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Microbial Odor Profile of Polyester and Cotton Clothes After a Fitness Session

93 points by Eisenstein 3y ago

petre 3y ago
Too bad they didn't test merino wool. I used to use a wool jersey for a week before I'd wash it, only hanging it to dry after each session. Cotton takes a lot of time to dry. Now Decathlon also has acessible merino wool products so I don't have to spend a fortune on some other technical brands.
thrawa8387336 3y ago
Cotton, linen and wool are superior fabrics. I think, esp poliester, has no place in high end anything. It was more of a marketing gimmick where the sports clothing brands wanted to sell higher margin, cheaper and easier to produce clothes. Esp, now with the micro plastic concerns there is no reason to buy them except for outerware
- procinct 3y ago
  The big issue with cotton is that it stays wet and then chafes. In my experience, it also doesn’t breathe well. I find cotton is fine for a 5km run but especially as I get above running 15km, it’s just asking for pain.
JohnBooty 3y ago
This experiment design feels pretty useless to me. The T-shirts were collected, sealed in plastic bags, and stored at room temperature in the dark, so bacterial growth occurred [...] The bags were kept at room temperature (20°C) in the dark for 28 h. Bad experiment, IMO. This is not a remotely useful approximation of what happens when you are actually wearing and using the clothing. It's more of a simulation of what happens when you accidentally leave wet sweaty clothes in your gym bag, or are forced to wear sweaty clothes for multiple consecutive days without a wash. (It certainly be nice to have fabrics that could survive such conditions without stinking, I admit) When actually wearing synthetic "moisture-wicking" fibers, I find they stay much fresher smelling as long as they are exposed to air so that they can actually do their job by encouraging evaporative cooling. As opposed to cotton, which soaks up gallons of sweat and takes ages to fully dry. Remember, fresh sweat doesn't reek -- that's why you don't smell bad in a sauna, with fresh sweat pouring out of every pore. It's stale sweat that reeks. Specifically, it is the waste products of bacteria living in stale sweat. That is what eventually smells bad.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > This is not a remotely useful approximation of what happens when you are actually wearing and using the clothing. They are trying to correlate materials with biological growth that causes BO in clothes in order to find out if certain types of material or treatments to material could be used to construct activewear that doesn't stink when you sweat in it. What about the process seems useless to that end?
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    The benefit of "moisture-wicking" synthetic materials is that they promote evaporative cooling relative to cotton, which tends to retain more water and takes longer to dry. In this experiment they've placed sweaty clothing into sealed bags for 28h before studying them, so that's pretty different than real-world usage. I will admit, though: if they cook up a fabric that stays fresh after such a torture test it should certainly perform well in the real world.
eurier_br 3y ago
Look to those error bars. It might be a great first work and give us some understanding but in no way it provides clear evidence. Even more when you factore in all the criteria for the pannel.
baz00 3y ago
Interesring study but I'd rather wear polyester either way because it doesn't grind bits of you off when it gets soaked with sweat.
beeforpork 3y ago
I wonder how to formally qualify for the trained odor panel.
john124 3y ago
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version_five 3y ago
Sounds like a moot point because cotton chafes and synthetic doesnt. I hang up my clothes outside after I exercise (and before I have a chance to wash them) and it makes all the difference. In general, odor is not about the acute sweat - at least anecdotally, exercise sweat doesn't really smell, it's about what happens when you bunch up your clothes and let bacteria grow in them. So getting them dry and out in the sun matters more than the fabric.
- analog31 3y ago
  Use of sunlight noted. Any other ideas for disinfecting without bleach (just due to effect on color)?
  - justinator 3y ago
    When you hang clothes out to dry, spritz them with vodka - the cheaper the better.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    - Vinegar destroys odors the best in my experience. Pour some in with your usual laundry routine. Can get jugs of concentrated vinegar from the hardware store or cleaning aisle in the supermarket, cheaper than food grade. I have rescued disgusting moldy clothing from a flooded basement this way (don't mix with bleach, you'll get tear gas) - Presoaking your clothes in hot water and small amount of detergent (and/or borax) prior to washing once in a while for a deep clean. Also gets rid of deodorant/antiperspirant buildup in the armpit areas of your shirts. Google "laundry presoaking" or "laundry stripping" Vinegar works so astoundingly well for laundry odors that I've never felt the need to try enzyme or oxy cleaners. (However, I've used enzyme cleaners for pet accidents on carpets to great success)
