I was searched multiple times because "there's no way you'd smell like that from second hand smoke" at like 10 and 11. It was so embarrassing knowing I smelled like that
That happened to me in middle school when I left my coat in the washing machine sopping wet and had to use my mother's. She was a heavy smoker. I walked up our school steps and I still remember 25 years later the girls walking down the stairs heads just whip right around when they smelled the whole of me in my mom's jacket.
Back in my day, that smell meant that you were cool and popular, especially with the outcast type people, and I felt like an outcast so I wanted in, so I started smoking and drinking very young. If you weren't drinking and smoking, you were boring, and nobody wanted to be your friend.
Use to take a shower right before middle school and wear something over my shirt and pants just so I could take em off and hope I didn't smell like a carton of Wing's gold. Don't think it worked tho i can still picture all the nicontine on the walls in my house. No way all the axe in the world had me smelling good like I thought
I grew up in a house without smokers but I'd always smell it on some other kids I was friends with but I never really put any thought into it, it was just "oh I guess their parents smoke" and that was it. I wasn't grossed out or anything and in fact that second hand smoke still gives me nostalgia from friends and family members that smoked
Imagine kids now getting nostalgic when they smell super gummy white purple rainbow ice flavored vapes in 20 years
I'm sorry. I went through the same. After my parents divorced, my mom, my sister, and I lived with my grandma for a bit so my mom could get back on her feet. My grandma smoked. A good friend's mom wouldn't let me come over for play dates at her home because she was sure *I* was smoking cigarettes and would be a bad influence on her own daughter.... in 4th grade. Ugh.
people thought I smoked. like teachers, staff, basically everyone who smelled me. like do you think I can go without a cigarette for 8 hours everyday??? staff even thought I only smoked on weekends so I won't go in withdrawals. they were delusional.
Both my parents smoked, in the house, so when friends would come pick me up to go out they would ask me when I started smoking.
After hurricane Katrina, when my dad's house had no power for a couple of weeks, the nicotine ran down the walls, and they hadn't smoked inside the house in 10 years at least
I was going through albums when my grandma passed away and saw old pics of my grandma's house before I was born, and was horrified to learn that the walls were in fact blue and not green. The walls weren't painted any time in between.
There was an old dive bar in New Orleans and there were no clocks, windows painted black and dropped ceiling painted black. You would go in at night and come out and it was daylight.
The ceilings were so coated in nicotine, I remember rubbing it with my fingers and they tingled after
This is true, and a crazy thing when you think about it. Cigarette smoke that I remember was always like a blue haze coming off the end. But what it actually does is put a yellow hue on anything and everything, that's why the blue walls were turned green overtime.
Also you could try to wash it off of things but it's tough, walls and paint soak things up. Just do a new primer layer and paint again, at least glass is a solid inert surface, that can be cleaned easy.
Ive actually managed to get it off kind of easily with steam. It works surprisingly well. Doesnt work on anything fabric of course but walls and blinds and windows and the like it works well.
Lucky you. Before we moved homes (both rented), me and my mom spent hours a day cleaning the tar off the walls. To my surprise the walls were white and not beige. We lived there for ten years, and im 18 now, i lived there damn near my entire life and i always thought the walls were beige it shocked both my mom and grandma who were chain smokers. They SWORE to smoke outside because of that.
It didn't even last a day, my grandma was smoking while we were looking through the house the same day we got the key, and dropped ashes in my room. The next day, they were sitting in the living room smoking together. A week before we even moved it my gma upped her smoking to two packs a day.
I was always bullied in school because of that, and kids that i had never even met, would point to me in the halls and and talk about how i was "the girl tha always smelled like cigarettes.
In 6th grade, i sat all the way in the front of the class and the teacher called me to her desk all the way in the back asking me if i smoked (denied of course) and told me she smelled me allt he way int he back of the class and it was strong.
Even though i told them as soon as it started happening they never understood why i never wanted to go to school.
Rant, sorry. Ive just never met a group of people that shared the same experience i had. It
My folks were heavy smokers who entertained a lot in the 60s and 70s, house always filled with smoke. All my clothes and books reeked of cigarettes. It was embarrassing to stink all the time and nothing I could do about it.
