I rinse my hands in cool water and then rub them on  my stainless steel faucet and it removes the smell..
Why?

???
I remember one of my Botany professors in college, who was very into garlic, recommending that you always wash your hands in C
OLD water after handling garlic, not HOT.  He said the hot water would "set" the smell and make it last longer.  No idea why, though, or what the odor remover bars or stainless-steel sink might have to do with it...

I find that  rubbing my hands with lemon juice then rinsing in water works great .

I've used a combination of salt & lemon juice under cold water. It usually works very good for onion & garlic

I'd love to remember which food science author it was and what exactly they said but... I do know that stainless steel reacts with the odor causing compound in garlic and that reaction removes the smell. Any stainless steel will do the trick (faucet, spoon, pan, etc.) so don't waste your money on those gadgets.

Apparently cutting a potato in half and rubbing it over your hands will work too. I've never felt the need to try it though.

Alton Brown recommended the stainless steel trick in his garlic episode of Good Eats (though he shunned the expensive stainless steel hunks sold in stores, when one could just as easily use, say, a common spoon)

I wish I could remember what he said about why it works. Something about ions and molecular interactions, perhaps.

Sorry, that didn't help much, did it?

Hello Diva,
And all other comment posters.

I have been pondering this question for a while and I think I can speculate on the reason why the garlic smell on ones hands often disappears when rubbed on steel.

Garlic stores a chemical in its tissue called alliin (correct spelling). An unblemished garlic cloves smells very little but when damaged or crushed, an enzyme breaks down alliin into allicin (the smell of fresh garlic) and Diallyl disulfide.
After a relatively short time (30 min to 1hr) most of the allicin converts to diallyl disulfide (DADS).  

Allicin is thought to be a chemical compound that garlic has evolved to use defensively.  Allicin has anti-insect and antimicrobial properties. Great mechanism: damage tissue,  receive a chemical assault.

Like many sulfur containing chemical compounds (ex. skunk urine) allicin and DADS have a strong odour.

Both chemicals also are chemical cousins of DMSO.

All of these chemicals have particular affinities to iron.  Allicin and DADS travel well in iron rich blood because of this affinity.  When the blood reaches the lungs, their perfume is expel in the breath (i.e bad breath).

This iron affinity is strong enough that rubbing ones smelly hands on iron objects (i.e faucet) will take away these smelly compounds which prefer sticking to iron (steel).  

Apparently, it is known amongst real old chefs that chopping large amounts of garlic (as a sous-chef) can dull  a knife (probably because of this chemical iron affinity).

I can add more details but suffice said for this post.

Luc H.