do you not smell body odor or do you just get used to it?
Genuinely curious. I have met a few people of different walks of life that I could tell did not and I have always used it, so I’m just curious. I know there was a couple that stopped using it for around a year, and they said their body actually end up not perspiring as much as when they used antiperspirant, but I’d like to know other people’s experiences.
How do you know they all weren’t wearing it?
There are a lot of people who do wear it but continue to smell because of underlying medical conditions. For example, fruity smelling body odor can indicate diabetes. People with a rare genetic condition called Trimethylaminuria can smell strongly of fish. It all depends on what bacteria (which outnumber your own body cells by 10 to 1 even though they are only 2% of your body mass) and what balance of enzymes you may or may not have.
Reducing perspiration can and often does help, concealing the odor with different ones can help, but sometimes people’s bodies just aren’t right for whatever mass produced product they have bought. Sometimes that can be fixed with medication. Sometimes it can’t.
That’s a fair point. I guess only one or two I knew said they didn’t use it because of the aluminum, but I didn’t get to ask more about it.
Regular deodorant works just as well as antiperspirant for stopping scent, and if you don’t sweat all that much, there is relatively little difference.
This is what I do. I don’t like the ingredients that make up antiperspirants so I stick with not stinking.
I generally don’t sweat too badly either, which helps.
Exactly. Luckily I don’t sweat much or smell much, so basic solid unparfumed deodorant works fine.
Do you mean deodorant? I don’t use antiperspirant because it actually makes me sweat more in my experience. I’m not alone on this either.
So here is what I’ve noticed.
The acceptance of sweat BO is partly a cultural thing. At my workplace we have people from all over the world, and there are certain parts of the world where it is clearly uncommon to wear deoderant. Both men and women, although I have noticed it far more with men. I guess if everyone had natural BO, it wouldn’t seem so unusual.
This is not to be confused with uncleanliness, I’m sure these people shower, the scent is purely one of sweat from hard physical labor. It is never better or worse, but always the same and in fact, you can identify people by their particular unique scent.
Sometimes I’m a bit disturbed by strong manly BO because they are too… arousing. Specially in places like at work where feeling arousal is the last thing I want.
It’s not just cultural in terms of nations it’s also dependent on the type of work. You’re going to be critical of a taxi driver stinking of BO when he sits in an air conditioned cab all day, but not somebody doing physical labour in the open air
Some people don’t sweat that much. For example, I have to use antiperspirant to avoid body odor but my wife don’t need to use one and I can’t smell odor.
This is probably related to this genetic trait. I have wet earwax and body odor, while my wife has dry earwax and no body odor.
Quote from the article:
In general people with the non-functioning ABCC11 variant don’t need to wear deodorant.
Wet earwax??
Yep this actually varies among people. The “wet” type is soft kinda like warm candle wax, and more common in the West. AFAIK the “dry” type is more brittle and crumbly and more common in East Asia.
Apparently I got that too. Confirmed by my first gf, I barely smell while sweaty. And my earwax is dry/flaky.
As many others have said, the choice is not between antiperspirant and nothing. I use deodorant but no antiperspirant.
Deodorant user here. I smell great because of it. I didn’t like antiperspirant because I also found I smelt worse because of it and it never really stopped the sweat very well anyways.
Something you may not factor in though is people expire at different rates. Also, some people smell worse than others regardless of expiration time and some perspire more.
I’ve never once noticed someone’s body odor. On the other hand, some who just finished showering using a fruity shampoo reeks imo. Ditto for people who use perfume or cologne. And those often can also cause allergies for many people…
Yep, I have some sensitivity to fragrances and perfumes and unfortunately, people who use standard shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, laundry soap and dryer sheets smell horrible to me, sometimes from 5 feet away or just being in the same room. Some shampoo is so strong that I can smell it just from them having been in the same room 3 minutes ago. It’s unfortunate that sometimes, it’s people who think they’re being civilized and responsible, while in fact their scented stuff is causing problems that won’t exist otherwise. It’s actually harder to find products that don’t do this, though, as the standard American mainstream brand ones are all awful as far as fragrances go (Pantene, pert, suave, Gain, Tide, Bounce, Snuggle etc).