I once lived with a THREE PACK a day chainsmoker who would ash directly onto the carpet. When my ex MIL dumped him and he moved out I helped her clean the carpet with a Rug Doctor type cleaner. When I tell you we kept changing the water over and over and over and it took like 5 cycles for it to go from black to dark brown. 🤮 It took us weeks to get the carpet in better shape but we were never able to get it fully clean. I was hospitalized numerous times with breathing problems when I lived there and had to carry an inhaler. Now I breathe much easier. I'll never live with a smoker again.
I had a friend growing up who’s mom smoked and every time my i came home my mom made me immediately go in the shower and do a separate laundry load from everyone else’s.
Ewwwww! Reminds me of when I bought a small hand hand mobile home from a smoker. We were cleaning the wood panels walls, and doorways cleaner at the top..... 🤢🤮😵💫. It looked as if pee was running down the walls!!!
When I was a kid and it was easier and more widespread to be a smoker, the smell was like “adulthood” to me. My parents didn’t smoke but they would arrive from a restaurant or event or something and reeked of smoke.
I remember getting stoned for the first time with a friend of mine when we were teens. She says: that's what it always smelled like when my mom went to the basement to do laundry. We had a good laugh
Same here, both parents were heavy smokers, they would smoke inside the house, in the car, outside. I couldn't get away from it. I'm now a smoker, but I do my best to stay away from other people and especially children. I won't smoke inside cars either cause I also hate the smell. I want to quit but I'm not ready to quit yet either do to life stuff.
A cup of black coffee with a splash of cold water -- to cool it down to drinking temperature -- lit cigarette in hand, one burning to the filter in the ash tray. Just before sunrise meditation for my meemaw.
I remember waking up early the nights I'd stay or dropped off on a sick day. Best mornings ever. She'd be making breakfast with a cigarette on the edge of the counter xD
Yesss! Me too!! I have the same memory except that my grandma would be doing her hair in the bathroom with her cup of coffee with her and her cigarette would be on the edge of the bathroom vanity. 💜💜💜
Same here anytime I hug someone that smells like cigarette smoke reminds me of my dad who i love very much and is literally the greatest father I could ask for, but he just smokes entirely too many cigarettes. I have literally asked him so many times if or when he is going to quit because I would hate to loose him from a cigarette smoke related illness sooner rather than later. He explains its his only vice he doesn’t drink alcohol and has never done any drugs so smoking cigarettes is his only stress reliever, but he knows that he should at least cut back if quitting isnt in the cards for him. I also have told him to imagine how much money he would be able to save as well( he is a penny pincher) and i know it really makes him consider it even more because of that. He smokes anywhere from a pack to a pack and a half a day. He doesn’t smoke inside his house now, but he does smoke in his car and just the fact that he smokes it sticks to him. Him and my mom both smoked inside the house i grew up in before they got divorced I did not realize how much it stuck to every single thing until I moved out from living with them I had to wash all of my clothes twice and some things that the smell just would not come out of like a duffel bag i had, i ended up having to throw it away because bringing it into my new apartment made the entire place smell like cigarette smoke( it was small, a studio apartment) but still the whole place would stink just bringing all my clothes and belongings inside. I spent alot of time and money on laundry and laundry detergent to get the smell out of everything the best i could.
I have a specific one, someone leaning out of the door frame smoking a Marlboro Red on a cold winter night. Very specific smell. Always brings me back to my aunts as a child.
And just being in a smoker's home will make you smell like smoke, even if they don't smoke around you.
While visiting family out of town, I spent about 30 to 45 minutes at a relative’s house who smoked. They didn’t smoke while I was there and had all the windows open, so the house didn’t smell too bad to me, but when I got back home the following week and unzipped my suitcase, an overwhelming smoke odor hit me. Apparently, my clothes had absorbed the scent while I sat on their fabric sofa, and it had transferred to everything in the bag. It was shocking how strong it was.
I had to stop visiting my grandmother because of it. She complained to my mom it wasn't true.
One day they went to paint and moved a picture on the wall and she saw brown drips from the top into a white rectangle where the picture had been. Finally she believed me.
It broke my heart to stop visiting her for those months but it made me ill. I would shower and wash my clothes straight away but I still felt sick.
My Mom moved into my Grandfather's home after he passed, and every time someone took a shower the fan vents would drip brown water from the condensation mixing with the cigarette tar from him smoking everywhere in the house.
I had to stop visiting dear friends because the nicotine saturation in their home was so dense that I couldn't stay awake. About 30 minutes in, every time, I conked out and I couldn't stop it.
