Do you offer dental coverage in your employee benefits? It would be easier to tell the employee and attribute your concern to possible dental or gum disease if you knew she was able to go have that checked out.
This is a very awkward situation. I guess the way I would put it is something like this: “This is not easy for me to say, but I felt like I should say something because I am concerned that it might be harming your job search efforts. I have noticed that your deodorant doesn’t seem to be working for you anymore.” (I agree with teh suggestion to phrase it as if the deodorant is to blame rather than saying “you stink”) If you’re lucky hopefully she will take it ok and you can talk about what’s going on and if there is anything you can help her with.
I don’t think that subtle hints like giving her a makeover or letting her borrow your deodorant would be enough. It might fix the problem that day but then she’ll go back to stinking. It sounds like there is something wrong with her daily habits that she needs to look at and change. She’ll only do that if she KNOWS that what she has been doing isn’t working. While yes there is a chance she may have a legitimate medical problem that is causing the odor, odds are good that she just doesn’t realize others notice it.
There definitely are people out there who stink and don’t realize it. Some people have a poor sense of smell due to smoking or allergies. I also agree that some people just get used to their own smell and don’t realize how offensive it is to others. Some people sweat more than others. Diet can definitely influence body odor.
I have a pretty good sense of smell and I often notice breath odor or body odor even among my professional colleagues. Thankfully in most cases it’s not so strong that I would feel it necessary to call them out on it, but I suspect that a lot of these “Oh I don’t smell bad even though I didn’t shower today” people probably do have an odor that they aren’t aware of but that some of us might notice.
Ditto. Not bragging at all, but I’m both not hairy and not very good at producing B.O. I can smell the slightest hint of it on me, but it does take a while for that to accumulate.
As for the OP, I would try an indirect approach first. Say that you are concerned that your deodorant isn’t working (credit to Gary T for that). Also emphasize that not everyone can tell that they smell and, and that people are not likely to say so for fear of offending them. That alone may trigger her spidey-senses and ask if you’re referring to her. You can say that yes on a few occasions you have noticed some light odor, and she will likely be nigh obsessive with underarm care taking from then on.
The other approach is one that gets her on your side before you actually address the issue. Ask what she thinks should happen if one sees spinach or poppy seeds in someone’s teeth. Do you tell them? She will likely say “of course”. If not, she may not even want to hear from you about B.O. and an you should deal with that as you see fit.
If she thinks you should tell the person, do whatever hemming and hawing you see fit, and then say “I don’t think your deodorant works very well, maybe the kind I use will work better for you”.
This gives her an out if she’s not using deodorant at all, and everyone can pretend it was not her fault. Win win.
This thread fascinates me as well, because I have a morbid fear of stinking… and never knowing it. When I was in high school, this one “friend” took to telling me that I stunk. Of course, the first time, I freaked out and bathed like crazy (and let’s face it, being an adolescent in Texas made the possibility fairly likely). And it well might have been on a day when I had been running around a lot, or whatever. But he kept on going on about it, to the point I was obsessive about it. And being friends with lots of adolescent males who take delight in mocking any shortcomings one has, I never heard it from anyone else. So I chalked it up to him being a dick.
I have good oral hygiene but I hate gum on principle, and I do get dry mouth at times, so I think it’s possible my breath can be funky at times. I pop mints (Altoids) and keep mouthwash in my office, so I think I’m on top of it. But realistically, I rarely smell people’s breath, unless I am basically in really close quarters or about to kiss them. So I hardly ever encounter strong breath. I actually have an aversion to overly scented breath, to be honest. Usually whatever one uses (mints, gums) is so incredibly strong to be detected that it overpowers everything else.
That’s why I miss my best friend from college. He’d tell me if I was drooling when I feel asleep in class, and if my breath was humming. And it was no big deal; I’d do the same for him. I’m not close to anyone in that way as a nearing middle aged professional, so I either smell decent or people are too nice to say that I don’t.
I also don’t wear much cologne. My routine is shower with good soap (Irish Spring), slap on some deodorant (and sometimes Gold Bond powder), and that’s it. One of my former colleagues was a lovely man who wore such strong cologne you could smell him down the (long) hall. And you knew if he had been in a room from the scent.
Those of you who are non-deodorant/occasional bathers who don’t think you smell - you may in fact not stink, but you are probably more likely to smell like something other than “Cool Breeze” or Irish Spring, or sandalwood. There is a sort of acrid smell that a lot of people just naturally have, and I wouldn’t call it stink, but it’s pretty noticeable.
I believe we deserve an update.
