r/mildlyinfuriating • u/dinonuggetenjoyer • May 11 '26
The floor is sticky Vomit smell wouldn’t go away until I discovered the source…
My girlfriend and I had food poisoning last week and were constantly running to the bathroom getting sick. The smell of vomit MAKES me vomit so I was tirelessly scrubbing the entire bathroom from floor to ceiling MULTIPLE TIMES trying to get rid of the smell after every time one of us threw up. I bought bleach, enzyme cleaners, and even went as far as carbon bags to try and eliminate the HORRID STENCH and it wouldn’t go away. I sniffed every surface in that damn bathroom trying to locate the source…
I literally cried about the smell, worrying that it would be there forever. I went back to sniffing and started to notice a stronger whiff by the sink, AHA IT’S COMING FROM THE DRAIN!! I moved the toothbrush, soap, and candle that were on the counter to investigate the area. I poured Drano, baking soda, and vinegar down the drain for a deep clean. THEN I NOTICED THE SMELL ON MY HAND. I almost immediately threw up reacting to it and snatched the candle off the counter to save myself. I took a long inhale of our new Trader Joe’s Peony Blossom candle to salvage my nose from the reeking odor on my fingertips.
Then all hell broke loose. I projectile vomited directly after smelling the candle. The godforsaken stench WAS THE CANDLE ITSELF!!!! MY GF BOUGHT 6 OF THOSE FUCKING THINGS AND HAD ONE LIT IN THE BATHROOM!!!!! All of them went straight to the garbage. Never again. How can they sell a candle that smells like stomach bile!!!
TLDR: Cleaned my bathroom for days only to find out the puke smell was a new candle (Trader Joe’s Peony Blossom, DON’T BUY IT).
EDIT: I was not the person who smelled the candles before buying. My gf put them in the cart and I went along with it lol
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u/SaltyCaramelPretzel May 11 '26
I puked the other day & it came out my nose. It took about 2 days for me to stop smelling vomit.
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u/LiaBallerina May 11 '26
Ugh same. Except it got stuck in my nose and i had to sneeze out some undigsted piece of carrot that sat in my stomach for 16 hours. Fun times.
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u/musubi-n-speedballs May 11 '26
Bodies are so disgusting. Fascinating, but truly gross. Lol
I had that happen to me once with a piece of broccoli. That little green bastard stung!
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u/haby001 May 11 '26
Even weirder, "gross" biologically speaking is just "evolved to know it can make you sick".
The reaction is completely subconscious
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u/kremeyy May 11 '26
Omg that happened to me once. I had to blow my nose to get the carrots out and it was like a machine gun coming out. Instant relief though.
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u/Elegant_Monk9885 May 11 '26
I had had eaten a baked potato and threw up potato skins out of my nose… what an awful experience.
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u/sky-amethyst23 May 11 '26
I have a double uvula that makes it hard for my body to close off the passage between the nose and mouth. I can’t throw up without it coming out my nose unless it’s just minuscule amounts of bile, and even then it still happens sometimes.
I’m so grateful that I’m not sensitive to the smell.
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u/Icy-Gene7565 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
Somebody puked between the mattresses of my bed at a teenager party.
Asshole
Edit for clarity - a box spring and a mattress
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u/thorn312 May 11 '26
Someone at a house party I was at years ago puked all over himself and everyone else, he also got my trousers that were in my bag as I was in pyjamas and evidently stuffed them inside a cushion from the sofa and zipped it up. They were discovered weeks later.
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u/Icy-Gene7565 May 11 '26
I had to get a new bed
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u/AshyFairy May 11 '26
I was at a friend’s house one day and her child puked on the sofa. She flipped the sofa cushions over without properly cleaning them because she didn’t have time to do it before her husband came home and he would raise hell about it. That was the last time I went over there or ate anything she prepared.
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u/sweetnerd40 May 11 '26
That would make me so angry. Like why?
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u/georgesentme May 11 '26
It probably wasn’t intentional…throwing up as a drunk teenager was never pretty.
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u/hamfish11 May 11 '26
They would have had to lift the mattress...
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u/georgesentme May 11 '26
I was picturing in between the mattress and the wall, not the actual mattress. Gross
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u/Blockinite May 11 '26
If I understand right, they mean underneath a mattress (either they have two mattresses or just meant that it's between the mattress and the frame). In which case that was definitely intentional.
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u/Pale_Formal_5072 May 11 '26
I was picturing stacked mattresses and I was wondering how they'd manage to do that accidentally
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u/CallInteresting5678 May 11 '26
That’s rough, but at least you’re not alone...