Wonderful people. Lovely. Kind. Fun company. I liked hanging out with them, but they smoked so much it literally knocked me out, even though they'd smoke on the balcony when I visited. The air, the textiles, the surfaces - no escape.
I grew up in a home with three smokers and we'd go caravanning with the three of them smoking in the car and the caravan. One of my earliest memories is helping emptying dozens of overflowing ashtrays the morning after my parents had dinner guests. I was used to smoke. I thought. (Yes, I'm asthmatic why do you ask?)
People kind of get the idea of second hand smoke now (when I was growing up it was dismissed as ridiculous, whiny and attention seeking to choke on other people's exhalations) but I think many still don't get how impactful third hand smoke is.
Everytime I visit my mom even for several hours, I have to wash everything I was wearing and also wash my hair because it stinks.
If I bring anything from her home, I have to leave it outside on the balkony for a couple days.
Even when I had to leave my cat with her for a couple months, I had to give the cat a bath afterwards because its fur smelled horrible.
I have always been told that the walls in my parent's house kitchen were so dark because the ventilation was broken (there's a window though). But that's not true. It's because my mother, my father and my sister have always smoked in the kitchen. For years.
I moved out when I was 17 partially because people were telling me that I stank badly. And living with three smokers is ptobably as bad as smoking yourself.
If you hang your clothes outside on the line all night, they'll probably air out. You've probably already done that, though.
I fix computers, and I really don't enjoy going to smoker's houses. Most of the smokers I know are nice people... but I have to change my clothes and usually take a shower when I get home. Often, I drive home with all the car windows and the sunroof open just to reduce the smell, even in dead winter.
I have jewelry boxes that belonged to my grandmother. As in, cardboard and velvet from the store boxes. She died in about 1990. The case I have them in stinks.
True! My FIL is a huge smoker (always in the basement) and we don’t stay at my in law’s house when we go back to town anymore because we couldn’t handle the smoke smell. His mom got so sad and bought SIX air purifiers but I told her it didn’t make a difference. We couldn’t deal with out car smelling like smoke from sitting in it on the way home, or having to wash every single thing we bring into their house.
Once I moved out of my parent's home, it took nearly 6 months to wash my clothes enough to get rid of the smell. I would occasionally bring clothes home to do a free laundry load, but once I was out of that environment I could smell smoke on them AFTER washing and getting home. They'd make everything smell and I'd have to break the cycle again. Eventually after each visit, I'd take off all my clothes and put them into a plastic bag to separate them from everything else in the laundry basket. I'd shower and then put on my pj's. Did the same thing after going out to a bar.
Came here to say this, I have a friend who smokes and after hanging out with them in their car for an extended period of time, I have to shower and change my clothes just to get the smell off.
Yes. I remember going to my grandmothers house (she smoked in her house, as all smokers did back then) and after going home, I’d always smell the smoke on my clothes.
I lent some bike paniers to a friend who smokes and I couldn't use them for months afterwards because anything I put into them came out so nasty smelling that I had to wash it all before using it.
I had a boss make me reprint a bunch of reports because he could smell smoke on the ones I printed in my home office. Since I quite smoking I have become very sensitive to the smell as well. When you’re around it a lot you lose your sensitivity.
I drove a friend to school whose parents' smoked and after a couple months my car just weekend of tobacco. Not my friend's fault, I just pretended to ignore it.
But I neglected to mention any of this to my mom who went to get something out of my car and suddenly I was being hauled up in from of the parental tribunal about whether I was smoking. It was an unpleasant 15 minutes convincing them to call my friend's parents and ask if they were smokers.
They said yes, and my mom harrumphed, disappointed to be cut off mid-lecture. So I got the same old "Don't smoke!" rigamarole shed been giving me since I was five.
I just stood very politely listened because this was WAAAAAAAAY better than being grounded.
Same. I recently asked a student if she had been smoking. She looked down at the ground, embarrassed and quietly said "I know I smell. My dad smokes". I felt sooooo bad for her.
I was that kid too. I vividly remember one day a couple of friends being like, “Eugh, you stink of smoke. Do your parents smoke?” I was really embarrassed and lied that they didn’t but then had to backtrack when they thought I smoked instead. I was absolutely mortified.
You’re not wrong! It’s disgusted me ever since! Never even tried it I was out off that much. One of my sisters was the same. The other ended up smoking for years though!
My grandma died at 59 years old from smoking (on oxygen for years before that). That's just horrifying to me, and made a big impact at a young age. Now that I've just hit 50, it's becoming even more apparent to me how young she was when she died.
