I know that there must be some people who don’t like to wash their socks, and even pile their worn socks there. When they are about to go out, they suddenly realize that they have no clean socks to change, so they have to pick up the dirty socks and wear them again!
Let’s not be too quick to deny that most of us have done this dreadful thing at some point in our lives — picking up a pair of worn, unwashed socks and putting them over our feet. If you don’t say it yourself, no one will know, the only problem is that if you are unfortunate enough to have stinky feet, it can be a disaster.
You can of course choose to spray them with deodorant or perfume, which does suppress the odor, but after a few hours, the stench comes back, and rebounds more violently!
But why is this so? Why do deodorants and perfumes make socks smell worse? Before discussing this, let’s take a step back and look at the root of the problem, namely, why do socks you wear smell?
There’s always something you don’t know, and even now, the smell of stinky socks is still the subject of research because it’s quite…interesting.
The smell of smelly socks comes from the aromatic combination of ammonia, fatty acids and lactic acid. More specifically, these chemicals are released by bacterial activity that accumulates on our feet.
You see, our feet are always confined to our shoes, and when you walk around in your shoes, sweat builds up. This warm, semi-enclosed, moist area becomes a breeding ground for millions of bacteria that thrive under such conditions. They feed on dead skin and sweat, and excrete organic matter, which produces their characteristic stench.
In fact, that’s why when any part of your body is covered and the temperature is high, it can produce a bad smell. Because this series of conditions promotes bacterial growth in that specific area of your body.
Because perfume can make people smell good, it seems very logical to spray perfume on a particularly smelly pair of socks to eliminate the smell. Granted, the effect does, but only for a short period of time, after which the smell comes back and it gets worse.
Spraying on deodorant or perfume can only temporarily mask the odor with its own strong odor, but it won’t help solve the root cause of the problem – bacteria.
Over time, the strong smell of the fragrance begins to subside, but the source of the unpleasant smell remains intact and completely unaffected. If you’re using a fragrance that doesn’t have antibacterial properties, the bacteria in your smelly socks can thrive and multiply more bacteria, all of which aggravate the smell.
Now that we have a clear idea of why using perfume to spray smelly socks is not very effective, we can talk about how to get rid of the smell completely.
The smell on socks can be solved in a number of ways, but the best way to do it is, of course, washing! As mentioned earlier, worn socks often become a breeding ground for bacteria because they provide bacteria with a lot of food in the form of water and organic matter. When you wash your socks, you’re basically cleaning and sanitizing, a process that eliminates bacterial growth.
You can also spray disinfectant on frequently worn shoes and socks. While this doesn’t completely stop the growth of bacteria, it does seem to make socks less smelly.
Generally, the more damp socks are due to sweating or other reasons, the more stinky they become. So try to keep your socks dry. Also, if your shoes get wet from rain or playing in the water, take them off as soon as you get home and dry them.
Smelly socks are often the result of smelly feet. So, if you think about it, smelly feet are the root of the whole problem.
Get into the habit of washing your feet at least once a day, and thoroughly with mild soap if you can. Then prepare at least two or more pairs of shoes and wear them alternately every other day, so that each pair has time to dry completely before being used again.
In addition, there is also an ultimate method to get rid of the smell of socks here, I don’t know if you need it or not.
Since the source of the odor is bacterial growth in your socks, if you can manage to stop it, your socks won’t stink. You can put the socks in question in a plastic bag to make them airtight, waterproof, and freeze.
Of course, this is just a temporary home remedy for living with someone with stinky feet, and while the effect is immediate, it sounds more like a joke when in fact a sock wash is all it takes to fix the problem.
Smelly socks are a daily problem for most people in the world, but you may not know that there are some strange benefits of smelly socks in some ways. One of the rather nice advantages is that they attract mosquitoes, and because of the advantages of smelly socks in this regard, they have been used in mosquito control experiments in areas with high malaria rates.
But that’s not an excuse to torture people around you with smelly socks. The best way to prevent your socks from stinking is to replace them with clean socks regularly, and then wash your dirty socks in time. Spraying deodorant and perfume on stinky socks may temporarily cover up the odor, but it will be like the words the gray wolf left behind when it flew to the sky: I will be back!