What is this compulsive need to wash something the second it touchs your body? There’s levels of dirtiness, and a sniff test is perfectly valid form of sorting dirty clothes. Does it smell like sweat, mildew, and must? It doesn’t? then put back in the drawer. We’re not washing crumbs here, we’re washing actual filth.
Sniffing is more sustainable. You’re saving money. You’re cutting resources. You’re cutting laundry loads, reducing your water bill! Your doing the earth a favor for the environment! The earth thanks us :).
In conclusion: If it passes the sniff test, it passes the wear test.
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I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion, especially amongst men
You severely underestimate how desensitized one becomes of their own odor.
Op, you are constantly surrounded by your smell and so if you cant smell anything, it might just be that you sre used to the smell. Other people arent.
We get it: You have awful hygiene.
You just know OP smells crazy
It depends on the item. I don’t generally wash trousers after one wear, same with sweaters if they don’t touch my skin because I wear soemthing underneath. But t-shirts, socks, and underwear are definitely one-wear only for me
Agreed. Even though we are less sensitive to our own smell than others are, a cloth-to-nose smell is good enough test of whether it’s still ok to wear or not.
It’s fine to wear something twice in a row. It’s gross to put it back in your clean clothes.
the earth is about to yeet our species
not tryna smell like a hippie in the interim
You stinky
Edit: oh God the number of unwashed Redditors downvoting. Y’all nasty. Keep that stank away.
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It depends. Some things sure. But underwear? Tshirts worn when you’ve worked outside or were cooking or cleaning? Leggings? Stuff like this even if it doesn’t smell likely has dirt on it. Dirt can degrade fabric.
This only works on hoodies jackets and jeans. No way you should be sniffing last weeks boxers and going “ah I’ll give this another run out”
You become desensitized to your own smell pretty quickly. Socks, underwear, and most t-shirts should be one-time wear only. Some blouses, sweaters, and pants most of the time are usually okay to wear again. Bras should also be washed/changed more often than most women do. They can cause odors and rashes.
For sure some items can worn more than once, but never put it back in the drawer.
How else can know if something is dirty or clean?
You can get away with wearing a pair of pants twice because the lower body doesn’t sweat as much
Jeans are magical you can wear them and they never smell
granted you arent supposed to machine wash them the same way but
I agree I will wear most things at least twice if not more, sweats i wear in my home on the weekend will be fine to not get washed and worn next weekend same with the shirt if im not doing any work and getting sweaty
work clothing is another matter as i sweat in it alot and it will get musky
Anything that touches the smelly bits directly will smell. Socks, underwear, and T-shirt’s always get one wear per wash. Sweaters, dress shirts, hoodies, etc. can get a reasonable pass of a few wears before washing, provided you wear an undershirt. Pants get washed when they’re dirty, denim can go a week or more in most cases.
Gotta downvote. It’s not that unpopular.
put away? no no my guy. everybody knows you throw your dirty and bad smelling cloths in the corner, you pile the “thing you’ve only worn once” cloths on the chair, and you leave your clean cloths in the hamper, and throw it on the bed if you don’t go through it all before your next laundry day.
Don’t forget that not washing clothes as often makes them last longer, too.
That’s why I toss my once worn shirt and pants on The Chair. Quarantine zone.
Gotta give it a visual also. Somethings can be dirty and not stink. Also, not back with the actual clean clothes.
This isn’t really unpopular.
Wearing clothes multiple times before washing is great practice, but putting those clothes back in your closet is crazy. When I leave out clothes to wear again, I’ll hang them up separated from the rest of my clothes
Nose-blindness is real. Your nose isn’t perfectly reliable, and you can actually have way more musk than you’re inclined to believe from your sniff test
You might miss small stains in the nooks and crannies of your clothes before hanging them back up, which will let them set and become permanent. If you’re gonna wear clothes again, you gotta give each piece a once over before hanging them back up to make sure you’re not missing any odorless stains and such
Have you ever heard of how since you’re very used to your own odor you can’t detect it? Other people sure can so don’t complain when they say you smell bad.