  - mter 3y ago
    Use a fan on your drying rack if you aren't hanging outdoors. This has had a major impact on the musty smellingness of my synthetic shirts. I don't have to use bleach/vinegar anymore as a result to keep the shirts from stinking.
  - 3y ago
jgoldber13 3y ago
I use merino wool rather than cotton or synthetics. It wicks sweat, doesn't chafe and doesn't smell after sweating in it.
- elchief 3y ago
  Icebreaker sells some good stuff. Get em on sale though
- yeeeloit 3y ago
  What types of garments do you use that are made from merino wool, and what sports do you engage in?
  - version_five 3y ago
    Not the op, I have some winter running base layers made of meriono wool and and I swear by merino wool glove liners to wear when running outside on the cold. I don't think anything wool would be suitable for exercise when it's warm, but I've never tried it.
    - civilitty 3y ago
      The merino wool mixes from REI work well in warm weather, especially when hiking where the temperature experienced can swing wildly due to sun exposure, sweat, and wind. It has the benefit of keeping warm even when wet much like wool but it breathes better.
  - Rebelgecko 3y ago
    Not OP, but I have socks, underwear, and a shirt. The shirt I feel a bit meh about, because the durability hasn't been great and it was expensive (but very comfortable). Socks and underwear have been great for skiing, cycling and just days when I walk a lot. I can wear my Darn Tough socks to Disneyland in the summer and they have no smell after a day, whereas cotton socks would be very unpleasant. The ski socks are nice since as long as they're dry they're usually good to go the next day. I have gotten my merino stuff to smell eventually, but it's taken multiple days of heavy usage. And in the meantime, it's a much more comfortable to wear material.
pards 3y ago
> The polyester T-shirts smelled significantly less pleasant and more intense, compared to the cotton T-shirts. This is consistent with my experience. I stopped buying expensive exercise clothing many years ago because they only last a season before they smell too bad. Instead, I buy them at the end-of-season sales or at discount retailers like Winners [0]. Unfortunately, in Canada it isn't feasible to hang them out in the sun to dry - for much of the year they'd just freeze. [0]: https://www.winners.ca/en/how https://www.winners.ca/en/how
- rmellow 3y ago
  > in Canada it isn't feasible to hang them out in the sun to dry Collapsible drying racks are a thing. IKEA sells them for cheap. Just leave them by your window, vent or fan. > I stopped buying expensive exercise clothing many years ago because they only last a season before they smell too bad I'm very confused. It still smells despite washing with laundry detergent after each use? My gym clothing has zero smell & I've had them for >5 years, with weekly use for each piece.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    Once the smell gets in, it’s very hard to get it out again, ime. If I’m always able to wash the stuff ASAP after wearing and with hot water, it’s fine, but if I’ve only got access to cold water washers and air drying for a month or so, they’ll never be the same again, even if I boil wash them.
    - Broken_Hippo 3y ago
      Drying doesn't remove smells, though: As long as you wash them properly, air drying shouldn't be an issue at all.
      - petesergeant 3y ago
        Right, but staying damp over a period of time because they’re air-drying in a humid country presumably allows the bacteria a more hospitable environment? I’ve found clothes can smell musty from air-drying unless you’re able to get them in the sun very quickly
Schnitz 3y ago
If you wash your clothes after working out the study seems moot, they let the clothes ripen for 28h unwashed before testing.
- Riseed 3y ago
  I don't know anyone who does laundry every day, so this seems like a reasonable thing to try to figure out.
  - rmellow 3y ago
    Put clothes in a laundry bin after use and leave it out of the way. Do laundry weekly. Years old gym clothes will smell just fine.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    I would certainly hope that nobody throws wet sweaty balled up clothes into a hamper. Got to let them dry out first. Cotton or synthetic, that is an absolute mold/odor recipe.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Oh, yeah, the methods section says they put the wet clothes in a sealed plastic bag.
      - JohnBooty 3y ago
        Yeah, and I think that's a pretty poor method. It seems like more of a simulation of "what happens if you accidentally leave wet gym clothes in your gym bag in your car" or "you wear a sweaty shirt for three weeks straight, possibly because you are fighting in a war" instead of what happens during typical use.
  - notacoward 3y ago
