The garlic like smell of DMSO just doesn't leave you if it gets into your skin. It's "safe" but really, really bad to have fingertips smelling of it for days. I wish I had those bovine gloves during my PhD...
It's even more insidious than that -- it is not only your fingertips that smell, since it penetrates the skin so readily. Pure DMSO itself is odorless, but it is metabolized into DMS, which stinks unbelievably strongly of garlic. The DMS has a very high systematic half-life (38 hours!!!) and remains dissolved in the blood, meaning your blood itself will stink of garlic for days after exposure.
The gut punch, however, is that the victim is reportedly unable to smell it (probably because their olfactory tissue is literally awash in DMS), so they don't realize they smell like walking garlic bread.
isn't DMSO used as a (home?) remedy for joint pain?
I've thought about trying it but have visions of it leaching the dye from my clothing and transporting it into my bloodstream. the garlic wouldn't make me many friends, but dissolving poisons is scarier.