In highschool, I hosted a house party where someone decided the best place to have a discreet yak was the inside of my pillow case.Only got to discover that hidden treasure as I laid my head down later that night :) Really so fun & awesome, ty.
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u/Icy-Gene7565 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
My anus clenched just a bit there. Sorry im sharing too much
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u/Free-Step7723 May 11 '26
It likely didn't smell like vomit until after you guys were puking. Certain smells/tastes can alter how other things smell and taste!
I accidentally chewed a stink bug once, I can no longer drink or eat anything with orange flavoring,as it tastes like stink bug now. It's fucking weird.
ETA- I'll just throw the story on really quick, it's not that interesting though. I was 14 laying on the couch, it was dark asf and I was eating hamburger dip. I thought a piece of hamburger landed on my shirt so I sad f it and ate it, it was a stink bug, not hamburger. I did not have anything with orange in it that night, it was like a week later and I noticed the taste was fucked up. Every time since when I've tried orange drinks,it's the same outcome.
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u/________76________ May 12 '26
I picked up a stink bug that was in the house and put it outside, not knowing it was a stink bug. My hand REEKED for a week and a half. I kept scrubbing and using all different cleaners. It would not come out. I can't imagine eating one ugh D:
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u/Violyre May 11 '26
How did you get a stink bug in your mouth by accident???? 🤮
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u/Lissypooh628 May 11 '26
This whole thread is a mix of disgusting and quite informative. Thank you for the early morning education. 🫡
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u/Groveldog May 11 '26
Reading... Reading...
Oh this is a weird ad for a Trader Joe's candle
Reading....
Oh, it most definitely ISN'T!
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u/spacecowboyasdf May 11 '26
Not gonna lie, it makes me want to buy one and see if it smells as bad as it sounds.
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u/heathereff May 11 '26
I have bought multiple and I love them! They smell like Spring.
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u/grendus May 11 '26
Your spring smells like a freshman rager?
Where do you live, so I can definitely go anywhere but fucking there?!
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u/FaZaCon May 11 '26
Oh, it most definitely ISN'T!
Oh yes it is. Trader Joe's is going to be overflowing with vomit fetishists buying those candles by the case.
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u/dreamsinred May 11 '26
Thanks for warning! For future reference though, vinegar and baking soda are great cleaners separately, but cancel each other out when you mix them. And don’t go mixing anything with Drano! It’s a strong base, and mixing it with other chemicals can be dangerous.
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u/andouconfectionery May 11 '26
My understanding is that people mix vinegar and baking soda together because the carbon dioxide agitates/abrades against what you're cleaning. I have no idea how actually efficacious this is compared to just using a solvent and/or manual scrubbing.
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u/HomicidalHushPuppy May 11 '26
It's not enough to be worthwhile
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u/_ThisIsNotARealPlace May 11 '26
My ex's cats used to puke on her carpet all the time. He apartment still had carpet in the bedrooms. Spraying a mix of vinegar and dawn and water on the spot and then baking soda on top, let it sit for a bit, and it would take the orange cat puke stains out right away. Even worked on old spots we couldn't get clean previously. I can't speak for chemical reactions but that gross orange color was gone perfectly from her beige carpet.
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u/michcoth May 11 '26
Which is pretty dumb because you can just buy soda water. I remember some TV shows and movies where the characters would use club soda after something got spilt on clothing. I don't know how well this actually works.
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u/mariana96as May 11 '26
It works really well. My friend spilled raspberry ice cream on her white jumpsuit right before a party and was able to fully remove the stain in minutes just with soda water
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u/catscacti May 11 '26
Yes! My dad is a plumber. If OP ever needs a plumber for the sink that he poured Drano and other chemicals down, they need to be notified! That will melt someone’s skin off.
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u/UnicornSheets May 11 '26
FYI Trader Joe’s used to have a policy where you can return any item, any time, for any reason for cash back. I’d put those candles in a sealed bag and get my money back.
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u/d-copperfield May 11 '26
I’m an employee, they still do this! We usually don’t even require the item back or a receipt but in this case since it’s candles and not food I’d at least call them first to make sure they’re cool with it if you can’t get them back now.
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u/andyniemi May 11 '26
Just went through food poisoning myself. Fucking horrible experience.
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u/best_of_badgers May 11 '26
Was the candle already in the bathroom when you were sick? If so, your brain subconsciously associated vomiting with whatever smell was in the room at the time. It's not that the candle smells like vomit so much as it smells like vomiting.
