunately will string up the washing in her flat with her clothes that are just drenched in all these liquids – and admittedly they do smell ‘clean’. But an insane, overdone degree that interferes with her fragrance. What’s the point in wearing vintage Fracas if you are wrecking it with Ariel Space X?
Laundry scent boosters & recent emergence of whole body deodorants makes my poor olfactory bulb quiver in pain. Surely if you need your bum deodorising you need to shower or at lease clean yourself up properly 🤮
‘Whole body deodorants’? This is the first time I have heard of these. I can just see the people who use them – they definitely have ridiculously long false eyelashes and that orange foundation which has been the rage for a while now.
Yep! Literally advertised for b*lls, bums & underboobs. All those places it’s important to keep clean to prevent yeast & bacterial growth.
As a retired Matron, with the ingrained belief in hygiene is the most important thing a human can do for themselves, the idea of a full body deodorant strikes fear into my heart
Unless these freaky products are antibacterial enough to neutralize those areas ?
In any case you are right. I have been avoiding the shower because I have post-operative haematomas – one slightly infected – and don’t want to get the bandages wet – but as you say, being clean over all is more important and I got new ones yesterday.
I imagine you have some horror stories …
Please free to narrate what can happen
Please don’t make me remember
!!
okey dokes !
Quite apart from the smell I’m horrified by the appalling stickiness of the stuff. The tiniest drop of the most-vivid-ever blue detergent on one‘s skin, like some super-viscuous, reptilian poison, you will never ever be able to wash it off. It will stick and stick and stick on you forever.
You mean accidentally, I presume, rather than a dab behind the ear?
I think we instinctively know that these chemicals can’t possibly be good for us or the earth – and I really hate how so many of them smell. How is it in Germany? I imagine a neat divide between the more eco-conscious non-smelling types and gung ho soaper than thou athleticism.
Invasion of the body snatchers!!!!
HILARIOUS!
Now two examples for you:
One amour from decades ago used to get of f from bus or tram when a perfume was too obnoxious for her very refined nose. She was a lemon lover.
My recently departed and sorely missed Wendela was severely critical of my use of oxygen powder. I had to re-wash and re-,hangout outside before her very eclectic smelling organ was inclined to put it on again. She sounds very like you.
My Jericho was peachy toilet cleaner. I detest fruit, except lemon and sparingly orange-family, in almost everything unfruitous such as tea, toilet and washing ingredients and perfume. It stayed in my nose for an eternity and I almost got to like the smelly reason for applying it in the first place ..
Stay that way. It protects us from of The Toilet Thinking Tyranny.
I love the smell of linen sheets dried on grass. Nothing compares to that. Alas in Asphalt Amsterdam it is not available to me. And my very very minute park? Dogs and footballing kids and the strict green rules of the city nip it in the bud.
I have to train my nose on dreaming..
It must be so indescribably hard with Wendela – I feel for you and do think about it quite often even though I haven’t met either of you.
I know that she would not be very keen on the detergent I am talking about here…
‘Oxygen powder’ though? It sounds horrible. No wonder she hated it.
We are very lucky in the Netherlands to have a brand called Zeepje (meaning ‘small soap’, Dutch people love to make a word small or little by the affix ‘je’, like kopje (cup) of koffie, weekje vrij (week off) etc). The cup is not small, nor has the week 5 days, it is just a matter of speaking. I suppose because we live in a small country.
Anyway, Zeepje is made of Nepali washing nuts, all good for the environment and women in Nepal, and it is barely scented, some essential oils that are hardly noticable. I really dislike the scent of washing powder/liquid/softener. When we go for a walk in the woods, and we walk past strangers on a sunny day, I first smell this d…d laundry detergent scent. There are quite a few other good scentless brands. I commiserate with your body snatcher invasion!
There are plenty of unscented products available in Japan, of course… many people HATE the current popularity of overperfumed washing powders. Some of them though have that slightly hippiesh yak-sheep wool smell in the base though that I hate just as much. I need some kind of in between.
Anyway, it really isn’t a problem. I was just creating a comic melodrama to pass the evening after coming back from the operation and hopefully to amuse the readers. D doesn’t care about these things as much as I do and had picked this vile liquid up and I suppose I just thought I would try and be open minded.
But no.
Only the cheapo with the virtual lack of scent will do. I CANNOT walk around smelling like that!
All I can say is that you are a hoot. Thanks for the comic relief. It took my mind of the dictator for a short while. Stay well,
Mission Accomplished then! I wanted a hoot. Even a three minute reprieve from the Cultural Revolution – Jesus, it’s bad….I sometimes actually can’t even read about it but then usually inevitably do anyway as I want to keep abreast of it all – but sometimes you just have to rave about laundry detergents instead.
Ugh, I wish they could un-invent Calone, it has never improved the smell of anything.
I would tend to agree even if d does rock the odd calone-loaded marine perfume on a 36 degree Japan August day. Otherwise it should have stayed where it was – floating on top of fresh water rivers.
I mean, I do feel for you, Neil, and I can understand what you must go through, and the intensity of it for you, and sounds like it can real suck. Sorry about what you go through, those assaults to the tenderest of senses.
So strange, though, because, while it seems our noses sense a lot of things in the same way, I don’t think I’ve met a laundry detergent, dryer sheet, fabric softener or other “functional” scent I haven’t liked. They’re all just kind of background noise, musak, inoffensive at the very worst. And some I really dig, like those laundry sprinkles with the teal plastic cap. Downy Unstoppables, the Fresh one. I know, it’s embarrassing!
