Why does it feel like the smell of hot pot on your body lasts longer than perfume?

It is undoubtedly a happy thing to sit together with a few friends and eat hot pot. However, after the hot pot is finished and everyone leaves, they often feel that there is an lingering smell of hot pot on their bodies, which seems to be more "fragrant" than the carefully sprayed perfume. Why is this?

Why does the smell of hot pot come to you?

Some people believe that hot pot has a strong flavor because of the high content of additives, but in fact this statement is unfounded.

The aroma of boiling hot pot mainly comes from oil, pepper and other spices. The volatile flavor substances contain high levels of alcohol compounds, aldehyde compounds and lipid compounds, which are the key to the aroma of hot pot.

These substances evaporate under high temperature, diffuse in the air, and become the main source of hot pot aroma.

Hot pot contains a lot of animal fats and volatile spices. The water vapor produced during steaming and cooking will firmly lock in these fat-soluble, volatile flavor components.

During the cooking process, the greater the amount of water lost, the more volatiles evaporate into the air, and the stronger the taste.

When eating hot pot, the volatile odors produced by evaporation continue to increase the fragrance around the diners. The surface of people's clothes, hair and even skin has a certain degree of roughness and porosity, which can effectively capture and absorb these odor molecules. Various oil particles not only increase the adhesion of hot pot smell, but also make it more difficult to remove.

Which clothes are more likely to absorb hot pot smell?

Careful friends may find that every time you eat hot pot, the concentration of hot pot smell absorbed by clothes is different. This is closely related to factors such as clothing material, adsorption area, and meal time. Clothes of different materials have different adsorption abilities for hot pot smell. Generally speaking, clothing materials with complex structures and more gaps have stronger "odor absorption" abilities. In the comparative experiment of wool, cotton, and gauze absorbing hot pot smell, wool has the strongest adsorption ability.

The experiment found that under the same kind of pot bottom, the smell of cotton clothing dissipates relatively slowly. Polyester fiber (polyester) is lipophilic and will absorb the fatty compounds in the odor, and the odor will also dissipate more slowly.

Therefore, sweaters and down jackets worn in winter have a strong ability to absorb odors. If you are worried that a large area of ​​your coat will easily be contaminated with hot pot odor and it is inconvenient to clean, you can use plastic bags to pack the clothes in advance to achieve physical isolation.

Why is the smell of perfume not as long-lasting as the smell of hot pot?

The retention time of odor depends on the carrier material, concentration, action time and volatilization rate of the volatile substance.

Although the modern perfume industry has developed a variety of fragrance-retaining technologies, none of them are as long-lasting as the scent of hot pot. Why is that?

This is due to the completely different mechanisms of action of the two: perfume adopts "airborne tactics", spraying aromatic molecules on the surface of clothing through volatile carriers such as ethanol; while hot pot flavor implements "steam fumigation", using steam as a sedimentation penetrating carrier and utilizing a continuous heat source for deep penetration.

The most important factor that determines the fragrance retention time of perfume is the volatility and action time of different fragrance raw materials, that is, the volatilization speed of the raw materials used in perfume. This is closely related to the vapor pressure, olfactory threshold and molecular weight of the raw materials.

Citrus flavors usually evaporate within 2 hours due to their small molecular weight, while woody flavors can last for 4-6 hours. However, the molecular weights of capsaicin and prickly ash amide in hot pot are much higher, so they are naturally more difficult to evaporate and remove.

Another factor is the difference in duration of action. A full hot pot meal usually lasts 90-120 minutes; in contrast, perfume spraying is completed in just 10 seconds, and there is a lack of sustained energy replenishment afterwards.

How to remove the hot pot smell?

The fundamental way to remove the hot pot smell is to remove the hot pot flavor components adsorbed on the fabric. However, large pieces of clothing are inconvenient to wash, so how can we remove the hot pot smell as quickly as possible in this case?

1. Ventilation method

Hanging clothes in a ventilated place can usually effectively reduce most of the odor of the clothes, but it is not the best effect on deodorizing details such as cuffs.

You can try spraying some lemon water on the cuffs and then hanging the clothes, or you can wash the cuffs separately.

2 Steam method

If you plan to take a shower at home after eating hot pot, you might as well hang your clothes in a steamy bathroom first, and then put them in a ventilated place to dry.

High-temperature steam can remove odor molecules from clothes, thus achieving the effect of deodorization.

3. Small Appliance Assistance

You can use a hair dryer and blow the evaporating water vapor towards the surface of the clothes for a few minutes. Shake the hair dryer constantly when using it to avoid making one place too hot and burning the clothes.

If conditions permit, you can put the clothes in a plastic bag with a hole cut at the bottom and blow dry them with a hair dryer for a few minutes. High-speed airflow can be formed in a small space, which improves the efficiency of blowing.

You can also hang the clothes and iron them with a steam iron, which can also achieve a similar deodorizing effect as high-temperature steam.

Audit experts:

Zhou Hongzhi

Senior Experimentalist, School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Beijing University of Technology

Master Supervisor