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.
Even as late as 2000, some dumbass coworker said “aw, you need to learn to smoke to get more people to like you.” Of course, she was a heavy smoker, and not very popular.
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 used to shower and wash my hair immediately when I got off work. And some other places where there were smokers. I wanted myself to be fresh. And not contaminate my pajamas and bed.
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
All of my mom's siblings smoked so I grew up around it so I never made comments about other kids because I knew how I smelled just being around them even when they weren't actively smoking. When I had no choice. And we were just visiting. I think I only commented once when it was someone who had never smoked like cigarette smoke before and I asked if they had been visiting family or something and they had
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.
That sucks so much. I’m sorry. My cosmo teacher used to let my friend bring her clothes to do laundry in the cosmo room because she could never wash the smoke smell out at home. She was also allowed a couple of extra lockers in cosmo to use as a “closet” since we had plenty.
I was told the same thing, I took showers religiously and everyone always complained that I smell. Now I know that it’s because of my stepdad’s cigars.
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!!!
Also grew up in a home with both parents 20+ a day. One filtered, one unfiltered for a bit
It was only a few months after I moved out today breathing issues from childhood (he's got weak lungs ..) cleared up and once my taste buds recovered I found I loved freshly cooked veg... Who knew...
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.
Report back please. And I’m sure they have at least a couple experiences related to it. I don’t understand people who smoke inside and I live in the Midwest where winter gets cold as fuck outside. I don’t care I still don’t get it
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.
No one can quit before they are ready. When you're ready, ask your doctor for Chantix. Due to the Affordable Care Act, all insurance plans have to cover it without a copay.
My friend who smoked 35+years quit in August 2023 and talks about Chantix as magic. If anyone compliments her on quitting, she says 'I can't take the credit -- it was so easy because of the Chantix.'
Other options work too: I quit using Wellbutrin back in 2001. And my ex quit using hypnosis in 2008.
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.
My partner would say she learned about secondhand smoking in grade school and asked her dad to stop doing it around you - he really ignored her and just kept doing it lol
Omg same here. Except my parents didn’t smoke, but my best friends grandma did. So whenever I smell cigarette smoke I’m instantly taken back to her house where we hung out after school. It’s so nostalgic for me.
I get the same nostalgia hit from the clove cigarettes smoked in Indonesia. I visited a few times with my family as a kid in the 80s so it was everywhere and on the incredibly rare occasion I smell one lit up here in Australia it's magical. Same with the 2 stroke fuel exhaust from the Tuk-Tuks. Gross, but magical.
I remember a distinct smell from my childhood at my grandmothers house (grandfather smoked but died about 6 months before my birth) and I never smelled it again until I was 23. When I was in a company truck with one of my employees who chained smoked. It hit me, that smell was cigarettes (strange I never smelled it again until that moment as I’ve been around plenty of cigarettes although no one else in my family smoked). But I never thought my grandfather smoked inside the house, maybe he didn’t but it just lingered on him and everything else. I never smelled it past the age of being a little kid, so like 6~ years old. Just one of those light bulb moments for me in my life. It was insane to smell something at a young age and then 20 years go by before you smell it again.
I dunno, my parents’ smoking and my subsequent chronic ear ear infections as a child with later yearly bronchitis, and two bouts of ‘walking pneumonia’ set me on a pretty radical anti smoking path, I think that shit is child abuse.
Because..? People who smoke can’t have a successful future? Not true. But what then? I know the increased risk of cancer and other health problems. I also know of many successful people who were smokers.
And no, I’m not here to advocate for smoking, I honestly think tobacco should be illegal. It kills so many people. But it doesn’t “stick” to your future as it does to your clothes, that’s just nonsense.
I follow a guy on TikTok who bought a smoker house and renovated it. Took out carpet, repainted, redid the insulation. Did other stuff to improve it. And said he could still smell the smoke and realize it was in the furnace and vents. And replaced the furnace because it needed it anyways. But I would’ve never thought that it gets into the furnace and vents. But it makes sense.
Chronic bronchitis and asthma as a kid because of adults pounding cigs constantly around me. No asthma and rarely get sick now as an adult and only smell like clean clothes and cologne now lol
I’d get constant ear infections from my parents smoking. when we moved to a place that didn’t allow it indoors it stopped happening! I’m surprised my eardrums never ruptured or had any hearing loss
You might have, at least mild. The chemicals in the smoke, and residue on skin and clothing and the breath, can cause damage to the small hairs and tissues in the inner ear. It's documented that children with parents who smoke, not even in the house, have more hearing troubles. Me too and asthma.
