When I was growing up, summer was my favorite season. Back then, summer meant three homework-free months of camping, swimming, BBQs, hitting up drive-in movie theaters with my friends, epic road trips, fireworks, fields full of lightning bugs, music festivals galore, and family trips to Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. As I've grown older, though, I anticipate summer with an almost equal mixture of excitement and dread. Sure, it's never cold, the days are super long, it's probably the best season for adventuring, and almost everyone is a bit happier — but there are also a lot of gross things about summer that I truly hate dealing with, too.
With summer comes near-constant crotch sweat, face sweat, boob sweat, butt sweat, and blistered, stinky, sandal feet. Plus, whether you live somewhere urban or rural, you're going to have to deal with, like, 1,000 percent more bugs than usual. If you're fair-skinned like me, no matter how careful you are, you're going to experience sunburn at some point, and that sunburn will end up peeling, leaving you picking off your own dead skin for days. If you parent any pets, they're going to smell ripe as hell even one day after their baths. If you live somewhere humid, no amount of showering will keep you from feeling sticky from mid-May until mid-September — and those are just a few of the gross things almost everyone deals with in summer.
Don't get me wrong — I'd rather put up with all of summer's unpleasantness than deal with the cold and dark of winter. That said, I'm really not excited about these 17 gross side-effects of summer.
1. Swamp Crotch
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I feel like even people who don't sweat that much deal with major swamp crotch during the summer months. At least, I certainly do, and I hate it. It doesn't matter if I literally just showered, when it's the dead of summer, it takes less than five minutes outdoors for me to be pretty much covered in sweat down there. Fortunately, though, there are lots of ways to deal with swamp crotch, like investing in some wicking undies and exchanging your skinny jeans for skirts, dresses, and harem pants.
2. Boob Sweat
I have super small breasts, and I still deal with a substantial amount of uncomfortable, sometimes pimple-causing, boob sweat. It's awful, and it's one of the many reasons I wear bralettes, loose-fitting crop tops, and muscle tanks all season long.
If you, unlike myself, are well endowed up top, then you already know boob sweat is more than just annoying AF; it can actually cause rashes and infections. Thankfully, boob deodorant is a real thing.
3. Dirty, Blistered Feet
Unless you wear only sneakers in the summer, which can be both sweaty and constricting, then you're going to deal with some dirty, blistered feet this season. It sucks, because blisters hurt and no one enjoys filthy feet — but the breathability of sandals is worth it all.
4. Greasy Sunscreen Grime
I don't know about you, but for me, wearing sunscreen is non-negotiable. Without sunscreen, I would pretty much have to stay inside all the time like a cave person. I still hate how slimy sunscreen feels when it mixes with my sweat in the summer, though — especially when I'm trying to make something sexy happen, but my whole body is covered in a slippery layer of grime. Yuck.
5. Bug Spray Smell & Residue
Without bug spray, fun things like hiking and camping wouldn't even be an option in the summer, so I'm really glad insect repellent is a thing — but it feels and smells like a punishment. No wonder bugs stay away from it.
6. The Stench Of Citronella Candles
Again, I appreciate anything that can help ward off mosquitoes. But unless you're the one person in the world who enjoys the smell of citronella, then I bet you dread this summer necessity as much as I do. I mean, could it be any stinkier?
7. Melting Makeup
If all you wear is tinted moisturizer and a light coat of mascara, you'll probably be fine. Add some foundation and eyeliner to that, though, and it's just a matter of time before you'll end up looking like that dude whose face melted off at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
8. Extra-Gross Public Bathrooms
Summer heat makes every stinky thing stinkier, and that includes public bathrooms. Add in that widespread summer affliction we call swamp crotch, plus the mixture of sweat, sunscreen, and bug spray we were talking about earlier, and you've got some pretty nasty bathrooms to deal with. Good luck, my friends.
9. Crowd BO
Crowds can be stressful and frustrating as hell even when the weather is nice and no one really smells that bad. Unfortunately, in the summertime, we all kind of smell — and nowhere is this more obvious than in a crowd filled with bad BO. Especially a festival crowd, am I right?
10. Mosquitoes Everywhere
Mosquitoes are basically vampire bugs, and summertime is their jam. So unless you live somewhere magical like Iceland, they will find you, and it will suck. Literally.
11. ... And Ditto Ticks
I don't know where you live, but where I'm from, you can't go outside for very long at all in the summer without a tick latching on to you. It's super gross, and unfortunately, finding them latched on to you isn't even the grossest part. Blech.
12. Skin Peeling
Whether it's from a bad sunburn or it's just from trekking through creeks and trails in wet shoes, summer-skin-shedding happens, and it's never pleasant.
13. Beer Getting Warm Too Fast
OK, so this might be the least disgusting thing about summer. Still, though, warm beer is the worst — and, in my opinion, trying to cool off your beer with ice cubes is almost more gross than drinking it warm would be.
14. Ice Cream Cones = Sticky Hands
If you like ice cream as much as I do, then few things are more appealing to you during the summer than ice cream cones. Are they really worth having stickier hands than most toddlers, though? Probably.
15. Dogs Smelling So. Much. Worse.
Hey, I get it. People stink worse in the summer, too, and we aren't even covered in fur. These facts don't make being in close proximity to a stinky dog any more enjoyable, though. Which is a real bummer, because dogs are awesome.
16. Cooking When Your AC Is Out
I've never actually had to do this, but since cooking in a perfectly air conditioned home can be sweltering enough, I have no doubt trying to cook without AC would be totally miserable and the polar opposite of appetizing.
17. Leaking Period Blood On Your New Swimsuit
Period blood is nothing to be ashamed of, but that doesn't make it any less annoying when you unintentionally free bleed all over the crotch of your brand new bikini. For me, this happens every year. Every. Dang. Year.
Images: Iryna Veklich/Moment/Getty Images
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