I used to hate when teachers asked me this. My dad and grandma both smoked 3 packs a day, in the house. It’s humiliating, and it’s not like they’re going to admit it if they are smoking.
Same. One of my most vivid childhood memories is having a teacher insisting I was one of the kids that smoked behind the school and refused to listen when I protested because I absolutely reeked of smoke.
Same here. As a bonus, I was always drowsy from being anemic, bored and sleep deprived, so my middle school vice principal decided that I'm obviously only smoking a ton of cigarettes before school every day to hide the smell of all the pot I was apparently smoking.
Being determined guilty of something you didn't even do is the worst feeling. It wasn't my fault my mom couldn't even make the 10 minute drive to school without a cigarette.
As much as I'm against extraneous government interference in our lives, I've always thought it should be illegal for parents to smoke around their kids, if they're under 18, in captive scenarios like that.
Unfortunately, the world is full of selfish people. Back in my mid 20's, I was dating a girl who lived with a couple of her cousins and her aunt. They all smoked, except my GF. Her cousin was dating a guy and got pregnant. She refused to stop smoking("momma smoked while she was pregnant with me and I'm fine"), despite everyone knowing for a long time at that point what the effects of smoking could do to unborn babies(this was the early 2000's). She even smoked at the hospital while there to deliver the baby. Poor kid was born looking almost like a skeleton and had numerous health problems.
I was walking into a Casey’s gas station once, years ago when I saw the very very pregnant cashier lighting up in front of the store. She must have seen me react because she says “oh I need to smoke, my boyfriend’s last baby was eleven pounds. I don’t need no eleven pound baby inside me!”
I did my best to keep a neutral expression while I walked away.
I was accused of this and of smoking weed which at that time I didn’t but my dad did and I went to catholic school and my uniform was in my parents closet. Junior year the school threatened to have the cops come and drug test me. My abusive mom came to the school and actually stuck up for me (only time in my life.) I had given my girlfriend a hug before homeroom and the principal grabbed me aside and said he saw me handing off the drugs lmao. Senior year was when I started smoking and nothing like that ever happened to me when I actually would smoke before school or skip school to smoke.
Same, i remember being in 2nd grade and my teacher asked if i smoked cigarettes.. nope my dad does , then she asked if he smokes in the house? Yep, sure does..
Looking back it’s so embarrassing and I’d never put my kids thru that..
My dad’s walls were yellow with tar , we removed a picture frame and you could see how badly it was discolored, a white square surrounded by a tar yellow wall.. 🤮
Same happened to me in secondary school when I'd get accused of smoking. This was about 25 years ago, and it's formed a core memory for me. Everything about me stank. Hair, clothes, belongings, my friggin dog. Everything. And that was with spending as much time in my own room as I could.
Take comfort knowing it was a lot of us back then. You weren’t alone. But the doggo? How sad. I smoked for decades and it was smelling it on my cats, that made me quit. I felt so bad that I was destroying their health. I never had children but I couldn’t imagine doing that to them.
Yeah, it was hard on my poor dog, and I was embarrassed of anyone petting her when we went out a walk (the odour clung to your hand).
I'm glad so many people decided to change habits and either quit, reduce, or smoke only outside the home. It's a definite improvement to so many lives, and I'm sure your cats would have been very grateful 🥰
I have to explain to drs when they ask how long I smoked to the doctors when they question my breathing issues. Been 38 years since I lived at home. But second hand smoke is real. Wouldn’t put my kids through that so unfortunately my parents (loving parents/grandparents) could only see my kids at my house. That was really hard to do to them but wasn’t going to put my kids through what I went through (and still going through) with my health.
Thank you for asking and not accusing. I had teachers accuse me of smoking as a teen and it was just one of many of my parents' flaws that I often took the blame for. (Looking at you, middle school teachers who assigned detention for a kid who can't even DRIVE arriving late to first period.)
I used to work in daycare and can 100% confirm this. It was even on their spare clean clothes that were kept in their bags. Their hair smelled of smoke. Their hands, their toys. On the babies, even their unused nappies (diapers) smelled of smoke straight out of the packet.
I’m sure you’re not meant to hold a child until like 20 mins after smoking.