    Exactly. I wear all-synthetic when I run or hike, because cotton will get damp and heavy and uncomfortable (potentially unsafe when hiking). I throw it in a hamper with a lid - separate from my regular one - when I'm done, and I do laundry a couple of times a week. I have shirts and smalls that I've been using nine years without a problem under this regime. One key, I think, is that I use a "color booster" (bleach alternative) specifically to eliminate the poly funk. Doing a load of laundry for a single set of workout clothes is horrible environmentally. Even when our kid was young, it was every other day at most, and I was running more than that at the time.
ggm 3y ago
Bamboo viscose is a miracle fabric for exercise pong. No idea why it works so well.
- chipsa 3y ago
  What type of viscose shouldn't make any difference. They pull the cellulose out, liquify it, then spray it into threads, to make viscose (aka rayon). It just sounds a bit fancier to call it viscose instead of rayon.
  - ggm 3y ago
    However it's most definitely not polyester. I agree "it's just viscose/rayon" -Some people make huge claims to antibacterial properties of bamboo fibre. There's a couple of models of using it, the one which most people can buy is pretty much rayon. The other one is closer to how hemp or linen is "retted" into fibres, which are spun.
- TylerE 3y ago
  It's great for t-shirts and bedsheets, too. The amazing thing about it, and I don't understand how it works, but it absolutely does, is that not only is it cooling when you're hot, but it's warming when it's cold outside. Something to do with fabric expanding/contracting due to the temperature difference, and thus favoring air flow in one direction or the other maybe?
pers0n 3y ago
Use vinegar in your washer, I’ve never had a problem with polyester
fdgwhite 3y ago
I always wash the synthetic workout clothes separately and add a tablespoon of bleach.
deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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cuttysnark 3y ago
The difference in deodorant application frequency amongst participants was the most interesting take away for me. Some tracked as many as fourteen applications to their counterpart's zero. That alone should create a subcategory.
- HarryHirsch 3y ago
  The propensity to use deodorant instead of soap is plainly baffling. Extra demerit points go to people who use deodorant instead of soap and call it "hygiene".
  - gruez 3y ago
    >The propensity to use deodorant instead of soap is plainly baffling Most people aren't doing that though. The same table also lists "No. of washes/wk", presumably referring to body washing rather than clothes washing. All except three are washing daily. True, you could theoretically be washing twice daily, but if you don't have a work shower you'll be forced to wash at home, which kills most of the point because most people you interact with during the day would have smelled your odor. Most people don't have access to work showers so it's not really realistic to expect people to showers instead of using deodorants/antiperspirants.
- gruez 3y ago
  The figures are per week. 14 works out to twice a day, which doesn't seem to outrageous if you're sweaty and exercise daily. The median is 7, which also makes sense because it works out to one application for every day of the week. The 4 participants that don't use any deodorant might be asian[1] or aren't sweaty/active enough to warrant it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/business/china-consumers-deodorant.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/business/china-consumers-...
  - goosinmouse 3y ago
    All 4 of the participants that don't use any deodorant probably all go to my gym at the exact same time as me.
dcl 3y ago
I've never understood how polyester become the defacto choice of fitness/sports/performance clothing. I'm guessing its cheaper to manufacture, but they can still get very expensive. I made the mistake of buying a bunch of this stuff a while back and I can't bring myself to wear it. I feel like it makes me sweat far more and it stinks very quickly. I have far less of a problem wearing cotton and and a great experience wearing merino wool.
- PeterStuer 3y ago
  Unlike cotton they keep their colors and fit even after many washes. Also they quick airdry after washing and don't need ironing which is very practical for daily gym use.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  Synthetics dry a lot faster than cotton.
  - dcl 3y ago
    Ahh yes this is true. I guess this is a useful property.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
Here's how to not smell. 1)Stop washing your body with the awful, artificial-perfumed crap sold by P&G and the likes. Guess what all that artificial perfume crap smells like after a few hours? Use naturally scented soaps and shampoos, with a washcloth or loofah (gently) to remove dead skin, and rinse with the washcloth or loofa unsoaped to removed excess soap. 2)Stop using fabric softener (which you shouldn't be using on sports clothing anyway.) It's basically rendered fat loaded with artificial perfumes. And people wonder why their clothes are rank... 3)Stop using scented laundry detergents. On sports clothing, use a "sport wash." Atsko band is the cheapest I've seen. If you want to "test drive" it, Penguin Sport wash is the same stuff, just sold in retail stores for more $/oz. Exactly the same stuff. 