I received a really nice French cologne as a birthday gift back in the 80's--women loved it. It was low grade enough that only people very next to you would notice, and it would last days ... even after showers. This made for some interesting interactions with women at the office ... "Oh, looks like someone had a good weekend ..."
At some point, they had to change out the binder/fixer/whatever (presumably it's either horribly toxic or horribly cruel to skunks), and colognes haven't been the same since.
Now, in order to get a cologne to last even a couple of hours, they create things that are horrifically strong at start, and you still almost can't smell them several hours later.
(I actually had the misfortune to test this. My mother used Chanel No 5 Eau de Cologne that I would buy for her as a gift when she ran out or it went bad. The last one I bought smelled wrong as soon as I opened it--they reformulated it and discontinued it soon after. I wound up kicked through Chanel customer service to get some of the last "real" stock they had--they knew that the updated one was wrong and had kept a small amount for customer complaints (and presumably very rich patrons).)
Try using an oil-based soap, using a dab of unscented baby oil on your skin or not showering for a day before using perfumes.
I do know of the fragrance-free options, of course, but I’ve suffered comfort issues from being near other people’s fragrances for over a decade. I have to try to find fragrance-free and natural versions of everything for my girlfriend.
It isn’t a problem for my own use, as I use very few personal care products, but it would be great if the general public understood the things you say.
Their liquid soap.. no so good, doesn't lather well and doesn't go the distance.
So much. Had this one colleague, luckily not in the same room, but he once touched my screen (which is already a big no-go for me anwyay) and I could still smeel it days later. Maybe my sense of smell is too good, don't know, but this was rather unpleasant.
Nice to have a gameplan thereafter though.
What mechanism of applying body soap do you think persists after showering? Either way, the bacteria are mostly gone and more importantly their food is mostly gone. Of course, they immediately start trying to grow back, whether you used soap or not.
(I don't see any reason the tooth-brushing metaphor is warranted, since it seems to introduce more differences than similarities.)
If water alone did a good job of removing bacteria, then surgeons wouldn’t scrub with soap for 15 minutes.
Citation needed? Sweat is mostly water and trace amount of salt. It dissolves easily in water.
> Water alone doesn’t do a very good job of removing bacteria or dirt
We agree here! (With some qualified reservations about what the subjective "very good" means, and how necessary it is for body washing applications.)
Water does a reasonable job of removing bacteria -- handwashing studies show this. It's a lot better than nothing. Yes, water combined with soap does a better job.
> If water alone did a good job of removing bacteria, then surgeons wouldn’t scrub with soap for 15 minutes.
The topic under discussion is body soaps, not handwashing.
I would always suggest washing your hands with soap! You use your hands to prepare food and touch mucus membranes. The same is not true of, say, your armpits.
(Going off into the weeds here, but: surgeons do not scrub for 15 minutes. That would destroy their skin and increase risk of transferring disease. Timed scrubs are 3-5 minutes. And they certainly do not perform surgery with their armpits.)
If I'm not mistaken, the materials I've seen indicate it's the scrubbing for a certain period of time (20 seconds?) that removes the most bacteria in handwashing. Just putting your hands under running water alone doesn't do much, if anything.
The set of people who vigorously scrub their clean-shaven armpits under water for 20-30 seconds each is probably pretty small.
So, for me walking to work, that would be about 10 minutes.
And most of the east coast is 90% humid and in the 90s come summer
Provided your mouth isn't dry (e.g., when you're asleep), brushing your tongue should help a lot. Getting rid of the white furry stuff very much helps keep things fresh - at least until you start drinking coffee/sugar and eating foods again (apples might be alright though).
While you didn't mention tongue brushing - I won't presume whether you do or don't do that already so I'm replying as such for others' benefit - I believe not everyone realises[1] how much of an improvement tongue brushing makes. Those with a strong gag reflex[2] might also be reluctant to brush - it's not something my parents ever taught me to do and one of them still has it as strong as I used to only around 10-15 years ago - I had to learn it myself from online reading and gradual practice.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brush+tongue
[2] My own tips for dialing down the reflex is to not have a full stomach (so not immediately after breakfast or dinner[3]), breathe in deeply beforehand, brush from back of the tongue to the front, and grimace/retract the tongue before a gag kicks in (but also not worry if there is still a gag; just take another chance to rinse/breathe). The other benefit to being able to be relaxed about this is that dentist visits become a lot more relaxing (i.e., I've almost drifted off before while occupying/placing my mind in other places and thinking about - meditation, self hypnosis perhaps?).
[3] One other common dental hygiene recommendation is to brush three times a day, but I've never really been able to do that consistently and know of very few people who do. I would suggest a compromise solution of brushing morning, and then before dinner to clear the bacteria, and then of course again before bed. The idea isn't to have no bacteria in the mouth (that's impossible) but to just cut it back frequently enough to make a difference.
(Background: I'm not a dentist but I've had enough experience visiting them to have permanently made improvements towards my dental health, which I'd guess was below-average in the past. These days I practically look forward to seeing my dentist - so long as it's just the yearly checkup.)
That is simply inaccurate.
"Bacteria of potential faecal origin (mostly Enterococcus and Enterobacter spp.) were found after no handwashing in 44% of samples. Handwashing with water alone reduced the presence of bacteria to 23% (p < 0.001)."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037063/
Whether body soap is necessary for you in particular to not smell bad I cannot comment, but it certainly isn't universally true.