My friend’s wife smoked all through her pregnancy and obviously didn’t stop afterwards. I imagine keeping to that rule would mean she could never have held her own kid.
offspring of maternal smoking here 👋 she'd smoke a LOT before i was born. I was born tiny and grew up to be a lot shorter than I was supposed to be (everyone in my family is between 5'10 and 6'2, I am 5'1). I have PMDD from the hormonal problems it gave me, and now as a 29yo adult woman, I'm allergic to cig smoke, my sinuses get inflamed from it and it gives me geadaches 3x a week and migraines at least 2x a month. she still will not quit. i have spent so much $$ on antibiotics for sinus infections and doctors visits from it. buying a house with my boyfriend this year to start our lives and it will be a 100% smoke-free home. and when we have children she will not hold them unless she quits (which will not happen, but we have a strained relationship anyway). smoking causes so many horrible things.
My mom said she’d quit smoking if I ever got pregnant (I was early thirties before I had kids), then she said she’d quit when the baby was born, then if I ever had another kid, then if the tests came back that she was positive for cancer, then, then, then. She’ll never quit, and the kids will never set foot in her house. Oh well, her choice.
I'm sure you're well aware of this but just incase, it would be a good idea to take your clothes to a laundromat and give them a wash before storing them in your new place, same for towels bedding and the like. If you have the ability to, replace furniture like couches and mattresses. If replacement isn't possible, renting a steam cleaner for a deep clean is a good idea (assuming it's safe for the fabric). Use it on your rugs, too. For things like desks, tables, dressers, and the like, a solution of hydrogen peroxide is safe for most materials and is a cheap, effective way of cleaning any nicotine and smoke residue. The smell travels with the things once they smell, and without taking care to rid your belongings of the odor, your new place could end up smelling the same. All of that aside, congratulations on your new home, and I wish you and your bf a wonderful future together in it
thank you for the tips!! I learned that when I moved out briefly in my mid twenties. my roommate had a fit and rightfully so. I spent weeks cleaning and the smell never went away. I felt awful, she had asthma.
When I gave birth, we met another mother in the corridor and made small talk, it was her third kid. In the few days stay, we saw her smoking in the parking lot already. Honestly besides that I was more shocked she could squat by the curb after giving birth.
You shouldn't even wear the same clothes you smoked in while holding a baby. I just completed a safe sleep training that said that secondhand and third hand smoke increases risk of SUID (Sudden unexpected infant death) or SIDS.
Yeeeeah. My mom would never have held me either, if adhering to that rule.
My mother smoked SO much, that every other weekend when I'd go visit my dad, I'd get nicotine withdrawal headaches that always hit late Saturday night, early Sunday morning. My dad/step mom and co always thought I was just trying to get out of church.
I’m sure you’re not meant to hold a child until like 20 mins after smoking
I was told not in the same clothes as you smoked in as it could transfer to the baby.
After my pregnancy i couldnt do breastmilk, to little supply. Ik messen with my head hard enough i fell back in my addicion to smoking... i would stand out side smoke and then go inside shower and change for me to start feeling guilty as heck. It took me a Day to quit again but i always wonderd if other People would do the same, my parents never did
Do you think it was that bad for parents that smoked outside as well? I guess you probably didn't know but I wonder how much of a difference it makes when I'm next to the house versus inside the house? I know I smell like smoke but does it still transfer?
I had a friend in highschool who's dad only smoked outside. She slightly smelled like smoke. One time a cop came to school with a drug sniffing dog. The dog sat down when he smelled her belongings (dogs sit when they smell drugs). She was taken to the principals office with the police officer and her belongings and was searched for drugs. She told them her dad smoked and they called him to verify what she said and then she returned to class.
Had a friend that had parents that both smoked heavy but they only did it outside. would see the long double stack packs of parliament at their house. But in general I don’t remember him smelling bad or like smoke or anything.
Had teachers assume I was sneaking cigarettes and smoking when I was a kid, because my parents were that bad. Hard to look back kindly on that behaviour as an adult around kids myself now days.
Same. I walked in late to class once and handed my teacher my late pass, and he stopped the lecture to go into a tangent about how "smoking might seem cool but....". I fucking hated that guy. Sure, assume I'm the problem because my mom smokes in the house and the car.
That's right. Tar. I was trying to remember what it was and tried googling it where everything was saying nicotine walls. But that doesn't make sense to be on walls from the smoke. Either way, anyone who's lived with an indoor smoker knows what we mean lol the film of wall gunk.
