Smelly!

[natickgirl]

I have a problem & I need advice/suggestions. I have a daughter who smells. She's 12 years old. She showers every day, but she still smells...b.o., bad breath, smelly feet. When you walk into her room, you almost want to walk back out.

I don't know what to do to help her. She is funny, smart, & cute, but it's hard to get her to care about how she looks (put forth the effort to comb her hair, pay attention to her outfit, etc.). I'm glad she isn't overly concerned about appearance (constantly primping, dieting, etc.) but being a little more conscientious about hygiene would do her a lot of good. I don't want her to be shunned by peers because she smells. I know puberty is right around the corner, so taking care of this issue now will be very helpful.

Any suggestions? I want to help her without making her too self-conscious.

[bookworm]

I'm curious whether she has good hygiene habits and this is just a glandular/hormonal problem or if she hasn't quite developed those habits yet.

In my opinion, one way to handle it without making her feel self-conscious is to have a chat about all things hygiene, maybe with both girls, reviewing the pre-puberty lessons of maturation class (unless your school doesn't do those, ours do and they go over wearing deodorant, etc.) in a matter-of-fact manner and see if that helps. Unfortunately, some kids don't take what Mom says seriously and it will require the outside world to teach them this kind of lesson.

I'm thinking my second son was slow to really care about such things, and it took a comment on the bus of "who stinks!?" (they didn't know it was him, but he realized HE was the one who smelled sweaty when he got home)-- he has showered faithfully and worn deodorant ever since!

Good luck!

[Erudite]

I have a 10 year old dd who has the BO smell from time to time, but not the 12 yo dd. Weird huh? The 10 yo doesn't care about any of the appearance stuff as yet, but the 12 yo is starting to, so she is helping the 10 yo with her hair and what not. That helps.

Anyway, its my understanding that smells of the body are generally bacteria related; the more they sit, the more they smell. For my 12 yo, we had to have a talk about wearing socks ONCE and then laundering them, because she did have smelly feet, and we sent her a few times to the tub just to wash her feet. If the bedding is smelly, it too needs to be washed...including the comforter if that is against the skin at anytime.

You said your daughter showers daily; do you know if she uses soap or does she just stand in the water? My 15 yo ds still just stands in the water most of the time...and we can tell because by the afternoon he stinks and his hair is oily. Smelly bacteria has to be SOAPED off. Water won't do it. Also, she's got to wash with soap in all the "cracks"...between the toes, between the legs, under the arms, etc. Bacteria likes to hide in those dark wet places so if she's only soaping her stomach, she's not doing much good.

And it doesn't have to be men's deodorant soap. Maybe a fun way to introduce her to showering/laundering effectively is to go shopping for lovely smelling soap/detergent.

And then teach her the way to make the scent stay is to layer it. So you have to soap really well with the nice smelling stuff, then lotion and powder with the same smell, and then even perfume it as well. That's how to keep you smelling like the lovely soap you paid good money to have too. You can sometimes even find the same scent for the conditioner and then the scent really stays well.

One more thought would be powder. If she's actually sweating (and not effectively washing away the sweat), powder is one nice smelling way to dry that up, though it's a whole lot more effective as a scent changer when stinky bacteria aren't an issue. Powdering inside her tennis shoes is a good thought for stinky feet...they make powders for that kind of thing.

Last, vinegar. Put a couple of tablespoons of vinegar in a spray bottle of water and have her mist her bedding (and likely room) between washes. Vinegar absorbs smells and the vinegar smell itself only stays around briefly. Yeah, you can also use Fabreeze or other chemical products, but they tend to be expensive and IMOP put too much scent into the room and they are in fact chemicals that we don't really need in our environment.

Anyway...those are some of the things I've tried. My 15 yo ds STILL doesn't really seem to care about his appearance or the odor he inflicts on us. Maybe this year?

[natickgirl]

Thanks for the suggestions. 8)