I always smell a grapefruit like body odor on some women, what is it exactly? It’s not pleasant nor unpleasant

[Anonymous]

Grapefruit is an element of a lot of perfumes, scented lotions, soap and other cosmetics.

[Anonymous]

Maybe you are like this woman and can smell disease....

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/820274501/her-incredible-sense-of-smell-is-helping-scientists-find-new-ways-to-diagnose-di

[Anonymous]

That fruity smell is the result of long-teem wine drinking. Her liver is turning into a prune.

[Anonymous]

Yep its wine drinkers. Now that I dont drink I smell it on people the next day.

[Anonymous]

Maybe you can smell cancer like a Labrador

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you are like this woman and can smell disease....

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/820274501/her-incredible-sense-of-smell-is-helping-scientists-find-new-ways-to-diagnose-di

NP and this was an incredible story and completely worth the click and rabbithole it sent me down.

OP, is it the smell of actual fruit part of grapefruit or the smell of the peel of a grapefruit just as it’s been peeled or shortly after? Because if it’s the latter I definitely know what you mean. I only smell it on specific groups of people. It’s not a perfume or product smell and it’s not a cooking smell. It’s definitely from their skin. I have always assumed it was some kind of biological thing.

Similarly, I’m white and American and my ILs are all from Hong Kong and the older generation insists that European people have a specific smell- not BO, not food cooking smells, but an actual body smell. I think it’s possible that we smell genetic differences in each other. Perhaps the various group’s mutations and genetics cause different levels of chemicals to be produced by the same biological processes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Older people seem to develop a particular body odor I’ve noticed. It even seems to be culturally specific - maybe depending on diet, hormone levels, etc.

That is true but different. That is the smellnof decay from their interior. Usually expressed through breath or sweat.

Jaysus!!

[Anonymous]

I listened to a podcast over the summer where one woman is a super smeller and she can smell, with 100% accuracy, proven in multiple blind smell tests, if a person has Parkinson’s years to decades before they are diagnosed. It is a very specific smell that some people emanate, including her own husband. She noticed his smell changed 10-15 years before he was diagnosed with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It may be how your nose smells certain smells.

My husband confounds sweat and urine smells with tomato sauce smells.

So I let him pick all the spaghetti sauce we cook.

There are known chemical similarities between parmesan cheese and vomit. Some people don't like parmesan cheese because of that smell.

That would be my guess as to your grapefruit scent...it's a compound you smell in sweat or greasy hair.

Oh man. I remember a Pizza place in BWI aiport and everytime I hit that corridor I thought there was a puke accident.

[Anonymous]

^^ and I generally love parmesan.

[Anonymous]

I am a daily hiker and super smeller - I can smell each person as they pass by me and smell cologne on the parent next to me as we sit outside at a youth sports event.

Career in public service and I think I know the grapefruit odor - there’s also a distinctive earthy, vaguely milky odor I detect on Asians, typically Chinese men.

Figured out quickly that a colleague is an alcoholic - perpetual rank odor emanating from pores and hair - worse in morning.

Then there’s the cigarette smokers. Not standard freshly lit cigarette smell but a deep, carbony stale smell.

First cold snap of the season means the elderly are getting their winter coats out of moth ball storage and I’m gagging. Makes no sense but this is the odor that is my undoing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a daily hiker and super smeller - I can smell each person as they pass by me and smell cologne on the parent next to me as we sit outside at a youth sports event.

Career in public service and I think I know the grapefruit odor - there’s also a distinctive earthy, vaguely milky odor I detect on Asians, typically Chinese men.

Figured out quickly that a colleague is an alcoholic - perpetual rank odor emanating from pores and hair - worse in morning.

Then there’s the cigarette smokers. Not standard freshly lit cigarette smell but a deep, carbony stale smell.

First cold snap of the season means the elderly are getting their winter coats out of moth ball storage and I’m gagging. Makes no sense but this is the odor that is my undoing.

I’m happy that my sense of smell sucks after reading this.

[Anonymous]

Hand sanitizer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It may be how your nose smells certain smells.

My husband confounds sweat and urine smells with tomato sauce smells.

So I let him pick all the spaghetti sauce we cook.

There are known chemical similarities between parmesan cheese and vomit. Some people don't like parmesan cheese because of that smell.

That would be my guess as to your grapefruit scent...it's a compound you smell in sweat or greasy hair.

This is interesting b/c I think coffee smells exactly like the air after a skunk sprays. The worst offender is 7-11 coffee, IMO. I can hardly stand going in one of those stores. Starbucks smells the least skunky to me. Another thing with me is that I don't think skunk spray smells anything like crappy weed.

[Anonymous]

i sometimes smell like celery.