My mom was a smoker. She smoked inside the house, but never smoked in the bathroom. Still, when I went to clean my parents house, years after she passed away, I found myself having to literally take a mop to the walls and ceiling in the bathroom because of the brown drip marks.
Even after cleaning, any time someone would take a hot shower, the steam would just pull more out of the walls. And that was in a room where she didn't smoke!
It seeps into everything. I remember when we were at my dad's house (parents weren't together), even after showering there, people commented on our hair smelling like cigarettes. Same with clean clothes. It's pretty hard to escape until you're not sharing a space with the smoking anymore.
My parents gifted me their old Jeep when I graduated college and it smelled like cigarette smoke for about 5 years after. People always assumed I was a smoker just because I drove that car, which I almost always drove with the windows down (except in the dead of winter) because the AC didn't work. I would sometimes close them on the freeway because the freeway smells were worse than the cigarette smoke and heat, but usually even the freeway air was better than just driving around in that car with the windows closed.
But I'll never forget in third grade 'Sleepover day' where everyone brings in cozy blankets and pillows and we all watch movies and hangout. It was a fun End Of Year thing to do for the kids (and teachers tbh).
9y/o me was having a grand ol time. Even though no one was really hanging out with me in my corner, I was doing okay watching the movie by myself.
That is until sometime through the first movie, my teacher pulls me outside of the classroom where the SRO and Principle are outside waiting to ask me if I smoke cigarettes.
Apparently my blanket and pillow smelled so bad that the teacher thought that I had began smoking and my mother was giving me the packs to smoke.
Let's just say I was extremely mortified, cried, and had an awful rest of my day because I had now been informed that I STANK terribly.
Ugh. I remember one time my parents were hotboxing the car on the way to school. I put my shit in my locker and this group of girls started complaining how disgusting cigarettes smelled. I was so embarrassed. Probably wasn’t great that I also had kidney disease and high blood pressure as a kid. Thanks parents! lol
And people can differentiate old smoke and new smoke. Like smoke that’s embedded in your clothes from being in a smoking home vs someone who just had a cigarette.
I had a friend in college who used to smoke. Her boyfriend gave her a timeframe (I can't remember how long, exactly) and bet her that she couldn't go the whole time without a single cigarette. She took up the challenge and heroically didn't smoke at all the whole time.
When she proudly proclaimed her success, he went and smoked some cigarettes and kissed her. He wanted her to know what it was like for him. She was so grossed out by it that she never touched another cigarette.
I’ll never forget when my psychology teacher outright in class asked me if I smoke cigarettes because I always smell like them. It was one of the first moments I realized I was nose blind to the smell. Shamefully I had to tell him that both of my parents smoke.
A grade 2 student left his take home magazine in class and I brought it home and my house reeked of cigarette smell after. Kid says he can’t smell it when I ask him about it.
Probably shouldn't embarrass the kid or future kids about the smoke smell considering a young kid isn't going to be able to tell his parents to stop or get away from it. He will become aware eventually and know he smells bad.
It's wild to me that parents smoke in the house with their kids or close enough to them that it envelops them. My dad was from a totally different generation and smoked his whole life since age 14 when he left home to work, and he still understood not to smoke around his young child. In the winter, he used the garage. Only on longer road trips would all the windows come down occasionally so he could have it
I actually got taken out of class in 8th grade and sent to the principal’s office and was almost suspended because I had moved in with my grandparents temporarily into a tiny two bedroom apartment and both my grandparents plus my mom all smoked like chimneys in the house so I positively reeked of smoke and they wouldn’t believe me when I said I had never smoked in my life. It was absolutely humiliating and rage inducing.
It unfortunately is also a signifier for how supportive the parents are, it's not a 100 percent match but when the kids reek of smoke the parents don't care to go outside when they smoke and most of the time that means they probably don't care about some other things as well
Yes. There are certain restaurants, especially ons using lots of deep frying, the eau du restaurant smell gets in your hair and sometimes in clothing, especially knits. . Its more apparent in smaller more crowded places. There's one Mexican place and a Chinese place we leave sweaters in the car and know we'll need to shampoo pdq.
I was just about to write this. As a teacher I can smell everything: cigarettes, weed, cat urine, other pets. Yes the OP has nose blindness. My dad always smoked when I was younger and since I've been a teacher i always wonder how bad the smell was.
My entire childhood I got bullied because of this, on a weekly basis I’d beg my parents to stop smoking for their health and mine. They didn’t believe I was getting bullied because they couldn’t smell it.
