How do you tell someone this?

I cannot imagine any way that is tactful. Either you tell him or you don’t. How important is it? How close a relative?

Is it his/her unwashed clothes or odor coming off unshowered or unbathed body? I guess that you probably don’t want to do too much sniffing.

You get them privately, tell them how much you love them and how much you care, and then tell them , ‘you have b.o. ’ Here’s what you can do to get rid of it. ”

I look at it this way… I’d want someone to tell me. There is no way to say it easily, just pick a mellow private time and say something that indicates that your observation is coming from a place of concern for their health and respect that they probably don’t want to smell offensive to others. If it’s not someone that you are particularly close to, you may just want to work some personal-hygiene tips into your small talk, like how there was a great sale on such-and-such product so you stocked-up because it works so well.

@trailsillustrated and @hearkat both give good advice. The best way is to come from a loving concerned place. “I want to tell you in private…”

So you don’t think flying an airplane with a banner that says, ”———has BO” is the way to go?

Well, that’s one plan and has the advantage of leaving the recipient absolutely mystified as to the accuser.

You could pay a guy to don a gorilla suit and deliver a gorilla gram. (Is that still done)?

It is… here

Forget the gorilla; you can get a clown, Elvis impersonator or a large chicken.

Difficult question I think. If it was my partner, or parent, then I could tell them. Anyone else and I don’t think I could. You just don’t know how someone would react. Personally, I would want to be told. In fact there have been times when I have asked people. If I rushed to work, and was sweaty, I would ask people to tell me if I smelt (luckily they didn’t). I think it is kinder to tell someone. Maybe say something like ‘it’s warm today, do you want to borrow my deodorant’.

An anonymous note might be a way to get the information through to the person without risking their ire. A someone who cares about you sort of note. Some medications cause the person taking them to emit an unpleasant odor. When that’s the case, masking it with perfume, after shave, etc.

There’s no other viable way to get around telling them directly, but in private of course. I did this with a guy I’d worked with recently, where we trusted each other enough and I just handed him some deodorant spray. He smiled at me in a sarcastic, but friendly manner.

@ETpro Actually if I was the recipient of that anonymous note I think I would be more terrified than if everybody just pointed to me and said you smell!

Letting someone know he has something stuck in his teeth or hanging out of his nose is hard enough for me. Telling him he smelled bad would be impossible.

I think if someone was really smelly, even when they put clean clothes on, the clothes would get the smell too. I’d be willing to bet that the smell would not come out of the clothes that easily – probably would take more than one washing.

If it were someone I knew well, I would try to ascertain their showering habits. Do they shower every day? If they said yes, maybe they are not thorough in the shower, like maybe they don’t wash everywhere carefully. Maybe they have a medical problem. If they don’t shower every day, I would try to encourage in a friendly way, in a conversational way, something like “You should try showering every day! You’ll feel soo clean and so much better! I use _____this kind of soap and I have this great deodorant. Next time I’m in the store I’ll pick some up for you.” Then get them some soap and deodorant and make it like a fun gift. That’s the only tactful way I can think of to do it and not make them totally embarrassed. Then say “Hey, did you try that soap and deodorant I got you? Don’t you love it?” and see if that encourages them further.

I too vote strongly for skipping the anonymous note. It is a distraction from the main issue. “Who wrote that? My mom? My cleaning lady, my barista, my dentist?”

And there is NO WAY to remove the embarrassment from this encounter. Keep it brief, keep it factual and keep it open only if the recipient wants to.

I am sweating heavily when I exercise in the severe heat now and my clothes are pretty rank when I remove them. One normal laundering brings them back to aromatic neutrality.

Dude, seriously, you have BO. I imagine they would then say “really?”. Yes.

Boom. Done.

I’d say “If you want a piece of this, you’d better shower more often.”
Who knows… you both might get lucky. ;-)

Mmm. Yeah. Gotta get me a piece of a close friend or relative… especially the latter! Yummy!

Seriously though, people have answered it. True friends (whether or not they’re related) are able to compassionately tell one another things other people can’t or won’t. I’d much rather have a loved one tell me something initially uncomfortable to hear than have it hollered or whispered loudly from a stranger walking by.

I wouldn’t say anything. There’s no polite way to do it. Just deal with it.

Well, I can be quite blunt sometimes. So I have no problem doing this if it is someone that I must be around all the time. I pull them aside and let them know that they smell a little.

Purchase an extra spot of your deodorant.

Hand it to them saying “I’m your friend. You need this my friend.”

If the conversation goes beyond that, then say…
“I know… I was so humiliated when someone told me I needed it.”

Then make up some terribly funny story about how you learned the hard way.
Yes… Lie to your friend and put the stink on you.

“Sweetie, you need a shower.”

Maybe they like their own BO.

You (We) Should read Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
http://www.daypoems.net/plainpoems/1900.html
Then find something else to think about.

@josie FWIW I am not concerned about my own sensibilities but how this person might be perceived professionally.

We had a guy on one of my ships that refused to take a shower and put on clean clothes. First he was thrown out of the compartment so he slept on a pile of rope in a cargo hold. That made him stink worse. Finally the guy grabbed him, ripped off his clothes and scrubbed him down with an old fashioned scrub brush.

I was on an assignment when it happened but he was cleaned up and sleeping in his own bunk when I got back. I’m guessing that he would do anything to avoid another session with a scrub brush.

