Why don't smokers realise how bad they smell to non-smokers? They almost make me vomit.?

As others have already mentioned, it's because smoking has affected their sense of smell, and they simply don't notice it. Their homes smell like smoke, their clothes smell like smoke and their skin exudes cigarette odor.

I'm a non smoker, but I'm 54 years old and both my parents smoked heavily as did many people in the 60's and 70's when I grew up. Back then, a person could smoke anywhere, you would even see ashtrays in a doctors waiting room. I never really noticed how strong cigarette smoke smelled until more recent decades and all the public smoking bans.

Occasionally, my wife and I will go to an Indian Casino for a concert or something. Since there are no smoking bans on Indian land, we come home reeking of smoke, it's disgusting. The next morning, the clothes hamper smells like an ashtray, and it's all from second hand smoke.

Imagine living back in the 40's or 50's when everyone smoked. They all reeked but didn't notice it because they cancelled each other out.

Well, they can't smell themselves, so how would you expect them to know?

I'm an ex-smoker who had no way of noticing the smoke odor on me, because you become inured to odors that are there all the time. You can't detect them. It wasn't until I quit that I got a good sense of it, when I smelled it on others.

But you know, quitting improved my sense of smell, and now I notice the noxious smells OTHER people, non-smokers, emit. A lot of men don't use enough deodorant, for example, or possibly they're not using any at all. And many people have appalling breath. Give me a smoke smell anytime, compared with all that.

My smoker boss once put her jacket on the top of mine. It was on the hanger like that for only a few mins but I had to wash it when I got home. That smell was so strong. I don't think they realize it. Otherwise they wouldn't smoke. I also noticed that smokers come from families where at least one family member smokes so they grew up with it.

I can smell it on myself. I usually try to wash my hands right after. I also pull my hair back if I have one. Trying to be courteous to others that don't want to smell it. Its even worse if I had been out with multiple smokers in a car. My clothes next day smell terrible. Awful habit and the more I talk about it them more disgusted I am that I ever picked one up in the first place.

They are inured to it. Just as you can't usually tell if your breath smells. It's hard to believe they can't smell it when entering their home however. I have to hold my breath when they walk by. I wish stores would enforce the ban on smoking within a certain area around the doors though. Workers and customers smoking within a few yards or even feet of where people must walk through, that horrible haze of disgusting, suffocating smoke, sometimes I hold my breath so long I feel faint.

First their sense of smell is deminished. I work in a candle store and have some customers come in reaking of smoke and then saying they can't smell the candles.

People, in general, don't readily notice their own odor.

Both my mother and mother in law could not realize how much they smelled. My mom was selling her house and the one bad response was it smelled of smoke. And she would not believe it, even though several people gave that feed back.

When i quit smoking i hardly ever noticed a smokers presence, but their homes, that's a different story.

And I can't walk down the aisle at the store that has all the laundry detergent, or the one with the perfumes, or be trapped in an elevator with someone who thinks B.O + cologne works.

On the other hand, I love the way horse manure and skunk smell. So go figure.

It's not really them, it's you.

I'm not being insulting, it's just that you're oversensitive.

I know, because I am too.

Except with me, it's people with too their perfume, or aftershave.

Sweat qualifies, as does certain odors people pick up at work.

Because that's an opinion sir, not a fact. It's all subjective.