Malodorous Effect of Rain on Clothing

Factual Questions
1

Just to exclude improbable reasons, let’s say that I am freshly bathed and adequately deodorised.

I dress in clean clothes, not excluding underwear, and my suit has recently visited the dry-cleaner. I go for a walk outside, sans umbrella. The weather turns inclement and a shower of rain descends upon my person. I am mildly soaked by this unanticipated precipitation from the skies before I can take refuge indoors.

I note a damp smell emanating from my suit.

I’m curious to know what chemical reaction produces this smell. Instead of hazarding uneducated guesses concerning impurities in the rain or similar, maybe someone here could enlighten me regarding the source of this damp smell.

Many thanks.

2

Is it a wool suit? If so, it is because sheep stink (all the time) when they get wet and articles made from their wool retain that property to some extent.

3

It’s probably the wet wool you are smelling, like Shagnasty said.

I have found that silk also has a vaguely unpleasant smell when wet, like when I am washing it.

4

Prol’ly the rain, guv. :smiley:

5

I don’t know, but dogs have the same problem. :slight_smile:

6

The suit is made of wool.

This subject is proving difficult to look up but I’ve found one reference to ‘the smell of damp anoraks in a tent’. Many, if not most, anoraks are made of man-made fibres e.g. teflon or polyester.

This makes me think that the damp smell isn’t confined to wool products, or even wool and silk.

7

The short answer is: Water mobilizes smelly molecules. :slight_smile:

8

Yes, wet wool is smelly. Whenever I wash any of my hand-knitted wool items, they smell like wet sheep until they are dry, then they smell wonderful. I love the smell of dry wool… I love to smell my skeins of wool yarn.

9

OK, I’ve found plenty of examples which confirm that woollen clothing retains essence of sheep.

I haven’t personally sniffed many sheep recently (I’ve been busy on other projects) but I had always thought the heady aroma came from dirt or something, and that if you put the sheep in a washing machine at 40% C. the smell would go away.

Does anyone have a comment on why some synthetic fibres give off a damp odour whereas others do not?

Pardon my lamentable ignorance.

10

I’m fairly sure that a sheep that went through a washing machine at 40 C would drown and would stink the place up in a fairly short order. :slight_smile:

11

FWIW some museums are now sequestering all of their visitors’ damp wool coats, scarves, etc. in their cloakrooms, because when wet, they give off certain aromatic compounds (gaseous sulfides, including hydrogen sulfide) that are harmful to oil paintings and some metals!
Of course, this is because sheep are such Boeotians. :wink:

12

I’m not that stupid.

Clearly my sheep would be equipped with SCUBA. It would also require stabilisers, otherwise it would get a trifle dizzy during the spin cycle.

13

Bloody hell!

Also, thanks for teaching me a new word viz. toponym. This board is an invaluable resource for the arcane mot.