4)Use a bit of vinegar in the first or final rinse. You can get 20% vinegar in some places for convenience, just beware that it will knock you on your ass if you get a really good whiff of it, and you should rinse it off your skin quickly. Vinegar will among other things help kill mold spores (bleach does not!) 5)Clean out all the nooks and crannies in your washer, the dispensers, door seals, etc. Once in a while run the hottest cycle and a cup of citric acid, or a bunch of vinegar. My expensive-ish cycling clothing, after a ride, goes straight into a bucket of lukewarm water (spandex/lycra deteriorates in strength and stretch very rapidly at surprisingly low temperatures) with about a third of the bottlecap of sport wash. I give it a good swish and go shower. I give it some agitation after I'm done showering and changed. At some point I'll rinse it thoroughly. The cycling shorts get rolled up in a cotton towel and stepped on to wring them of excess water. Everything goes on a clothes hangar out in open air. If I'm riding again in the morning, or if it's humid, I point a small fan at everything so that the pad dries out quickly I don't use deoderant. Multiple partners have complemented me for my body smell, or lack thereof. Because I don't coat my body and clothes in shit cranked out of some frankenlab at Proctor and Gamble.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  I love the laundry advice. Upping one's laundry-fu is, seriously, one of the biggest life upgrades a person can make. It is a money-saver and a major life upgrade in various other ways. All for very little effort.
- thrawa8387336 3y ago
  It's more likely diet. Lower iron and sulfur diet if I had to guess
khazhoux 3y ago
I wonder if there's ever been research on why some people smell so bad at my gym. Are they smell-blind, or are they acclimated to their own powerful fumes? There's a couple of guys that will trigger your gag reflex from 6 feet away. Is there any polite way to tell a stranger, "you smell really bad"?
- distortionfield 3y ago
  The gym is like, the one place it’s acceptable to stink dude.
  - khazhoux 3y ago
    No, not actually. It's a shared space, and if someone has somehow still not heard of deodorant, and/or taking a shower, and/or washing their clothes, that's not actually acceptable. I'm taking about paint-stripping, eye-watering, thriving microbial ecosystem stink here, where the air around them is warm and thick. No one should have to suffer that.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      I agree with you. A clean person wearing clean clothing shouldn't typically have BO after an hour or two of sweating. Fresh sweat has a small, but doesn't reek. The reek comes after the bacteria have had time to grow. If somebody absolutely reeks at the gym they are doing something wrong. They are using smelly dirty gym clothes or are showing up with some nasty body odor already. I don't expect anybody to take a full shower before hitting the gym but it only takes a literal minute or two to clean the armpits and crotch with a washcloth and I would expect anybody hitting the gym to do that type of bare minimum. Personal opinion but I don't really expect people to wear deodorant at the gym. I still smell the reek, and adding ten different peoples' scented deodorants to the mix makes it worse for me. And anti-perspirant is IMO unhealthy to wear during exercise.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        > And anti-perspirant is IMO unhealthy to wear during exercise. Why is that? Are you worried about the pores? It's hard for me to imagine antiperspirant being so effective it would actually lead to insufficient sweat.
achenatx 3y ago
i wear rashguards for BJJ. The key is to oxidize the molecules that stink. very light amounts of bleach work great. For example if you let them soak in a swimming pool (typically around 5ppm) for 10 minutes they will be stink free. You can do the equivalent with 1tsp of bleach in a few gallons of water (really about 20ppm or a little more). Obviously products like oxyclean can also oxidize the molecules.
buildbot 3y ago
A great reason to avoid sythetics in general is microplastics - your poisoning the water (each time you wash it, plastics go into the water system!) and to a less extent yourself.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  [flagged]
- JackMorgan 3y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if synthetic clothes are illegal in the future for this reason (or water lines are forced to have filters that catch all the micro plastics, although I'm not sure that's even feasible)
  - frfl 3y ago
    Given that microplastics barely get any coverage for how large of a problem they are (in terms of how much goes into the environment), I have doubts about any legal restrictions on their use. Even today, it can be difficult to buy anything that's 100% natural fiber at brick and motor stores. At online stores it may or may not even be listed. The first step would be public awareness. I haven't even seen anyone IRL mention it before. synthetic fiber based clothing is everywhere and worn without any second thought by most. So we're quite quite far from even public awareness at this point. Maybe in the future, when oil isn't cheap we might see their usage drop, but maybe then you'll see clothing made out of 100% recycled (downcycled) plastic bottles.