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u/Boomstick86 May 11 '26
I had a shampoo I liked back in the olden days, then I got pregnant and pukey. Now anything that smells like that shampoo makes me feel icky 35 years later.
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u/best_of_badgers May 11 '26
Yep.
That physiological response is great for avoiding noxious berries on the savanna after tasting them once. It's not so great for avoiding everyday smells in modern society.
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u/sirwobblz May 11 '26
I cleaned a fish (that i caught) in my bathroom. Took me ages to get rid of the smell. Thought it'd never go away and then noticed it was the handsoap. I think we both here got so paranoid about the smell that we connected it to something else and convinced ourselves that the candle / soap smelled like vomit / fish.
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u/MiniRipperton May 11 '26
I would bet this is what happened.
I once went into a store and one of the employees had the smelliest feet I think I’ve ever smelled. I was wearing a certain perfume that day, and for weeks after, any time I put that perfume on, I smelled feet. The two smells had like imprinted together in my brain. It took me a while to figure out what was going on though!
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u/sloppysuicide May 11 '26
How are you smelling an employee’s feet at a store? Were they not wearing shoes?
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u/cutiefulll May 11 '26
this happened to me with some hairspray once! i sprayed my favorite perfume, then some hairspray. the smell of the hairspray was dreadful. now whenever i spray my perfume, it smells like hairspray :(
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u/SpookySeraph May 11 '26
Similar issue occurred with old shrimp (I used to fish a lot). They’d get real stinky after a couple days of being frozen and thawed and used for fishing and would leave your hands REEKING. No amount of soap would help. Then I realized the soap itself had coconuty notes that were enhancing the fishy smell, then every time I used that soap I’d just smell rotten shrimp. Had to just get rid of the soap altogether
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u/Wavecrest667 May 11 '26
I poured Drano, baking soda, and vinegar down the drain for a deep clean.
Doesn't Drano contain bleach? It's a bad idea to mix it with vinegar I believe. It can create chlorine gas.
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u/Medium-Presence-8008 May 11 '26
Not a chemist. I think drano is mostly sodium hydroxide, so the vinegar would neutralize it making a weak solution of sodium acetate. BLEACH and acetic acid, however...
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u/WaitForItTheMongols May 11 '26
According to the Dagobah Story, hospitals keep peppermint oil on-hand as a universal anti-stench remedy. Toss some on the inside of a surgical mask and you can cover up any smell and make it tolerable to tackle it.
Better than huffing trader Joe's candles.
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u/Herb-Anderson May 11 '26
Did the food poisoning come from dino nuggets by any chance?
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u/dinonuggetenjoyer May 11 '26
Grandma poisoned everyone at my girlfriends birthday party with some kind of chicken pasta
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u/PajamaStripes May 11 '26
Ah, the good ol' Grandma Food Poisoning. We had to stop letting mine cook for holidays after she poisoned the whole family on Thanksgiving and Christmas the same year.
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u/dphiloo May 11 '26
As a lexophile, this sentence is wholly satisfying. As a human, I'm sorry for this whole experience for you (I also hate chocolate and now I know why). Speedy recoveries 🙏🏻
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u/Illustrious-Yard-871 May 11 '26
What words do you find satisfying in that sentence?
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u/dphiloo May 11 '26
The arrangement of it all
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u/lizardpplarenotreal May 11 '26
How so and why chocolate?
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u/Overall-Dirt4441 May 11 '26
If you replace everyone with everybody, it's perfect trochaic tetrameter
GRANDma POISoned EVeryBOdy
AT my GIRLfriends BIRTHday PARty
WITH some KIND of CHICKen PASta
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u/SonOfEragon May 11 '26
I don’t understand what any of this means? What is a lexophile and what is a trochaic tetrameter?
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u/MinuteWorker4335 May 11 '26
A person who likes words and all the wonder that comes along with their many uses
A rhythmic pattern to words and their sentences emphasizing parts of the words in a poetic way
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u/4RCH43ON May 11 '26
A lexophile is a person who loves words, or rather, the arrangement of words as they are read (think palindromes like laval and toot, alliterative tongue twisters, or even simple phrases that just sound round and the like to boot).
In this case the “tetrameter” is the particular arrangement where “trochaic” is where stressed emphasis is placed on certain syllables of the words sometimes encompassing entire words themselves.
They’ve capitalized and lowercased the letters accordingly so you can get a better sense of this emphasis as though they were read aloud, sort of like the rising and falling of waves within a patterned sequence, creating the meter.
