I grew up in an area with many American citizens and one possibility of distinguish them from the locals, was just to smell them, even upwind. So, over the years I developed a very sensitive sense of smell for detecting Americans. I’m pretty sure that this is because of their very extensive use of washing powder. It is not just a bit different from what I know in Europe, a typical American washing powder taste is more like blueberries and pines, what I originally know from walking through the woods in a very clear summer morning.
Am I actually right about this prejudice? Are you aware of this? Do you use the smell to detect your fellows? And how much of washing powder are you using? 🙂
31 comments
Oof is “washing powder” detergent or powdered soap? First time I’ve heard that phrase.
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I do not use scent to detect other Americans, no, and also have not noticed this myself. I use the amount of detergent the bottle says to use depending on how much laundry I’m using, but I use liquid not powder.
OP can I ask where you are from?
Are you under the impression that the strong odor you’re perceiving is because Americans don’t understand how to follow directions and are using too much? Many detergents as well as fabric softeners or dryer sheets are indeed excessively scented, IMO, but it’s not because Americans use too much. Personally, I only use unscented detergent, and when I use a dryer sheet (which is rare), that’s unscented as well. A next door neighbor uses strongly-scented detergent/softener, and I almost retch sometimes when I smell their dryer exhaust (but she’s from Columbia, so this complicates the answer).
LOL, “blueberries”? And *with* “pines”? I’ve never smelled any clothes detergent with either, much less together.
> Do you use the smell to detect your fellows?
No.
Rule 6
I wash my clothes with unscented soap
Are you Wolverine?
I think I read about this once in that super credible publication *Der Spiegel* that exposes all of our American secrets.
OP, the secret is we don’t launder our clothes. The pines you smell are from the sweat shops our clothes come from. The blueberry is just people vaping. Whenever we visit your country, it is customary to stand in the middle of people vaping and have them cloud you with their blueberry vape. It’s for good luck.
Maybe it’s because we just don’t smell like BO and cigarette smoke like is so common with Europeans?
I use 2-3 tablespoons of unscented detergent. I can’t stand the smell of fragrance on my laundry.
No, you’re not right about this prejudice. No, we don’t identify each other by our laundry detergent, we’re not golden retrievers.
Don’t be fooled folks this is clearly a European Werewolf trying to get the drop on us. Stay strong.
>Are you aware of this? Do you use the smell to detect your fellows?
Most Americans do use too much detergent, but that’s because the manufacturers often make the measurements difficult to understand and follow IMO
I can’t usually identify Americans by smell, but I can identify when someone has been wearing the same clothes for a while 🤢
I use the unscented kind of detergent, so really my clothes shouldn’t smell like anything lol
Or at least I hope they don’t.
I do generally shower twice a day though so hopefully I smell like whatever soap I used and the lotion I put on when I got out
I take my clothes out to the nearest stream and beat them against the rocks.
Where are you from? Around here, we have lots of pines, but I associate walking in the woods in the morning with the smell of dirt and humidity. I can see how someone with a really good sense of smell would get pine, I can smell that if I get my nose in the branches. To smell blueberries from walking through the forest, I can’t imagine how great your sense of smell must be. I can’t smell those unless I’m actually picking them and some get squashed!
you cannot determine who around you is from a massive multicultural country the land size of Europe by smell. you have confirmation bias.
I go straight to sniffing people’s asses when I meet them to discern their nationality.
I use laundry pods, usually two for a large load. I use the Costco Kirkland pods that are not super scented
Powdered laundry soap isn’t really a thing over here anymore and hasn’t been for a long time.
Most people are tossing in one of those pods or measuring out liquid detergent.
We use tasty tasty Tide pods. Plain vinegar in the rinse cycle.
I’m a Tide Pod man myself. Stopped using HE liquid years ago.
Damn you Americans and your (shuffles deck) smelling good!
I don’t know if anybody even *uses* “washing powder” anymore. Most people use liquid laundry detergent.
Liquid detergent is more common here, I think because it mixes more easily with the water so you don’t get clumps of detergent stuck to your clothes (which happened to my family when they were living abroad). Sort of like how simple syrup is used to flavor drinks instead of granulated sugar.
That said, Americans are known to shower more often and use scented products more often than a lot of parts of the world. Like our deodorant will often be scented, our shampoos, our soaps. And I will say as someone that sells soap, we tend to put more fragrance in those products than the EU at least (I sell bar soap and if I remember correctly the EU max usage for fragrances is 3% of the weight of your base oils, whereas the US doesn’t have a federal limit, just an expectation that you make a safe product and are able to answer for why you used as much fragrance as you did if anything happens.)
I would honestly bet that’s more why you smell us, haha. And lavender and pine are the bases of a lot of popular fragrances here. Like I accidentally made a copy of the scent used in a popular line of products aimed at men, and the main fragrance I used was lavender.
So mostly we’re a fastidious bunch and not shy about using scented body products.
Edit: to answer your question directly, I use a very small amount of detergent, like half what the bottle recommends. But I’m not sure what that means compared to how much powder detergent you use.
I use Tide ~~candy~~ pods. 1 per load of laundry.
I’ve seen YouTube videos for washing powder recipes, but I’ve always used either liquid or pods.
Washing powder?
1. Most Americans use liquid Laundry detergent.
2. Why are you tasting laundry detergent?
Dude I’ll full on baptize my clothes in detergent, I HATE body odor.
None. I’ve always used liquid.
I think you’ve been eating too much washing powder.