I would probably assume that the person doesn’t know (at least, if this is a change in behavior, that’s what I’d think). So I guess that I’d ask something like that, “How’s your sense of smell these days?” Because aside from health, hygiene or diet and problems that can exist in either of those areas (including dental health, for example), it’s possible that the person is simply unaware of the odor.

Which reminds me:

A little old lady goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor I have this problem with gas, but it really doesn’t bother me too much. My farts never smell and are always silent. As a matter of fact, I’ve farted at least 20 times since I’ve been here in your office. You didn’t know I was farting because they don’t smell and are silent.”

The doctor says, “I see, take these pills and come back to see me next week.”

The next week the lady comes back. “Doctor,” she says, “I don’t know what the hell you gave me, but now my farts…although still silent…stink terribly.”

The doctor says, “Good!!! Now that we’ve cleared up your sinuses, let’s work on your hearing.”

One of my brothers is paranoid schizophrenic. In his 20s he went through a phase where he refused to wear deodorant/ antiperspirant.

Sometimes people with emotional and or mental difficulties may not have good hygiene. Some medications and foods cause BO. Some people are not concerned with their smell and do not realize that they are offensive or smell badly. Some people like the smell.

I would never risk the chance of hurting someone’s feelings by being blunt or direct about their smell.

How bad is it? Is it obvious to everyone? Has the person always had BO or is it a new thing?

Tell you what, I’ll tell your friend they have B.O. if you tell my friend to stop asking me 7 times if I enjoyed every dinner item they served, ask if I have had enough and then repeat the whole routine. Oh, and while you’re at it could you also tell my friend that her annoying habit of pointing right in my face while driving together makes me want to elbow her in the teeth. lol

If it was a really close friend, I’d say “You’re a little ripe.”

Possibly they are aware of it. A few of my girlfriends have said they sweat more and worry more about BO now that they are in their 40’s. What if you try to start a conversation like my girlfriends have. Say that you have noticed you needed to start using one of those super duper antiperspirants, and see maybe if they say they have been having trouble also? Kind of feel out the situation and see if they have any awareness already? Maybe they will be open to suggestions if that is the case.

I wanted to say this too. Twice in my life I’ve been in a situation where someone’s BO was so bad that a boss was forced to tell them to do something about it because co-workers were complaining. Neither time did the person know that it was complaint driven. Here’s how he handled it. One time involved new female employee we had to interact with from a different department. She was very young. The boss begged another female to talk to her and we refused. We finally decided to give her a basket of goodies as a welcome gift that included personal hygiene items like soap, deodorant, perfume, shampoo and such.

The second was a man we worked directly with who, bless his heart, was morbidly obese. He stunk to the high heavens. He was the nicest, brightest guy in the world but you just had to hold your breath when you were near him. His hair was greasy and he didn’t keep himself shaved properly. The boss used that as the door. He told him he needed to keep himself groomed properly; shaved, hair washed and BTW, use deodorant.

I think there are gentle ways to give the stinking advice without hurting someone’s feelings…too badly.

It used to be the norm in Europe to bathe only once or twice a year, because the cold conditions and lack of hot-water plumbing meant that bathing could be hazardous to your health. When I went to England to work in the mid 60s, I had the unfortunate luck to win a job reporting to a fellow who still subscribed to that personal hygiene regimen. I worked in the back of the basement of a building about 150 feet square, and I could smell his noisomeness the moment he walked into the front door on the ground floor. When he did appear, it was always to come talk to me, and by the time he reached me his stench was so like that of a long-dead cadaver that it was all I could manage to keep from retching. God, was I glad to leave that job.

@ETpro; Props for noisomeness.

Thank you for clarifying that the subject is not about your personal preference, but in concern for this person’s judgement by others in the professional world.

Yes, I would have the conversation with the person. One time, I had to conduct such a discussion. Here’s what took place. As the facilitator of a two-week training course, one of my responsibilities was to ensure the success of the participants. A couple of them approached me independently and said that “Stinky’s” BO was so bad that they were having difficulty concentrating while sitting next to him.

At the end of the day, I asked him for a quick word in private. We discussed how class was going for him. I told him honestly how pleased I was with his work and contributions to group projects. Then I asked if he could help me with one factor. I told him that it might not be easy to hear, but it was for the benefit of his business (hotel owner and manager).

“A few people have mentioned to me independently that they smell strong body odor when working around you and are concerned about it. They like you and don’t want others, particularly hotel guests, to judge you because of it.”

Of course “Stinky” was mortified. I just sat back and let the information sink in, then listened while he talked. He wanted to leave the class. I gave him the option of dropping out and returning to another class in the near future, but suggested that he stick with this one as his classmates had bonded with him. I gave him overnight to think about it, as well as my cell phone number in case he wanted to talk. He showed up to class the next day.

He smelled fine for the rest of the class. When we ran into each other a few months later at a conference, he greeted me as if a friend (and still smelled odor-free). As much as I dreaded holding that conversation, I’m glad it happened. It feels like I had a minor role in making someone’s life a little better.

So here is the formula for success: Hold the discussion in private. Provide positive reinforcement on the front end. State the key problem. Finish with a positive statement on their performance. If possible, follow up at a later date with another positive statement about the change.

It works every time.

^^^ Well said, and well done. Let me repeat it.

So here is the formula for success: Hold the discussion in private. Provide positive reinforcement on the front end. State the key problem. Finish with a positive statement on their performance. If possible, follow up at a later date with another positive statement about the change.

I guess nobody like my suggestion for the person’s peers providing a forced cleanliness lessons.