I mean obviously this whole piece was tongue in cheek and facetious….. you know that even I am not quite that neurasthenic and hysterical. But you also know me too well and instinctively feel that I mean it at the same time!
I have had rows back home when my mum has done washing for me in some horrifying product or other and though I am grateful for her doing it I just don’t want to touch my clothes afterwards as they smell so wrong.
I am with you with Downy. In fact, when I first came to Japan, it was sold as an ‘exotic import’ in some shops for about 20 dollars. Later, in the last decade or so, there has been a total revolution and everything is scented. Much you would love. Much does smell really lovely – as I said about the nurses; there are a lot of very well done rose/woody, warm, camellia soap softeners that linger appropriately around a person’s aura all day long and become their signature fragrance.
But I can’t see you loving some of the super aggressively sporty green/blue numbers that prevail – they really do take your IQ down a few notches
Oh my god, I relate to this so very very much! I highly recommend you buy a 5-litre container of plain Castile liquid soap from a company called The Soapery. Use that for your laundry, fill half one of those little round 2 -inch tall plastic laundry ball things with liquid soap, then fill that up with water, place it in the machine with clothes etc. You can pop in a few drops of natural lavender essence, or bergamot is nice. Voila, happy natural smelling time as you dry your laundry in a chemical and trauma-free environment 🙂
You’re so descriptive and funny about this subject! This is therapy reading. I bloody HATE those weird fake Ambroxan ‘woody’ notes, or ISO E or whatever. Everyone in the UK is stinking of this just now. A friend of mine who has always worn nice, if standard perfumes such as Diorissimo, or Chanel no. 5 has suddenly taken to wearing what smells to me like toilet cleaner! It’s a nightmare!
I also bulk buy bars of Papoutsanis organic soap to wash my painting brushes in. Started using it for washing myself too. It smells a bit like Hermes Cythere( think that’s what it’s called) – very plain, savoury olive oil based smell. It’s cheapest from a site called ‘Makeup’ ( think that’s the name).
Let me know if you try out the Castile liquid soap. Hope it’s available in Japan!
Castile is available in Japan – very expensive, but I LOVE their lavender liquid soap, and the peppermint one too which is sublime on the hottest of days in the bath. The laundry detergent would be about 60 quid here; if I could afford their products I would probably buy them (all the religious stuff written on the side of the bottles is a bit odd though, no? Some kind of Mormony/ Quakery/ Jehovah’s Witnessey business that is quite unusual for a natural toiletry company!
I also sometimes put lavender and bergamot oil in the washing machine and like how it comes out. Great minds think alike.
And re your friend smelling like toilet cleaner. I genuinely believe that one of the most amazing whistle blowing stories possible would be if someone were to investigate what is actually IN industrial airport toilet cleaners and compare them to what they sell in Duty Free. I am SURE that they would find that the active ingredients in both are very similar in price and quality: there truly isn’t much difference.
Ha ha
Yes I’m sure you’re right about that. If I’m a true friend I’ll say something to her, at the moment I’m hoping it’s just a temporary perfume or sample! 5 litres of Castile from the Soapery is £28 in UK, but I suppose shipping is a lot to Japan. I must go and have a look at their Quakeryness! Somehow didn’t notice! I also use cheap powder for scent reasons, so I’m glad you have that option! I wonder what the hospital uses for laundry soap eh? Maybe you can buy it in bulk somewhere?
Extra love (no bias, no none at all) for Papoutsanis. Their Greek Marseille soap. Also bergamot and Green tea. Or herbs. Or any of them in fact.
And totally get the whole “wrong kind of soap” Ax
‘Neurodivergent with my washing detergent ‘ must surely be developed into a Nowl Coward-esque song!! Brilliant!
Neurodetergent, surely. I had to leave a very splendid art museum as the guard was walking through the rooms and her smell—cheap and harsh sweet rose or something—left a horrible trail everywhere. As the floor was a loop, and she covered other floors, I was screwed. Ruined a beautiful historic building.
You see some people would find your reaction excessive. I don’t. A toxic slug trail that disrupts your very soul – and your aesthetic reactions to what surrounds.
Rose, re Neurodivergent with my washing detergent’ – Let’s do it! If you come up with a project, I’m there. You’re right – it definitely is a song title.
Noel I mean
I’m not sure if you have ever smelled Fabulouso, but it is a big one. Often used to cover up body odor, general funk, and all sorts of “stank”. It numbs your sense’s ability to operate properly. I like it in laundry detergent but it lingers!
It doesn’t sound like it is for me. I mean, a hint of natural body odour mixed with a bit of dryer sheet musks can be quite sexy, I admit – but numbing the senses’ ability to operate properly seems a bit much.
I should have done a better job of describing. The BO was from people and the cleaner covered it up. It was used on occasion in my ships berthing, which was often home to a few poorly washed individuals.
Numbing the senses was often a necessity. Think of “boot foot” and poorly washed people in the heat.
(We had fresh water for clothes and bathing sporadically). (I worked in air conned spaces but dark. Numbing the senses helped the time fly by).
Boot foot … you know I have often wondered what it must be like stuck in a uniform and what smells must result. Feet can get really blue cheesy… hurrah for Fabuluoso !