Originally Posted by
halfbakedi420
Would like to start off with explaining to everyone that human scent starts....where else? with the human. humans shed skin cells at a very rapid rate, even though you cant see them.
This is the core of my "obsession" on scent control.
For you skeptics, just check out some of the websites that discuss how bloodhounds and tracking dogs detect and follow humans (e.g.
http://www.napwda.com/tips/index.phtml?id=24). It's not a leap of faith to figure out that deer are doing the same thing, since dogs and deer share a common evolutionary ancestor. Skin cell shedding is just one of the reasons carbon suits are a waste of money, imho.
Just to expand a bit, you shed your skin every 28 days - which means you are shedding ~1000 skin cells a second. When I shower just before hunting, I "exfoliate" my skin - I try to remove those cells that would normally be shed over the next several hours. You can find exfoliation brushes and washcloths in the women's skin care section of the local drug store. I wash/scrub with a "hunter's soap", and follow with another wash using baking soda as a mild abrasive. Just don't over do it!
You can't stop skin shedding any more than you can stop being human. You still need to play the wind. But you may have an advantage over your fellow hunters who don't know or don't want to bother...
-fsh