Forget love — yuck is in the air.
“Dirty,” “gross” and “disgusting” are just a few of the pejoratives being tossed around by Gen Z women on TikTok, who all claim to have contracted the lamentable “boyfriend air” from grimy male lovers.
Though not a clinically recognized pollutant, the viral #BoyfriendAir epidemic sees angry wives and girlfriends complain that their hair, skin and overall hygiene become inexplicably ruined after spending only a few hours in their guy’s man cave.
“I spent a lot of time this past summer at my boyfriend’s apartment in New York,” explained TikTok user Taylor Donoghuee, 22, from Pennsylvania, in a trending testimonial.
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“I remember taking a full body shower, and the next morning waking up and being like, ‘I feel so dirty,’” she continued in her video, which scared up over 2.5 million views.
The brunette went on to explain that during visits to her sweetheart’s abode, her hair would become greasy and her skin would “act different” and repel her makeup.
“[Boyfriend air] is a thing because it was only in his apartment that I would feel this way,” she said, adding that she originally blamed the odd changes to her body on being in the city. “No, it [was] boyfriend air.”
Under the TikTok hashtag #boyfriendair, the term has amassed over 18 million views from women with similarly icky stories.
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A college student named Lauren Gallardo shared a video of her boyfriend air nightmare. In the beginning of the post, she flashes a bright smile and shows off her “freshly washed” hair before hanging out with her beau. Gallardo then cuts to a clip of her disheveled and matted mane after five hours of being on a date.
Another fed-up girlfriend claimed online, “Two seconds with my boyfriend and suddenly I have no makeup on, my face is puffy and breaking out, I haven’t showered in weeks and my hair looks like a creature has been living in it.”
And while there’s no exact cause of the boyfriend air plague, some online theorists posit that changes to a woman’s skin or hair may come as a result of their guy failing to wash his bed sheets and other linens on a regular basis.
But Heather Wilson, a licensed aesthetician and the Director of Marketing for Ever Skincare, told The Post that even the slightest modification to a woman’s regimen can cause a difference in her look.
“It’s easy to get out of our routines or slack on healthy habits when we are not sleeping or spending time in our own homes,” she said. “Even an occasional change in routine – like not washing your face once or twice a week or eating out more often — can impact the health of our skin.”
Wilson suggests boyfriend air victims try maintaining healthy habits, such as eating right and following their normal skincare practices, during romantic getaways to their significant others’ homes.
“And make sure he’s washing his sheets,” she urged.