My SIL has a health condition that causes her to sweat more than average, she can nothing at all physically but still be sweating bullets, it can even be cold out and she still breaks a sweat. This is something that I’ve always known about her since we started talking back in high school and although we weren’t super close back then it was something I can live with. Now flash forward to modern day and I’m now with her brother, and she often likes to stop by very often since we live very close together, this I absolutely don’t mind since she’s overall a sweet person and likes to bring free food. The only issue is that she smells, like absolutely foul.
I knew she wasn’t the most hygienic person sometimes out of forgetfulness but after she moved out of her parents house and nobody is there to have to remind her to shower, put on deodorant, brush her teeth, etc. you can clearly tell she doesn’t do any of that nearly as much as she should. Now anytime she comes over her smell erks me, after she leaves I open all the windows in the apartment and spray the entire place down, I have to fight myself from gagging whenever she goes to hug me, and sometimes I can barely be around her for dinners without her body odor grossing me out too much to even focus on the food.
This was the exact case while we where all out at dinner together where her smell at some point was bad that I had to go to the bathroom to throw up and at that point I completely had enough of her stench. After dinner I pulled her aside and tried my best to gently explain to her that she REALLY needs to shower and put on deodorant since she smells awful. Her reaction? To remind me that she can’t help it due to her health condition since she’d just sweat through all of her deodorant not even halfway through the day. That’s when I flat out told her I don’t care about her health condition and that if anything because of it she should be even more hygienic, even going as far as to offering to even buy her deodorant and soap if it means she just uses it. She ended up breaking down crying about how she can’t help her condition and she doesn’t understand why I’m being so mean to her. Did I point it nicely? Absolutely not, but it’s starting to drive me insane that everytime I’m around her she smells like a barnyard. So now I need to know if I’m in the wrong for this one.
Edit: I decided to make an edit since there’s more context here to it. I’ve told her before about her smelling bad, more gently than now. From multiple times of offering her perfumes and asking if she plans on seeking a professional to having to come over the her house to buy her deodorants and soaps since she won’t buy them on her own often times since she views buying scented body washes or deodorants as a waste of time and money. Her parents for years has also ran into this same issue, if which they’ve offered help but she’d refuse to take it since she didn’t want to deal with it and has just excepted it as a part of her life. I have gone back and apologized, we had a long talk about things and she agreed to start working on her hygiene in exchange that I do right and don’t act like that again.
“I don’t care about your health condition” is the AH part for sure, you were frustrated and it showed.
But just a mild one, because she for sure puts in zero efforts and thinks that people need to cope with her smell, I’m pretty sure you ain’t the first person to tell her she stinks.
ESH
She should still be taking care of herself and putting forth effort even with the condition. But is this the first time you’ve talked to her about it? Maybe she wasn’t fully aware of how bad it is because she’s used to it, and you came out of nowhere harshly telling her to do more. Saying that you didn’t care about her condition was insensitive. You made her cry over something she can’t have but so much control over. You’re tired of it, I get it, but you could have been a lot more polite about it. She should still put in some sort of effort to help her hygiene regardless
There are prescription antiperspirants! You apply them to dry skin at night and it blocks your sweat glands. Also if it’s really bad then can get Botox! NTA! But I hope the free food she brings over isn’t prepared by her. If you say she has bad hygiene then you know she’s not washing her hands when she cooks.
Antiperspirants can make the SIL’s condition worse. I have HS which causes sweating while doing nothing and both deodorant and antiperspirants make it worse. I hope the SIL can find something that works and OP can kindly help if she needs it (finding a great dermatologist can help).
Fellow HS sufferer here. if you haven’t tried it, Mitchum spray antiperspirant deodorant works a dream for me. Only one that’s ever stopped the ridiculous sweating for me.
NTA. Her parents should have dealt with this long ago. They and others in her life who tolerated it did her no favors. I do think you should talk to her again and tell her you do care about her but if she wants to come into your home and spend time with you that she has to stay clean. You should get on the same page with your husband before you talk to her, and agree how you’ll handle it when she tests you to see if you really are going to enforce it. You should. She can of course live her life however she chooses, but not necessarily in your vicinity.
Maybe her brother should talk to her
NTA.
She needs to see her doctor because there are a variety of treatments available for excessive sweating. She is neglecting herself by ignoring this and doing nothing about it, never mind expecting others to put up with it too.
You could have been nicer in how you told her, but you will not be the only person who has told her she smells.
NTA. I have hyperhidrosis. I take medication that helps massively with this. There are sooo many ways to cope with hyperhidrosis.
Had a friend that got botox shots for it, and she said it helped immensely
Mine is primarily craniofacial, so botox is less helpful lol (though I do get it for migraines). But between oxybutynin, clinical strength antiperspirant, and Lume, I do okay.
Lume is amazing! But I somehow developed an allergy to it, even the unscented stuff. I use HiBar deodorant now, but clinical strength Degree antiperspirant worked great for me before I switched to aluminum-free. (My genes make me stinky. I shower every morning, sniff-test my armpits regularly, and constantly suck on Altoids when I need to be close to people. Losing 100 pounds and hitting menopause also helped.)
I have hyperhidrosis too. Try getting her Michum Clinical strength gel (has to be the clear gel kind) antiperspirant. It stops the bacteria and works for more than 12 hours. It’s amazing.
NTA. I don’t know if the people who are saying otherwise don’t shower and know they smell bad and are projecting or what because while I understand that the sister-in-law has that condition, we’re talking about the fact that since she’s been living alone and has no one to remind her to shower, she smells so much worse, so bad, that OP had to go and throw up because of the smell. I couldn’t be around someone that smell that bad on a regular basis.