Why Do Some Clothes Smell Worse Than Others?

While some clothes smell a lot when it comes to sweat some tend to smell much less.

Enter, The reasons for this difference let’s see.

To answer this question, clothing and textile scientist Rachel McQueen from the University of Alberta studied the effects of exercise on various types of fabric.

The researcher and his team first soaked clothes of different fabric types in a bottle filled with sweat solution and vigorously shook the solution-soaked clothes. The fabrics were then set aside to allow the odor particles to drain.

Next, it was necessary to measure how much the fabric smelled. Rachel wants everyone on her team to smell these clothes and He thought that scoring out of 10 would not be enough.

For this reason, the team turned to a technique called mass spectrometry. This technique It was a way to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions in a given sample. In fact, you can think of it as high-tech science that can pick out scents in the air in real time.

The result of the applied technique was quite clear.

Natural fibers made from plants, such as cotton or linen absorbed and released fewer amounts of foul-smelling compounds. On the other hand, synthetic fibers such as polyester and wool absorbed more odor.

To understand the reason for this, it was necessary to look at the components of sweat. Although the content of sweat was mostly water, it also contained oily compounds.. The point where the smell occurred was also related to oily compounds.

Depending on the specific chemistry of the fibers, these oils interacted in different ways. Water-loving cellulosic fibers such as cotton and viscose, While it absorbed sweat water more than polyester, polyester was not in favor of absorbing water.

In other words, cotton and viscose contain water-insoluble fragrance substances and It tended to absorb more oily compounds, which could then break down and smell bad.

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