I have a system for this!
Socks & underwear always go in the laundry after 1st wear.
Pants and dresses get about 3 days or 1 day if I got dirty or was really active. Sweating always means wash.
Simply put, not everything needs to get washed every time, especially items that are more delicate.
This is a nuero divergent thing for some. And my man does it differently than me.
Yo, some people eat a toast off a plate, leave 2 teeny little crumbs on it, and it’s somehow “dirty” now & needs to be washed. Ridiculous. Same with clothes.
I thought the whole world did the sniff test. Of course it’s “fine”, lol
A major tip people: Beat and air out your clothes. It will keep them good smelling for way longer and they don’t degrade as much in the wash.
Do the crotch and armpit test. If it smells anything other than clean, wear it at home until you smell bad. Then wash imediately
The problem I’ve encountered is items that smell fine when I put them on, but turn nasty when my body heat warms them up.
Fortunately that effect tends to be limited to specific items, though. There is this one sweater that ALWAYS smells stale if I put it away after just one wearing – but the smell doesn’t manifest until after I leave the house. The only real option is to wash it after each wearing, which you really don’t want to do with sweaters.
But because this can happen, I tend to have rules about when stuff goes in the laundry. Bras and jeans after about three wearings; shirts and tops after one wearing outside of the house, but two or three otherwise. The sniff test doesn’t fail me very often, but it’s really embarrassing when it does.
I always leave re-wearable clothes out to air overnight. I hang them in the hallway or throw them over the banister, then put them away in the morning.
Also, PSA (which took me a long time to absorb, but meow it makes sense) – it takes WAY less detergent than we’ve been led to believe in order to get clothes clean! I had it in my stupid head for ages that the more detergent I use, the more freeeeesh my clothes will smell… not factoring in that if the machine can’t rinse all that oot, they’ll come oot gummy and attract more dirt. 😭
But yeah – most things don’t need to be washed after every wear. My man wears a different hoodie every day, only on the way to and from work, over a t-shirt, and puts each one in the hamper after that whole 90 mins of total use – fucking drives me SPARE. 😹
Sniff test?
You go front then back then flip it inside out and go front to back.
It’s called recycling.
This is how I conserve toilet paper, so we are absolutely on the same page.
The way people are about their laundry nowadays is so bizarre to me. I was in the laundry aisle the other day and I could not believe all the weird additives there were for people to put in their wash. Pre-wash, regular wash, softener, dryer sheets, scent beads, sprays for maintaining freshness, things to put in your closet and drawers to keep laundry perfumed. I had a headache from just walking around in the aisle looking for my unscented laundry detergent. These fragrances are not good for us and a lot of this is just a marketing ploy to make people self conscious about smelling bad in order to sell more needless targeted products.
You win this trophy for the most unpopular opinion! 🏆
yeah i sniff it and if it smells like bo or has a stain i wash it. otherwise its ok to wear
The issue I have with the sniff test is you’re eventually nose blind to your own smell so it may not smell to you but smell to others.
Just remember: if you can smell yourself a little, others can smell you a lot. Usually goes for body odor but it’s also applicable for clothes.
Sniffing is ok. But you need to be wary. Sometimes a little sweat can make a 2nd day garment smell like hell, while a fresh one wouldn’t be affected. I have been a victim of this more than once (e.g. running to catch a bus, or crawling under my desk at work to exchange a broken cable) and therefore don’t really trust the sniffing test anymore for everything that I wear outside the house.
there’s no other side to this discussion. This is an extremely popular opinion and if you have found someone who thinks otherwise, then a post in r/mildlyinfuriating would be more fitting
Depends on the item and what you were doing in said item. Walking around all day in your undies? Throw them in the hamper. Jeans you wore for a few hours? Those are fine to wear again. T shirt you wore to help a friend move some furniture? Toss it in the hamper.
Not just the item, but the material of said item. Especially clothing that is making direct skin to skin contact in specific areas of your body. Armpits, feet, crotch, arse, etc.
Do your damn laundry. Just because it doesn’t smell, does not mean it’s not dirty.
