Picture the scene: a nice relaxing shower, the water’s warm and the pressure is high. You’ve just applied your favourite soap and you’re feeling clean, fresh and ready to take on the world.
Then you feel it building and out of nowhere: PARP! Now your nice soapy freshness is overpowered by the undeniable stench of a shoe that has just squelched through the freshest of dog turds on a warm summer’s day.
But the raw sewage smell is confusing – no one spends more time with you than yourself, and at this point in your life you are well aware of what your own farts smell like.
So why was this one so atomically offensive and why did it smell like the one thing guaranteed to stink so much worse than your own fart – someone else's?
Thankfully, expert Julie Thompson has the answers.
The information manager at Guts UK says people normally fart around 15 times per day, though this can vary between three and 40 depending on your diet.
She said that under normal circumstances: "Smelly wind is caused by chemicals that are produced by bacterial fermentation in the bowel. Some foods, like garlics and onions, may produce smelly gasses."
But why then, when stepping into the safety of our showers are our nostrils suddenly at so much more risk?
Why do farts seem to smell worse in the shower?
One key thing to note is that it isn't a question of whether the farts themselves are actually more stinky in the shower, but why they suddenly become more noticeable.
In other words, you’re still dropping the same powered bomb, but other factors based on your surroundings makes you feel that power far more than you usually would.
To break down this mystery, the Daily Star spoke to Hussain Abdeh, clinical director and superintendent pharmacist atMedicine Direct, to help get to the bottom of things.
He said: “There is no evidence to suggest that farts are actually stronger in the shower than they are anywhere else. However, certain practical factors of showering make the smell much more noticeable.
“The smell is often more noticeable in the shower for the simple reason that you are naked. When you fart while wearing clothing, some of the odour and gas is absorbed into your clothing, which often masks some of the smell.
“However, when you are naked in the shower, there is no such barrier. This means your nostrils will bear the full brunt of your wind.”
Hussain adds that the lack of cloth protecting your nostrils from fartmageddon isn’t the only reason farts seem so much more sinister.
“Showers are also enclosed spaces, particularly if you have a shower that has glass windows all around it.
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“This means that when you fart, your naked body has no clothing barrier, and the smell will linger in a confined space that will make it far more noticeable.”
The reasons for the fartnami don’t stop there, with the aggressive odour actually caused by a triple threat of stink-heightening factors.
Hussain said: “If you are having a hot shower, the steam will also enhance your sense of smell. This makes your nostrils much more sensitive to unusual odours; this is why you can always smell your shampoo and body washes so much when you are showering but not so much when you are out of the shower.
“Research shows that humidity can make it easier for humans to smell odours at smaller concentrations, which means that a smelly fart will smell twice as much.”
So there you have it. Those farts aren’t necessarily worse (although that depends on what you’ve been eating).
Instead, the wildly different environment to your regular fart territory causes the noxious gas to behave differently affect our senses in alternative ways.
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