Besides the times I’ve had boyfriends, I don’t know that I ever paid so much attention to how I smell. I was a true couch potato before I started doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and now I’m working out 3-5 days per week. When you are doing nothing but watching television, there’s not exactly a lot of sweat action happening on your end, unless you’re doing it from jumping up and screaming at the end of Sopranos or for an episode cliffhanger like Weeds. Now I sweat all the time and I find I am rediscovering how I smell.
I smell musky! My old soaps don’t seem to work so well anymore, I take WAY more showers than I did, but all that sweating action seems to cut right through the artificial flowery smells from soaps, and even the Dr Bronner’s Peppermint soap smell doesn’t seem to stay. *sigh* By the time I get home and put my gi in the washing machine, it smells like I’ve rolled it in ammonia. GROSS! Also, I find that because I have to hang dry my gi, it will sometimes smell musty even though I *just* washed it. Febreeze has become my friend.
CURSES! I want to smell like hearts and butterflies again! I don’t want to spray on perfume because for me, perfume+bjj=no.
Some of the dudes at my gym are STINKY! From the crap they spray on their knees (like a spray version of Tiger Balm), to some of their stanky gis, they just smell bad. As though they’ve just rolled around on the floor with sweaty dudes. Oh wait… 😉
One guy at my gym smells FABULOUS. We were all talking about gi smells and a guy said “Kurt has the BEST SMELLING GI.” and then went on to wax poetic about how he loves rolling with him because of the nice smelling gi. Well, Tuesday I had the opportunity to roll with Kurt, and the other guy was RIGHT! He smelled like hearts and butterflies! OMG! He smelled so good it was distracting. In a very good way.
So apparently the trick is: after you wash & hang dry your gi, put it in a closet with an air freshener. Magically delicious smelling gi will result. I am going to pick mine up this week. MMMMM
What are your tricks to smelling nice?
Ha I’m also super conscious about how I smell! Luckily, deodorant is the bare minimum I need, but since I like smelling nice (and overpowering the stink of eau de 20sweatymen), I use scented lotion. Victoria’s Secret has very long-lasting scents, and they have a BUNCH to choose from.
Love your posts, lady – keep writin’, keep rollin’!!
My diet also changed quite a bit since coming to Korea and I’m sure that also has to do with my body smell changing. Lots more fermented foods (kimchi) and lots more seafood.
I do have a peach lotion from the Body Shop. I used to rub it on my gi a little before class. 🙂
Thanks for the compliment! 🙂
Oxiclean powder with the detergent when the gi starts to get unbearable. I hang my gis to dry in the basement so sometimes they smell musty. I have an air freshner in the laundry room which seems to help.
I should see if I can get oxiclean here.
1. NEVER let your gi sit unwashed for more than a couple hours. I go through 2-3 gis in a day, but I let my wet one air at the academy or spread out in my car trunk after morning class and noon class. When I get home at night the FIRST thing I do is toss it all in the washer. I discuss this and the rest of my smell phobia at http://georgetteoden.blogspot.com/2010/04/plea-for-cleanliness.html
2. Don’t hesitate to use a little bleach in your water. Some people swear by Odaban (hospital disinfectant available at Sam’s Club) and others by PineSol (kills ringworm!) but I think bleach is just as good. So what, maybe it shortens the life of your gi by a couple weeks if that much. You’ll still have them for years and you won’t smell like cat box.
3. Have multiple gis. Dry them in the dryer. Use the strongest smelling detergent you can find (I like Tide or Cheer) and don’t forget there’s one made for getting that smell out of athletic clothing/gear called Win which you can buy off Amazon.com or http://www.windetergent.com/
4. I find that a drop of vanilla extract (or whatever essential oil you like- extract of orange, etc) in the waistband of your pants is a help.
Thanks for your tips. I do wash mine every single night that I use them. Usually within an hour MAYBE 2 at the most. I didn’t realize that bacteria actually caused it to turn into ammonia–but I knew bacteria was involved.
That’s also why I ended up with 4 gis.
I wonder about using bleach with colored gis. Of course there is colorsafe bleach, but it worries me as I don’t speak or read Korean, so I can’t always be sure of the names/information about ingredients.
Nice idea about the vanilla extract!
Thanks for sharing your tips!
I do *not* want to have a strong perfumey scent (especially FLOWERS!!! EEECCHHH!!!! GAG!!! PHEW!!!) when I come into class. I would hate to roll with someone who smelled like a bouquet, and once they started sweating, the scent would get stronger. Ugh.
I use scented body lotions. Cononut, tangerine, strawberry, vanilla spice, mint, pink grapefruit, blackberry sage… I have a vanilla cupcake one that’s to die for. Mmmmmmmmmm!! They’re not too strong smelling, heat and sweat don’t cause them to amp up in an obnoxious fashion, and not many people are bothered by foody smells like some are annoyed (or even allergic) to flower smells. Everybody tells me I smell yummy. 🙂
Until I roll around with a bunch of sweaty stinky guys, and then I smell just like THEM!
I wash and hang-dry my stanky gi’s the minute I get home, and I’ve never noticed a smell from the clean ones.