If it gets dry cleaned it gets the sniff test. If it passes it does get hung up in the closet. T shirts get reworn to bed until they are too ripe or it is laundry day.
You are used to your own smell.
I’ve had friends who insisted that they didn’t have body odor because they couldn’t smell it; they were incorrect.
It’s the same with perfume, cologne, scented laundry soap, etc.
Find a platonic friend (not a sexual partner or close biological family member). Sniff your clothes then have your friend sniff them.
Upon completion of this experiment you will do a load of laundry.
My former roommate has OCD and her constant laundry usage was driving me nuts! Like you can wear it more than once you know
There are other measurements of something being dirty other than having a detectable odor
Also… You are never the best barometer for whether or not an item of your clothing has an odor. We are all less sensitive to our own body odor than anybody else.
So it’s perfectly plausible that you sniff something that you think is clean and everyone else is smelling your stank
What, sniff it clean? I’ve practically done that with some undergarments.
Sniff test is fine if you’re not the one sniffing it.
People are generally nose blind to their own scents and odors.
It’s easier to just be mindful of how much you wore something, and how active you were.
That is what “THE CHAIR” is for. It’s for the only wore it briefly and it’s still clean stuff. Pj’s, around the house clothes. An outfit you wore for an hour, as long as you don’t sweat all in it and it can stand on its own.
T shirts- up to 2 days, maybe 3 if you didn’t sweat much
Pants- 3 days sometimes 4 for sweatpants/pajama pants depending
Underwear and socks- 1 day
These are my laundry rules, also showed daily and use deodorant
so if that dirt on your clothes don’t smell its fine
Not back to the drawer. What are you doing? Only fresh clothes go there. Get a rack and hang on hangers it up so that you can separate worn and fresh clothes.
I agree.
But also.. smells that you’re used to, you can’t smell.. assuming you’re not wearing clothes twice in a row, you’ll be stockpiling potentially smelly clothes, dumbing down your sense of smell.
I do the sniff test all the time. Stuff I can wear more than once ends up on the floor (should get a chair) instead of back in the closet or drawers though. Underwear are one and done but bras are whenever it starts to smell lol
I sorta agree, especially when it comes to jeans. Wash-after-wear with jeans is just a recepie for destroying jeans.
The main problem is, “familiar smells”: your (even mild) BO might not smell as strongly to you as it does to other people.
It also helps to avoid potentially embarrassing situations: sometimes, you might have a stain on the back of your shirt that you’d never notice.
As an Asian with the gene where I don’t get sweat BO, when I do the smell test it almost always smells like nothing. And it’s not just me thinking I don’t smell, people have told me.
I agree with this take… however people who strongly hold this belief are typically kind of smelly.
I have the nose of a blood hound, and you probably don’t. You sniff and can’t smell your scent as strongly as other people can.
I can usually smell people who do what you said. I get it, so I don’t mind too much and I know most people can’t smell it…
I’m just saying this so people know: other people can smell it
PSA: when you do a sniff test, you might not smell the smells, but everyone else can. This particularly goes for smokers, people with dogs, people who enjoy fragrant foods, etc. You might now smell it, but we can. Please, just stop making excuses, so many excuses, and wash yourself and your clothes. It’s really not that hard.
I mean it shouldn’t go back in with the 100% clean clothes, but I thought this was normal lol. Clothing (especially by today’s quality standards) can’t be washed every single time you wear them (mainly shirts), I have ruined countless amounts of shirts with cool designs doing this lol. As long as it doesn’t have dirt or smells, it’s fine!
For some types of clothes, like jeans or pullovers… yes. But if it touches pits, bits or feet it really needs to be washed if youve worn it for more than a few hours amd want to go out in pubic in it again.
I bet you have been the topic of a redit post where someone asks how to broach the subject of body odour to a friend or colleague
Germaphobe here, I wear jackets/hoodies for a week before washing, bras/binders for 2 days (gets sweaty), and everything else for a day.
I specifically bought a hamper that’s for “worn but not dirty” clothes, we have cats so leaving something on the floor is an automatic wash.