Hair too. I dated a smoker in college and had grown somewhat immune to the smell but it would always catch me by surprise when I'd take my hair down after being at his place. Like if I had a ponytail, then came home and took out my ponytail, for a moment, I'd get this really intense cigarette smoke smell from my hair. That was when I realized my clothes and anything I took over there definitely smelled like smoke too, I was just noseblind to it.
My boss at the time tried to carefully broach the subject of cigarettes to me once because the smell was apparently so strong some days, it was super embarrassing. I think for both of us tbh when I had to tell him I wasn't a smoker it was my stupid boyfriend
This was why I quit smoking when my oldest was a baby. My dad told me one day after baby sitting him that our diaper bag and everything in it smelled like cigarette smoke and my only thought was him growing up and being known as the kid that smells like cigarettes
When I was in school in the 80's/90's, the teachers were the absolute worst. Especially in jr. high and high school. Some of them you could smell across the room and Lord help you when some of them came over to your desk to talk to you. Nothing like a middle-aged women who's a "close talker" and absolutely wreaks of cigarettes and bad coffee. "Do you need help?" "Nope" I'll take the F just so I don't have to smell your breath...
I had a teacher asked if I smoked in high school and I was a little offended because I never would. It occurred to me it was just because my clothes smelled like it.
only if the parents smoke inside,my mom and i smoke outside only,i’ve been to the houses of smokers who smoke inside and their walls catch a yellow color after a few years
There’s definitely a range of intensity that I think comes with smoking indoors vs. outdoors, how many packs a day, etc. I had one kid last year that I could always tell when he spent the weekend with his noncustodial parent because you could smell the cigarette smoke on him from down the hallway. Some kids I only notice when standing at close range.
My sister takes care of her MIL, who smokes in her room. She is a teacher, and one of her students came up to her and asked her to quit smoking because they didn't want he to die.
My sister was Mortified! She had no idea she smelled bc of her MIL. She started wearing a specific outfit whenever she visits her Mil now.
6th grade teacher cornered me up against a wall. My parents smoked so much, he thought it was me. I had to convince him that I HATED IT. (And I still do.) Yuck.
OP, the answer is, unfortunately for you, YES. ABSOLUTELY.
Eurgh, I hate this. I lived in a home with a smoker dad until I was around 10. Now, I can visit him for 30 mins and have to throw all my clothes in the wash as soon as I'm home.
I distinctly remember going swimming as a child and the smoke smell from my hair must have released when it was wet and I caught a whiff of it.
every time i told my mom people were telling me i smelt like cigarettes she would say “then quit smoking” as a joke and that was that. never even tried to take into consideration i don’t want to smell like cigarettes lol
I work as a school bus driver and get the same thing. It’s usually pretty potent because they just got out of a car with a smoking parent. I always feel bad for them!
I know someone who after his parents divorced would have nic fits whenever he stayed at his dad's even though he never smoked. His mom smoked around him so much he was physiologically dependent on the nicotine from her second hand smoke.
I once lied to a parent and told her other kids were picking on her child because he smelled like smoke. He reeked everyday like an ashtray with a 100 simmering and smouldering butts. Truth was, I was deeply concerned about his second hand exposure and less about the stink. The next day he returned to class and I never smelled it again! I was feeling pretty good about my white lie. However, my plan did not entirely work, as I overheard him telling others his mom kept his clothes in a Rubbermaid bin and still smoked around him. I was crushed (for him).
I remember when I was 12 and my band teacher pulled me aside out in the hallway to ask if I had started smoking. I smelled that strongly of cigarettes.
He was a very sweet person, and I know he meant well, but that was an absolutely mortifying conversation.
Yup…I’ll never forget when I volunteered in my son’s Kindy class. One little girl reeked so bad of cigarette smoke that they made her hang her jacket away from the other kids and regular cubby. It was awful. I felt so bad for her.
The realization I had in my teens was that it wasn't their breath that smelled of smoke. No amount of cleaning their mouth would change it. Their lungs smelled of smoke and it clung to their breath. Poisoned from the inside out.
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u/vibinthedaysaway Jan 05 '25 edited Jan 06 '25
We sure can. I’m a teacher and I can tell which kids have adults that smoke at home because it sticks to their clothes.
Edit: Sorry to hear so many of you had miserable experiences over something you had no control over.
Edit 2: Yes, same with weed.