Do you suppose, in the days when everyone smelled because

[raccoon]

there was no running water and no central heating, no deodorant/antiperspirant, and ads hadn't yet convinced everybody that to have any kind of personal odor was terrible,that a person would notice if other people smelled? If they smelled at about the same level, that is?

[spinbaby]

1. I'd imagine

That the smell of people would be overwhelmed by the smell of sewage.

[LeftyFingerPop]

2. This is a thought provoking post...

and you may be on to something here, since everything is relative.

I remember seeing something on TV about a tribe, or group of people somewhere (Africa or Australia perhaps) that NEVER use water to wash...they actually use DIRT. Somehow, the dirt keeps them extraordinarily clean.

[DS1]

3. When you all stink, you can't smell it on each other

That's been my experience anyway

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. I actually do think about this stuff. Toilet paper is relatively new

too, I think.

I wonder about this stuff in the context that we think we are all modern and civilized and all but I bet those folks thought the same thing while they stunk like a bush voter. I wonder how people in the future will look back at us as being primitive and uninformed.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. "Stunk like a Bush voter"

:rofl:

[jobycom]

6. Americans stink.

Other nations always claim that. Our dairy and meat diet gives off an odor that we just don't notice because we are around it all the time.

So, yeah, I'd imagine you are right.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

7. I'd never heard that before. Is it true?

[Celeborn Skywalker]

8. I've heard that also.

We eat more meat than Europeans and most other nations and some, especially middle-easterners who have less meat in their diet, say we Americans smell.

[jobycom]

11. Yeah.

Ask anyone from Japan. There's a scene in "Spirited Away" that jokes about this, when the spirits refuse to work with Sen because she stinks. Haku says "A week eating our diet, and the smell will go away."

[AngryAmish]

12. People who eat a lot of curry stink like it to me

Tunnel Rats in Vietnem ate local food so their smell did not give them away. They also did not bathe.

[Aristus]

9. I imagine bad smells have always bothered people.

Back before air fresheners and deodorants, people used to carry perfumed handkerchiefs, and hold them to their noses when the smells got particularly bad. That or oranges stuck all over with cloves. (You can see this in a scene from Richard Lester's "The Three Musketeers") or just bouquets of flowers - "nose-gays", they were called.

Bad smells have always been bad smells... :puke:

[zanne]

10. Pet Peeve #628.....

People with "sensitive" noses. I know a woman who hired a contractor to do something with the electrical outlets in her condo because she could "smell" her neighbors' cigarette smoke through them. She's so precious.

[snooper2]

13. A little History...

"The first form of perfume was incense. Incense was first discovered by the Mesopotamians about 4,000 years ago. Ancient cultures burned many kinds of resins, bums and woods at their religious ceremonies. They often soaked the fragrant woods and resins in water and oil, and rubbed their bodies with the liquid. They also embalmed the dead with these perfumes.

We have learned from hieroglyphics on ancient Egyptian tombs that perfume played a part in the lives of the Egyptians. Incense made its way to Egypt around 3000 B.C. and with Queen Hatshepsut, it became very popular. She led expeditions in search of incense and other valuable commodities, and the results of which were later recorded on the walls of a temple created in her honor. In the temple was a botanical garden filled with incense trees recovered from these expeditions. Perfumes were found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. It is probable that the use of aromatics in mystic rites predated the burning of incense and sweet herbs in religious ceremonies.
Until the beginning of Egypt's Golden Age, perfumes were used only in ritual for gods or pharaohs. Perfume was held in high esteem in Biblical times and there is frequent mention of fragrance in the Bible. In the New Testament, the three wise men carried gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus. Long before, Moses was commanded by the Lord to "take unto thee sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum...with pure frankincense...And thou shalt make it a perfume."

Frankincense is probably still the best known of the plants alluded to in the Bible. Burning incense was the privilege of priests in the earliest civilizations. The custom is still in use today in Catholic and High Episcopal churches.

Incense, aromatics, and perfumed oil became available to all Egyptians as the priests gradually relinquished their exclusive rights. Citizens were commanded to perfume themselves at least once a week. The Egyptians, fastidious in their personal habits, took elaborate baths, which were the forerunners of the luxurious bathing establishments of the Greeks and Romans. They soaked their skin in oils because it gave them pleasure, and helped protect their bodies from the drying effects of the torrid sun. Egyptians created many scented creams and emollients. They would shape them into cones and would melt them to cover their hair and bodies. Bathing was an enjoyable, social pleasure, sometimes washing as often as three times per day."

more
http://www.perfumes.com/eng/history.htm

[supernova]

14. Perfumes and Pommanders, Oh My!

It's why perfume was invented, to cover up the fact that bathing and smelling fresh in general wasn't quite the fetish it is today. People also used to carry their own pommanders around too for the same purpose, to dissipate or cover up the more unpleasant odors from the street and other people.

[NV Whino]

15. No. Your smeller expires from over-smell.

Really. Happens to good smells, too. Wine tasters have to take a break if too many wines are presented at one time.

[applegrove]

16. I think I read somewhere that today - to someone from a poor neighbourhood in a poor country

westerners smell like a big mixture of sickly soap and perfume smells mixture. Since we can barely smell the sickly soap smell on ourselves..it is a safe bet that we could barely smell the bo back in the day when we were not so clean obssesed.