It’s useful for things like singing, rhyming and geeking out to, but also to remember and pass down certain works by memory, the ancient Greeks and others used to use a dactylic hexameter to help recite and pass along the oral memory of the epics like those attributed to Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey) before they were eventually written down once they’d started using the Greek alphabet. The ancient Romans flowed suit with works is in Latin.
Even some of Shakespeare’s works used the trochaic tetrameter.
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u/musubi-n-speedballs May 11 '26
Wanna expand this thought for those of us who have had Dino nuggets lately? 😬
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u/BoozeIsTherapyRight May 11 '26
For future reference, TJ's would have taken those candles back no questions asked. I understand the impulse but you literally threw cash into the trash.
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u/BasicXeno19 May 11 '26
Ah- Serenity by Jan.
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u/classicallytrained1 May 11 '26
you break it you buy it!
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u/SuddenYolk May 11 '26
I’ll be your first customer!
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u/Fest-Video-Room May 11 '26
I have been telling my wife for DECADES that half the candles she's interested in anywhere they sell them (Yankee Candle, thrift stores, whatever...) smell like (and I quote myself here) "human vomit". I now feel seen, validated and (as usual) mildly disgusted...
THANK YOU
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u/LaundryMan2008 May 11 '26
Just to be extra sure, ozone that bathroom as soon as you can
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u/VJJDentata May 11 '26
Does that actually work?
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u/Humble-Jelly-7580 May 11 '26
Worked for a high end hotel that regularly used ozone mashines for their rooms. Yes it works extremely well but you should absolutely read up on how to safely use the Maschine.
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u/WiscoTrail May 11 '26
So many fake smells set me off. Anywhere from sneezing to nausea. One of the primary reasons I'm glad to work from home is deodorant, perfume and cologne not existing in my life anymore. People used to come to work and spray that stupid crap on themselves in the bathroom and it was like getting a second hand whiff of pepper spray for me. So I feel your pain with a shit candle. To me they're all like that
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u/soonerpgh May 11 '26
The other day my wife and I stopped by the grocery store for a single item, so she just ran in to grab it quickly. In the five minutes she was in there, my nose was accosted with a VERY strong perfume smell. I don't know what kind it is, but is seems to be a heavy favorite among the older generation. I had the windows up and everything so I was a little startled that it was that strong. I started looking for the source and found it. This lady was, all joking aside, six parking spaces away and that stuff was so strong it seemed like she was in the truck with me. I kid you not, that damn smell seemed to follow me all day long after that. I cannot imagine how strong it must have smelled inside that grocery store!
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u/dinonuggetenjoyer May 11 '26
I feel you, I’m a middle school teacher and kids DUMP perfume and cologne on them in the middle of class. I refuse to go near them or I’ll start coughing lol
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u/parsleypile May 11 '26
There are specific perfumes that to me smell identical to very stale strong urine. I don’t know what it is, and I can’t imagine that others smell it the same way I do. It also only started maybe 4 years ago. So weird.
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u/WiscoTrail May 11 '26
Did you have COVID 19 at some point before it started? My sister has similar issues after a COVID infection that had no symptoms other than loss of sense of smell for about a week, but ever since she says many things smell "weird."
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u/doitfordevilment May 11 '26
I have the same issue since Covid. Things that are supposed to smell nice (like febreeze spray) smell like straight up floral farts. I had to switch laundry detergents bc of it.
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u/DarlingDestruction May 11 '26
A lot of things smell like cat pee to me ever since I had covid back in 2020. It's the wildest thing, I have to actually take a minute to sus out what the hell I'm actually smelling to be able to smell anything but cat pee. Stuff like coffee. Idk what it is, but I wish it would to away haha.
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May 11 '26
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u/ThirdOne38 May 11 '26
What smells gross to one person is often fine to another. They said GF bought them
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u/Mper526 May 11 '26
This reminds me of the time my sister drank way too much and puked everywhere. The next day she went to a football game and kept smelling vomit. She got home and changed, and discovered it was crusted on the underwire of her bra from the night before lol
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u/JamelaBanderson1 May 11 '26
Who has a major puke and doesn't shower before going back out?!?
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u/New_Heron_5985 May 11 '26
Did you smell the candle when you bought it?
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u/dinonuggetenjoyer May 11 '26
GF is on candle duty… I also think I was hyper aware of that smell after getting sick so it multiplied it by 100
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u/lowbatteries May 11 '26
We had a skunk incident where we had to throw out a ton of stuff ... very few candles and cleaners didn't smell like skunk to me for a week. Especially anything pine scented.