I had a teacher in High School who had a fairly tactful way of addressing people with B. O. or bad breath issues. He’d say “You’re radiating” and give a little smile and either gesture to an armpit or hold out a package of breath mints(he always had breath mints because he smoked). He’d do it to people who needed a shower after gym class or who were eating cheetos. He really didn’t like cheetos.
It helped that he was a genuinely nice guy and you didn’t want to get mad at him for trying to help.
Enjoy,
Steven
The thing is, it’s something I personally would want to know. I’d hate it if all these rationalizations kept people from telling me.
Oh, and, FYI, if you only go by when you can smell yourself, you pretty much have already stank for a while.
Agree and agree.
I know for sure many people can’t smell themselves, because if they could, they would wear a lot less perfume.
OMG Yes. I was in a coffee shop this morning and suddenly there was this harsh odor like cleaning chemicals or something. I could figure out where it was coming from, then a women from 15 feet away got up and walked by my table. I guess she had put on her perfume, but wow was it strong. She definitely left a smell trail behind her.
Body odor can be caused by dozens of conditions. Anywhere from the lack of hygiene to a zinc loss to yeast infections to dietary issues.
A lot of physical afflictions cause B.O, such as diabetes, Colon bacterial infections and dozens of others.
One of the worst forms of B.O.; the dreaded dead fish smell, is mostly caused by diet. I suffer from this form. Its caused in part by eating lecithin or choline or carnitine/lysine-lecithin foods i.e; Chocolate, soy, nuts, raisins and such.
I didn’t find this out till I was well into my forties.
My doctor, a women, said most women who suffer from body odor issues usually have a form of a non diagnosed yeast infection but mistakenly believe; “deodorants just don’t work for me”.
Have you tried bathing her in tomato juice?
Yes to the first part.
But wrong to the second part, except maybe as a broad generalization. I have a sharp sense of smell and though you might not believe it, I’m the first person to know if I get a bit ripe.
But how can you really be SURE? Like a frog being heated up in a pan of cold water, it might creep up on you before it breaches your threshold of awareness. It seems to me that the only way to really KNOW would be to experiment by letting yourself get stinky and have someone else make a note of when you started to ripen without telling you, then comparing notes once you get a whiff yourself. If you repeated this experiment several times with different people, you’d eventually have enough data to be sure.
“Sweet Girl, You’re a good friend and have many fine qualities. I want the best for you and request that you read this thread I posted on the SDMB”.
I think it’s reasonable to acknowledge that there are some people that stink after ten paces from their last shower, and there are those that don’t stink after 4 days, why not? Just because you don’t work that way, doesn’t mean other people don’t.
My brother was told once that showering daily causes dry skin. We have dry skin in our family, so he almost never showers. There have been weeks and weeks that have gone by, and he hasn’t showered. I find it pretty disgusting, but I have yet to even catch a whiff of B.O. on him, ever.
Some might indict my sense of smell as being inferior, and I understand that. But, based on my smelling things before my friends and other anecdotal evidence, I don’t think that’s the case.
I think too many people in this thread assume people’s ignorance due to B.O. rather than admit that there are some people that don’t really give off B.O. that much. Their shit still stinks if that’s any consolation.
Also, I still like the advice I gave in re: this matter. I often defer to other opinions here (due to the high degree of credibility and authority of some posters) but in this case I still like my solution as best. YMMV
Well, believe it or not, it took me this long to finally say something to her! Besides the fact that we’ve steadily become better friends, I finally had the perfect opening. We were totally alone in an office at the end of a long day, and I was leaning over her as she showed me a project she was working on. The air was thick with B.O. As we stood up to head to dinner, I said, “I don’t mean to embarrass you, but I know it’s been a long day, and if you have any deodorant on you, you may want to re-up.”
Her reaction? “Oh! Thanks for telling me. Yeah, let me just freshen up and I’ll meet you outside.” I muttered something sheepish, and she added, “friends should absolutely tell each other these things.”
We then proceeded to have a nice dinner, with no hint of her feeling embarrassed (or further B.O.). See, told you she was sweet!
So, I guess the next question is, will she be more conscious of it? I guess it’s a moot point, since I apparently have the OK to give her a heads up. Your mileage may vary.
Glad the resolution was happy! Most people would never have nutted up and told her, so you did a good thing. Here’s hoping she uses deodorant more often now. 
I shower about once a month, never use deodorant, and never get BO. My mother never has BO either, I think it’s genetic.
OTOH, my ex-wife had pretty rough BO, and sadly, my daughter inherited it too.
I’m glad she didn’t get into a funk over your criticism (I couldn’t resist, sorry).
But it does make me wonder what’s going on with her hygiene. Maybe she just has really powerful pits?