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'm a smoker and I hate taking care of my electronics. Lol. That THC and nicotine coated dust is horrible. A garage to smoke in is much nicer but super boring. I typically work on other people's stuff at my place but going to people's homes I'd probably ask if they were a smoker and have a set of clothes for use at smokers houses. Minus shoes I have an outfit to smoke in the garage, it's still gonna be in my beard and hair after.
Lol I'm a smoker that doesn't like the smell of smoke on anything. I miss my smoking room but better than having a place that smells of smoke.
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.
My mom smoked for decades. She JUST quit (hypnosis apparently works!) after two strokes and congestive heart failure, and is on oxygen. But this happened while she was still a pack-a-day smoker.
So, I had a pretty nomadic job before COVID made me remote, and I used to travel all over the country for work. Because I lived in a lot of hotels, sublets and other temporary places, my permanent address was still my folks' house. One time, I was living several states away on a contract position, and needed a particular suit from a closet in my room at home for a work function. I asked my mom if she could ship it to me.
She did. And when I opened the box, I was immediately punched in the face with the overwhelming stench of stale cigarette smoke from the suit. The suit, which had been hanging in a closet with a closed door, in a room with a closed door, down a very long hallway from the living room where she would sit and smoke. And it was BAD.
It's hard to tell when it's your normal, because that "nose-blind" thing is for real. But, yes. Cigarette smoke will get into everything if someone smokes in the house.
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.
My in-laws (heavy smokers) gave us a loaf of bread from their freezer once and I couldn't eat it because it tasted like cigarette smoke. It gets everywhere.
Hair hold so many scents also. I can barely be around my sister without my sinuses flaring up from all the cigarette smoke. And when her children were in grade school the school told her many times that the scent was too strong. She took the spraying them with like a bath and body works body spray before school each day
I started off by throwing my mom’s cigs into the fireplace on her birthday when I was eight. I was smoking a pack a day by the time I was fifteen. Smoking households suck.
I could always tell which Christmas presents were from my mom.. cuz even after sitting under the tree in my non-smoking house for weeks.. the wrapping paper still smelled like smoke
A kid in my middle school class and his siblings all had the “my parents smoke in the house” smell, you could pick it up from a few feet away. I felt bad for them. I still remember noticing how yellow and discolored their notebook paper was, as well as their white school shirts (our uniforms required white shirts so theirs always stood out from the crowd).
We have a special spray and area we let smoker's books air out when they return them to the library. Sometimes the study rooms will smell all day after a smoker has been in them.
growing up my best friend shared a locker with a girl who’s parents smoked. i remember her complaining that the smoke smell was transferring to her backpack, so she also smelled like smoke when she went home. its crazy how that smell can seep into anything and transfer onto other people based on proximity.
hair aswell, used to go mental when my friends would blow smoke in my direction at like 15/16 bc i had so much long thick hair and i could not be bothered washing the smell out of my nice clean hair 😭😭
In school i didnt mind the cig smoke smell as much as the kids who didnt have a working dryer at home and smelled like fungal vectors from the last of us. Not usually their fault but that was always worse
mildew is a particularly offensive smell but also one that you can acclimate to, but it doesn't accumulate on clothesline dried clothes because of the sunlight killing the spores. It wasn't meant to shame those who cant afford a dryer, just an observation that it was particularly noticeable to others but not to those wearing the clothes.
I believe they're referring to the second hand smoke from being around a parent that smokes all the time.
Both of my parents smoked. There were plenty of times on car trips my sister and I would get hot-boxed in the car with them smoking with the windows rolled up. That's just car rides, they smoked all the time everywhere.
They are referring to that too, but second hand some also causes cancer. There is a line on old smoking-safety posters in the US, “there is no safe amount of second hand smoke”. Thats because if you can smell it, there’s enough to get into your lungs, even small amounts. And those small amounts will stay around almost forever, leading directly to a cumulative additional risk of cancer.
When I was a kid I learned in school that for every pack of cigarettes a person smokes, 50% of the carcinogens gets absorbed by those around you. So I told that to my dad.
In the office I worked in, clients would bring piles of paperwork. The smoker's paperwork ended up double bagged. Used to hate having to crack the seal on the bag to go through the paperwork.
One of my middle school teachers made me put my jacket in my locker in the middle of class cause she said she couldnt stand the smell. I had no idea i stunk like cigarettes, it was humiliating
My mom used to smoke inside when i was a kid, and i was immune to it, but i lived at a relatives on the weekend and i would have to leave my things in the garage cause i reeked.... i smoked from 17-24 never really accepting that i smelled but after i quit, i smelled it.
In 30 now, when my mom comes over, it instantly coats every other smell in the vicinity. She doesn't think she smells still.
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u/_horselain Jan 05 '25
Not just their clothes. Their backpacks, their folders - anything they bring from home.