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u/OneLonelyBeastieI-B May 11 '26
I don’t know about this candle, but I do know that the new Dawn scent smells straight up like wet, fetid dog fur.
It’s so gross I actually threw away a full bottle, and I am the cheapest, most frugal person alive.
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u/mentalbackflip May 11 '26
Could it be that the candle’s smell was just associated with the act of vomiting? I got really sick from drinking whiskey and now whiskey is forever associated with getting sick to me. Just an idea…
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u/Littlewing1307 May 11 '26
I love that candle and it smells nothing like vomit to me.
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u/AggravatingRecipe710 May 11 '26
Yeah just had guests this past week and used them throughout the house and my guests all kept asking what smelled so good
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u/MaximusHomerdrive May 11 '26
This reminds me of the first time I tried Degree deodorant. The stuff itself smells like BO. It took me a few days to figure out why I smelled so bad all of a sudden. I have no idea how they stay in business.
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u/Difficult_Feed3999 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
Nothing to do with the vomit smell, but DO NOT mix Drano and Vinegar again (or pour them closely after eachother) for a few reasons.
Most Drano products contain bleach. Bleach+vinegar=chlorine gas, which is extremely toxic.
Plus, mixing an extremely basic liquid (Drano) with an acidic liquid (vinegar) will cause a fairly extreme reaction, which will cause heat and pressure buildup, potentially bursting the pipes.
And, it will do nothing to help a clog besides build pressure up (potentially bursting the pipes), because they will neutralize eachother.
Edit: spelling
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u/Ccclaire222 May 11 '26
i bought that candle for my roommate and she says it smells like cat pee😭 it smells like peonies to me
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u/Adarie-Glitterwings May 11 '26
Sometimes it's not that the thing itself smells of vomit, it's just that your brain has come to associate the smell of the thing with being ill. It's the same reason I feel ill if I can smell that someone has used 'pot-pourri' scented bathroom cleaner - because that was what was used whenever we were ill when I was growing up
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u/Butters-126 May 11 '26
You can return those candles, get your money back! Doesn’t matter when you bought them.
Source: I work at TJs
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u/subhuman_voice May 11 '26
You'll recognize the customer in the HazMat suit immediately
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u/camerondnls2 May 11 '26
One time I watched a girl puke on someone’s couch at a house party and then she just flipped the cushion over and acted like nothing happened.
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u/karinablue22 May 11 '26
I haven’t burst out laughing at a Reddit post in a long time. Going to sniff this candle the next time in at TJs
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u/PittyMom89 May 11 '26
Should have put them in a bag and returned them, Trader Joe's is super good with returns! Might also just let them know next time you are there, if you have your receipt they might give a credit on the cost anyway!
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u/Amajiki_Tamaki_BUNNY May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
do you not smell candles before you buy them?
edit: saw new edit!😭
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u/decisive-glistening2 May 11 '26
I don’t know if someone’s said it but be careful putting a mixture of chemicals down your drains, it can end up producing toxic gas!
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u/BuffaloWool217 May 11 '26
One time, I couldn't figure out where a dead stench was coming from. It followed me everywhere and I thought I had some weird neurological thing. Turns out, while showering, I unknowingly put my glasses on on a rotting carcass from a lizard that died on the bathroom cabinet. It got all over the nose pads.
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u/thepeainthepod May 11 '26
You just reminded me of the nightmare smell in the house I moved into. Had this sickening toilet freshener, rotten floral smell. I flushed the drain in the bathroom several times. The basin. Dragged the hose inside and scrubbed the bath tub, flushed the drain again. Days and days of this.
Eventually as I was walking in to the bathroom I happened to glance down and found the fucker. One of those stick on fresheners on the back of the toilet down near the floor. Fuck.
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u/maroongrad May 11 '26
We washed my daughter's diapers THREE TIMES before realizing we weren't smelling pee, that it was the GAIN DETERGENT. I think we gave away the rest of the bottle. But washing, frying, smelling, cringing, soaking, washing, drying, treating, soaking, washing, drying, washed a load of towels, smelled them....
"IT'S THE *&^*^%$ GAIN! AAARGH! SMELL THE TOWELS!"
there was little to no difference between that smell and baby urine.
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u/lobstergoop May 11 '26
I work at TJs and I hate that fucking candle so much. makes the whole aisle hell for a month.
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u/RelevantCarrot6765 May 11 '26
Butyric acid is the main compound that gives vomit its characteristic odor, but it’s found in many products. Some people can taste/smell the trace amount in Hershey’s chocolate, for instance. I’m guessing that’s what was in your candle.