That’s the thing–Kurt does not smell overly perfumey. He smells like super fresh clean laundry. OMG AMAZING! Really! Not perfume at all. That’s why I want to imitate him. He’s awesome. And I don’t think he smells like flowers–more like hearts and sunshine. Like unicorn kisses. Or the color pink. Not obnoxious or cloying. I have a crush on his smell.
Yeah, for some reason I keep feeling like I smell like hamburgers–like I’ve been working at McDonald’s or something. Bizarre.
Yeah, the humidity here causes a really musty smell in thick gis. Grrr.
Gi, rashie etc come out of the bag as soon as I get home, and generally go in the wash immediately. I use normal washpowder on a cycle with extra pre-wash. No fabric softener (don’t like the smell or the extra chemicals). Occasionally I do a run with oxygen bleach.
My gym bag is never left with stinky gear in it (except for the duration of the trip home), but I have glove dogs in it. They are like little bags with pine chips, like some boxers use in their gloves. Not a strong pine chip scent, but my bag smells dandy.
I went through a stage a while ago, where I could smell ammonia on myself. Not funky unwashed gi smell, but Ammonia and sweat. My rashie STANK (my gi also). And it wasn’t because I wasn’t washing stuff. At that time, I washed everthing with vinegar at least once a week, as I read that would help, and it did a little.
But in hindsight, I think the ammonia smell is to do with other factors. I was paranoid about eating before class. I didn’t want to feel sluggish, and particularly in summer, I don’t like to exercise on a full stomach, it makes me feel like it might revisit… So I probably didn’t eat enough before exercise, particularly carbs. I found a good compromise, by having a snack like a muesli bar or a slice of bread about an hour before training. Later on I read on some forum that if you don’t have enough fuel in your system, the body breaks down proteins and that causes the ammonia smell. I don’t know if that is true, but it makes sense.
Another issue is general fitness level. As you get fitter, your body gets more efficient. Not just in the way of how you move and conserve energy in training, but in how your body manages it’s fuel reserves. That seems to be the case with me. Also, I don’t know if it’s relevant in this context, but for years, I trained horses. I always observed that when they started work, their sweat had a different look (more foamy), different feel (more soapy) and different smell compared to the sweat they produced later on in training. A fit horse had clear, clean sweat with much less smell, and the horses sweated more freely, too. As I said, I don’t know if it’s relevant to compare horses to grappling humans 😉 But it makes sense to me.
So you might find that you have a battle against the smells for now, but it will resolve itself over time. In the meantime, some oxygen bleach and the odd wash with vinegar might help. And of course deodorant and blackberry scented body lotion (what a great idea!!) :-))
Most of the guys at my school are pretty good with their stuff. There is the odd unwashed gi smell, but it’s rare. The worst is funky gi smell while someone is sitting on my head. I speak from experience…. As I said, it’s rare. And a couple of the guys wear very pleasant aftershave. How much nicer is it to pass out from a musk scented rear naked choke than from deadly gi stink??
The funniest thing is to watch my dog when I come home from training. He sniffs my hands, my legs and looks at me all concerned. It must confuse the hell out of him when I smell of several different sweaty men when I come home 🙂
Wow. Thank you for the informative post! That was really useful! I’ve been thinking of eating closer to class time–give my body more fuel.
Yeah, when the dudes put their calves over my face–yuk. SMELLY GIS. BLECH.
Hello,
I really couldn’t add much to what the good people above have written about personal hygiene. My pet thing is OTHER people’s hygiene and I will not ever stand for it.
I will (politely and respectfully at first) tell people that I’m picking up a less than dandy smell :o) and that it might, just might be their gi or equipment.
The most subtle way I’ve seen is to say after rolling:
“You know what, I’ve recently been struggling with getting smells out of my gi/equipment. What tips do you have for me?”
That makes them conscious and starts a thought process.
the least subtle I’ve done is to tell someone:
“when you get home today, wash your gi”
We all share a very close body contact with strangers on the mat the we don’t otherwise in other situations in life.
That’s why it requires special rules.
NICE! hahahaha I did mention to one guy that he was stinky, but it was the crap he was spraying on his knee. Made my eyes water–it is basically a “freeze” spray that smells like vick’s.
Above all, thanks for raising the issue. Hygiene has improved in Martial Arts and Boxing since girls started joining clubs.
I use the vinegar – it seems to work from me. At first I had to sneak it into the wash machine without my husband’s knowledge because he absolutely hates the smell of vinegar. He was afraid that the smell would come out while we were rolling. Thanks for these other tips, I’m going to try them. (Jen)
One last thought– two really… 1. Liquid fabric softener freshens better and for longer than fabric softener sheets in the dryer. 2. Homemade laundry soap available from Heart J Creations on http://www.etsy.com, in the “Fresh Snow” scent– it makes that wonderful “clean laundry” nonflowery smell, plus it’s much better for the environment than petroleum distillates in commercial laundry soap, and it’s cheaper per load, too! [Note: I am in no way affiliated with Heart J Creations, but I know the gal who makes the soap is a firewoman and I’m happy to support a quality product made by a civil servant.]
I started using Charlie’s Soap and have been very happy about it! I may pick up some of that lady’s soap when I next visit America, but so far am very happy with Charlie’s. I haven’t used fabric softener in Korea at all.