93 points by Eisenstein 3y ago

Too bad they didn't test merino wool. I used to use a wool jersey for a week before I'd wash it, only hanging it to dry after each session. Cotton takes a lot of time to dry. Now Decathlon also has acessible merino wool products so I don't have to spend a fortune on some other technical brands.

thrawa8387336 3y ago

Cotton, linen and wool are superior fabrics. I think, esp poliester, has no place in high end anything. It was more of a marketing gimmick where the sports clothing brands wanted to sell higher margin, cheaper and easier to produce clothes. Esp, now with the micro plastic concerns there is no reason to buy them except for outerware

procinct 3y ago
The big issue with cotton is that it stays wet and then chafes. In my experience, it also doesn’t breathe well. I find cotton is fine for a 5km run but especially as I get above running 15km, it’s just asking for pain.

JohnBooty 3y ago

This experiment design feels pretty useless to me. The T-shirts were collected, sealed in plastic bags, and stored at room temperature in the dark, so bacterial growth occurred [...] The bags were kept at room temperature (20°C) in the dark for 28 h. Bad experiment, IMO. This is not a remotely useful approximation of what happens when you are actually wearing and using the clothing. It's more of a simulation of what happens when you accidentally leave wet sweaty clothes in your gym bag, or are forced to wear sweaty clothes for multiple consecutive days without a wash. (It certainly be nice to have fabrics that could survive such conditions without stinking, I admit) When actually wearing synthetic "moisture-wicking" fibers, I find they stay much fresher smelling as long as they are exposed to air so that they can actually do their job by encouraging evaporative cooling. As opposed to cotton, which soaks up gallons of sweat and takes ages to fully dry. Remember, fresh sweat doesn't reek -- that's why you don't smell bad in a sauna, with fresh sweat pouring out of every pore. It's stale sweat that reeks. Specifically, it is the waste products of bacteria living in stale sweat. That is what eventually smells bad.

Eisenstein 3y ago
> This is not a remotely useful approximation of what happens when you are actually wearing and using the clothing. They are trying to correlate materials with biological growth that causes BO in clothes in order to find out if certain types of material or treatments to material could be used to construct activewear that doesn't stink when you sweat in it. What about the process seems useless to that end?
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  The benefit of "moisture-wicking" synthetic materials is that they promote evaporative cooling relative to cotton, which tends to retain more water and takes longer to dry. In this experiment they've placed sweaty clothing into sealed bags for 28h before studying them, so that's pretty different than real-world usage. I will admit, though: if they cook up a fabric that stays fresh after such a torture test it should certainly perform well in the real world.

eurier_br 3y ago

Look to those error bars. It might be a great first work and give us some understanding but in no way it provides clear evidence. Even more when you factore in all the criteria for the pannel.

baz00 3y ago

Interesring study but I'd rather wear polyester either way because it doesn't grind bits of you off when it gets soaked with sweat.

beeforpork 3y ago

I wonder how to formally qualify for the trained odor panel.

john124 3y ago

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version_five 3y ago

Sounds like a moot point because cotton chafes and synthetic doesnt. I hang up my clothes outside after I exercise (and before I have a chance to wash them) and it makes all the difference. In general, odor is not about the acute sweat - at least anecdotally, exercise sweat doesn't really smell, it's about what happens when you bunch up your clothes and let bacteria grow in them. So getting them dry and out in the sun matters more than the fabric.

analog31 3y ago
Use of sunlight noted. Any other ideas for disinfecting without bleach (just due to effect on color)?
- justinator 3y ago
  When you hang clothes out to dry, spritz them with vodka - the cheaper the better.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  - Vinegar destroys odors the best in my experience. Pour some in with your usual laundry routine. Can get jugs of concentrated vinegar from the hardware store or cleaning aisle in the supermarket, cheaper than food grade. I have rescued disgusting moldy clothing from a flooded basement this way (don't mix with bleach, you'll get tear gas) - Presoaking your clothes in hot water and small amount of detergent (and/or borax) prior to washing once in a while for a deep clean. Also gets rid of deodorant/antiperspirant buildup in the armpit areas of your shirts. Google "laundry presoaking" or "laundry stripping" Vinegar works so astoundingly well for laundry odors that I've never felt the need to try enzyme or oxy cleaners. (However, I've used enzyme cleaners for pet accidents on carpets to great success)
- mter 3y ago
  Use a fan on your drying rack if you aren't hanging outdoors. This has had a major impact on the musty smellingness of my synthetic shirts. I don't have to use bleach/vinegar anymore as a result to keep the shirts from stinking.
- 3y ago

jgoldber13 3y ago

I use merino wool rather than cotton or synthetics. It wicks sweat, doesn't chafe and doesn't smell after sweating in it.

elchief 3y ago
Icebreaker sells some good stuff. Get em on sale though
yeeeloit 3y ago
What types of garments do you use that are made from merino wool, and what sports do you engage in?
- version_five 3y ago
  Not the op, I have some winter running base layers made of meriono wool and and I swear by merino wool glove liners to wear when running outside on the cold. I don't think anything wool would be suitable for exercise when it's warm, but I've never tried it.
  - civilitty 3y ago
    The merino wool mixes from REI work well in warm weather, especially when hiking where the temperature experienced can swing wildly due to sun exposure, sweat, and wind. It has the benefit of keeping warm even when wet much like wool but it breathes better.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Not OP, but I have socks, underwear, and a shirt. The shirt I feel a bit meh about, because the durability hasn't been great and it was expensive (but very comfortable). Socks and underwear have been great for skiing, cycling and just days when I walk a lot. I can wear my Darn Tough socks to Disneyland in the summer and they have no smell after a day, whereas cotton socks would be very unpleasant. The ski socks are nice since as long as they're dry they're usually good to go the next day. I have gotten my merino stuff to smell eventually, but it's taken multiple days of heavy usage. And in the meantime, it's a much more comfortable to wear material.

pards 3y ago

> The polyester T-shirts smelled significantly less pleasant and more intense, compared to the cotton T-shirts. This is consistent with my experience. I stopped buying expensive exercise clothing many years ago because they only last a season before they smell too bad. Instead, I buy them at the end-of-season sales or at discount retailers like Winners [0]. Unfortunately, in Canada it isn't feasible to hang them out in the sun to dry - for much of the year they'd just freeze. [0]: https://www.winners.ca/en/how https://www.winners.ca/en/how

rmellow 3y ago
> in Canada it isn't feasible to hang them out in the sun to dry Collapsible drying racks are a thing. IKEA sells them for cheap. Just leave them by your window, vent or fan. > I stopped buying expensive exercise clothing many years ago because they only last a season before they smell too bad I'm very confused. It still smells despite washing with laundry detergent after each use? My gym clothing has zero smell & I've had them for >5 years, with weekly use for each piece.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  Once the smell gets in, it’s very hard to get it out again, ime. If I’m always able to wash the stuff ASAP after wearing and with hot water, it’s fine, but if I’ve only got access to cold water washers and air drying for a month or so, they’ll never be the same again, even if I boil wash them.
  - Broken_Hippo 3y ago
    Drying doesn't remove smells, though: As long as you wash them properly, air drying shouldn't be an issue at all.
    - petesergeant 3y ago
      Right, but staying damp over a period of time because they’re air-drying in a humid country presumably allows the bacteria a more hospitable environment? I’ve found clothes can smell musty from air-drying unless you’re able to get them in the sun very quickly

Schnitz 3y ago

If you wash your clothes after working out the study seems moot, they let the clothes ripen for 28h unwashed before testing.

Riseed 3y ago
I don't know anyone who does laundry every day, so this seems like a reasonable thing to try to figure out.
- rmellow 3y ago
  Put clothes in a laundry bin after use and leave it out of the way. Do laundry weekly. Years old gym clothes will smell just fine.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  I would certainly hope that nobody throws wet sweaty balled up clothes into a hamper. Got to let them dry out first. Cotton or synthetic, that is an absolute mold/odor recipe.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Oh, yeah, the methods section says they put the wet clothes in a sealed plastic bag.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      Yeah, and I think that's a pretty poor method. It seems like more of a simulation of "what happens if you accidentally leave wet gym clothes in your gym bag in your car" or "you wear a sweaty shirt for three weeks straight, possibly because you are fighting in a war" instead of what happens during typical use.
- notacoward 3y ago
  Exactly. I wear all-synthetic when I run or hike, because cotton will get damp and heavy and uncomfortable (potentially unsafe when hiking). I throw it in a hamper with a lid - separate from my regular one - when I'm done, and I do laundry a couple of times a week. I have shirts and smalls that I've been using nine years without a problem under this regime. One key, I think, is that I use a "color booster" (bleach alternative) specifically to eliminate the poly funk. Doing a load of laundry for a single set of workout clothes is horrible environmentally. Even when our kid was young, it was every other day at most, and I was running more than that at the time.

ggm 3y ago

Bamboo viscose is a miracle fabric for exercise pong. No idea why it works so well.

chipsa 3y ago
What type of viscose shouldn't make any difference. They pull the cellulose out, liquify it, then spray it into threads, to make viscose (aka rayon). It just sounds a bit fancier to call it viscose instead of rayon.
- ggm 3y ago
  However it's most definitely not polyester. I agree "it's just viscose/rayon" -Some people make huge claims to antibacterial properties of bamboo fibre. There's a couple of models of using it, the one which most people can buy is pretty much rayon. The other one is closer to how hemp or linen is "retted" into fibres, which are spun.
TylerE 3y ago
It's great for t-shirts and bedsheets, too. The amazing thing about it, and I don't understand how it works, but it absolutely does, is that not only is it cooling when you're hot, but it's warming when it's cold outside. Something to do with fabric expanding/contracting due to the temperature difference, and thus favoring air flow in one direction or the other maybe?

pers0n 3y ago

Use vinegar in your washer, I’ve never had a problem with polyester

fdgwhite 3y ago

I always wash the synthetic workout clothes separately and add a tablespoon of bleach.

deleted 3y ago

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deleted 3y ago

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cuttysnark 3y ago

The difference in deodorant application frequency amongst participants was the most interesting take away for me. Some tracked as many as fourteen applications to their counterpart's zero. That alone should create a subcategory.

HarryHirsch 3y ago
The propensity to use deodorant instead of soap is plainly baffling. Extra demerit points go to people who use deodorant instead of soap and call it "hygiene".
- gruez 3y ago
  >The propensity to use deodorant instead of soap is plainly baffling Most people aren't doing that though. The same table also lists "No. of washes/wk", presumably referring to body washing rather than clothes washing. All except three are washing daily. True, you could theoretically be washing twice daily, but if you don't have a work shower you'll be forced to wash at home, which kills most of the point because most people you interact with during the day would have smelled your odor. Most people don't have access to work showers so it's not really realistic to expect people to showers instead of using deodorants/antiperspirants.
gruez 3y ago
The figures are per week. 14 works out to twice a day, which doesn't seem to outrageous if you're sweaty and exercise daily. The median is 7, which also makes sense because it works out to one application for every day of the week. The 4 participants that don't use any deodorant might be asian[1] or aren't sweaty/active enough to warrant it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/business/china-consumers-deodorant.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/business/china-consumers-...
- goosinmouse 3y ago
  All 4 of the participants that don't use any deodorant probably all go to my gym at the exact same time as me.

dcl 3y ago

I've never understood how polyester become the defacto choice of fitness/sports/performance clothing. I'm guessing its cheaper to manufacture, but they can still get very expensive. I made the mistake of buying a bunch of this stuff a while back and I can't bring myself to wear it. I feel like it makes me sweat far more and it stinks very quickly. I have far less of a problem wearing cotton and and a great experience wearing merino wool.

PeterStuer 3y ago
Unlike cotton they keep their colors and fit even after many washes. Also they quick airdry after washing and don't need ironing which is very practical for daily gym use.
maxerickson 3y ago
Synthetics dry a lot faster than cotton.
- dcl 3y ago
  Ahh yes this is true. I guess this is a useful property.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

Here's how to not smell. 1)Stop washing your body with the awful, artificial-perfumed crap sold by P&G and the likes. Guess what all that artificial perfume crap smells like after a few hours? Use naturally scented soaps and shampoos, with a washcloth or loofah (gently) to remove dead skin, and rinse with the washcloth or loofa unsoaped to removed excess soap. 2)Stop using fabric softener (which you shouldn't be using on sports clothing anyway.) It's basically rendered fat loaded with artificial perfumes. And people wonder why their clothes are rank... 3)Stop using scented laundry detergents. On sports clothing, use a "sport wash." Atsko band is the cheapest I've seen. If you want to "test drive" it, Penguin Sport wash is the same stuff, just sold in retail stores for more $/oz. Exactly the same stuff. 4)Use a bit of vinegar in the first or final rinse. You can get 20% vinegar in some places for convenience, just beware that it will knock you on your ass if you get a really good whiff of it, and you should rinse it off your skin quickly. Vinegar will among other things help kill mold spores (bleach does not!) 5)Clean out all the nooks and crannies in your washer, the dispensers, door seals, etc. Once in a while run the hottest cycle and a cup of citric acid, or a bunch of vinegar. My expensive-ish cycling clothing, after a ride, goes straight into a bucket of lukewarm water (spandex/lycra deteriorates in strength and stretch very rapidly at surprisingly low temperatures) with about a third of the bottlecap of sport wash. I give it a good swish and go shower. I give it some agitation after I'm done showering and changed. At some point I'll rinse it thoroughly. The cycling shorts get rolled up in a cotton towel and stepped on to wring them of excess water. Everything goes on a clothes hangar out in open air. If I'm riding again in the morning, or if it's humid, I point a small fan at everything so that the pad dries out quickly I don't use deoderant. Multiple partners have complemented me for my body smell, or lack thereof. Because I don't coat my body and clothes in shit cranked out of some frankenlab at Proctor and Gamble.

JohnBooty 3y ago
I love the laundry advice. Upping one's laundry-fu is, seriously, one of the biggest life upgrades a person can make. It is a money-saver and a major life upgrade in various other ways. All for very little effort.
thrawa8387336 3y ago
It's more likely diet. Lower iron and sulfur diet if I had to guess

khazhoux 3y ago

I wonder if there's ever been research on why some people smell so bad at my gym. Are they smell-blind, or are they acclimated to their own powerful fumes? There's a couple of guys that will trigger your gag reflex from 6 feet away. Is there any polite way to tell a stranger, "you smell really bad"?

distortionfield 3y ago
The gym is like, the one place it’s acceptable to stink dude.
- khazhoux 3y ago
  No, not actually. It's a shared space, and if someone has somehow still not heard of deodorant, and/or taking a shower, and/or washing their clothes, that's not actually acceptable. I'm taking about paint-stripping, eye-watering, thriving microbial ecosystem stink here, where the air around them is warm and thick. No one should have to suffer that.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    I agree with you. A clean person wearing clean clothing shouldn't typically have BO after an hour or two of sweating. Fresh sweat has a small, but doesn't reek. The reek comes after the bacteria have had time to grow. If somebody absolutely reeks at the gym they are doing something wrong. They are using smelly dirty gym clothes or are showing up with some nasty body odor already. I don't expect anybody to take a full shower before hitting the gym but it only takes a literal minute or two to clean the armpits and crotch with a washcloth and I would expect anybody hitting the gym to do that type of bare minimum. Personal opinion but I don't really expect people to wear deodorant at the gym. I still smell the reek, and adding ten different peoples' scented deodorants to the mix makes it worse for me. And anti-perspirant is IMO unhealthy to wear during exercise.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > And anti-perspirant is IMO unhealthy to wear during exercise. Why is that? Are you worried about the pores? It's hard for me to imagine antiperspirant being so effective it would actually lead to insufficient sweat.

achenatx 3y ago

i wear rashguards for BJJ. The key is to oxidize the molecules that stink. very light amounts of bleach work great. For example if you let them soak in a swimming pool (typically around 5ppm) for 10 minutes they will be stink free. You can do the equivalent with 1tsp of bleach in a few gallons of water (really about 20ppm or a little more). Obviously products like oxyclean can also oxidize the molecules.

buildbot 3y ago

A great reason to avoid sythetics in general is microplastics - your poisoning the water (each time you wash it, plastics go into the water system!) and to a less extent yourself.

Eisenstein 3y ago
[flagged]
JackMorgan 3y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if synthetic clothes are illegal in the future for this reason (or water lines are forced to have filters that catch all the micro plastics, although I'm not sure that's even feasible)
- frfl 3y ago
  Given that microplastics barely get any coverage for how large of a problem they are (in terms of how much goes into the environment), I have doubts about any legal restrictions on their use. Even today, it can be difficult to buy anything that's 100% natural fiber at brick and motor stores. At online stores it may or may not even be listed. The first step would be public awareness. I haven't even seen anyone IRL mention it before. synthetic fiber based clothing is everywhere and worn without any second thought by most. So we're quite quite far from even public awareness at this point. Maybe in the future, when oil isn't cheap we might see their usage drop, but maybe then you'll see clothing made out of 100% recycled (downcycled) plastic bottles.