I’ve never once noticed someone’s body odor
You are truly fortunate xD
I work in a warehouse and omg the things I have smelled. The worst is when the person working in front of me has strong BO and a fan is blowing it into my face all day.
Can’t be worse than someone with cologne sitting between you and a fan…
Really depends on the cologne / dosage
Lol I take pure cologne over stinky any day
Your comments are making it sound like you smell bad and just cant tell
Oh is that why everyone flees when I enter a room?
lol I would actually like to know how I smell to others. Gross, exotic… enticing? Assuming freshly showered and let’s say no scented soaps or anything. Just normal scent.
My partner says not at all. The only thing that really bothers me is underarm odor, being transfem I feel like mine is a bit too masc, I need to reappy deoderant halfway through my shift at work.
Also would like to know how my voice sounds to others…
I feel like you must never have been in middle school if you’ve never smelled somebody else’s body odor. Those kids need to be told to use antiperspirant by their gym teachers/coaches for a reason.
Also that you must have never had sex.
Been to middle school. Can’t say BO was a problem. Axe body spray OTOH? Definitely was.
Can confirm lack of experience with sex.
Axe body spray wasn’t around when I was in middle school. So everybody just smelled like BO after gym class.
Lucky you. No wonder you think BO is bad if you didn’t have to deal with much worse…
Can definitely agree with you there. My sympathies.
It’s not really an issue for most people who aren’t exercising. And I can say this as one who fucks, regardless of your juvenile attempts at disparagement.
I made no attempt at disparagement. I was simply pointing out the fact that bodies produce scents when they have sex. In fact, I don’t think there’s anything wrong whatsoever with not having had sex regardless of one’s age or gender. It’s simply the truth that sex smells.
I’m allergic to aluminum-based antiperspirants, and I didn’t know there was another kind for a long time, so I’ve always just used deodorant. It has never been a problem for me.
Apparently antiperspirant is not that good for you so I did quit using it for a year or so after the pandemic so I was at home anyways. I would use more natural deodorant without aluminum or anything bad but maaaaaaaaaan my pits stunk and washing with soap didn’t even eliminate it. After I started using it again because I couldn’t even stand my own BO it disappeared immediately. I don’t always shower every day and don’t put it on except after showering and drying off and the smell after 2 days without a shower is much more pleasant than half an hour after showering during the time period I wasn’t using it. Why that is, idk. You wouldn’t think it would be that bad especially if I was showering. I would even try stuff like vinegar on my pits but it didn’t help.
I don’t use deodorant or antiperspirant, and have not for years (decades even). I have asked and no-one has said I smell bad - although I’m not a heavy sweater. If I have worked out/done heavy exercise then I’ll generally shower if I can, but even if I don’t it’s not a rank smell, just a ‘musk’ ( I have asked). I’ve worked with a guy that did use antiperspirant/deodorant and by half way through the day he was rank…
I wish… I unfortunately have to use deodorant because my natural body odour literally smells like cannabis. I get weird looks sometimes if I forget.
Eyyy a fellow weed guy
I generally don’t smell like much but after sweating a bit, i smell like weed.
Just to add, I have 2 young kids, They would tell me if I generally smell. They will sometimes comment if I’ve been out mowing the lawns / clearing scrub / cutting up loads of firewood.
My nose/sinus/throat is all very sensitive to perfumes and aerosols these days, and even if it’s not strong enough to close my throat up and choke me, it still tends to make me feel sick. I’ve not used any spray and rarely any smelly stuff for over a decade.
Most soaps and some shower gels are fine though, so there’s no problem with starting a day “clean”.
On the morning train, you can normally smell people who use deodorant instead of washing. It’s quite hard to describe - air freshener in a festival toilet? Artificial sweeteners on a stilton cheese? Anyway, if their perfume isn’t strong enough to physically harm me, I don’t care.
I used spray deodorants as a teenager, and unscented roll-ons for many years after - but after stopping using it, I found, like the couple you mentioned, that I didn’t sweat as much, and the sweat that was there didn’t smell as bad. Oddly enough, anecdotal evidence suggests my natural smell increased my attractiveness quite significantly. Of course, all of these may have just been coincidental factor of age/hormones/circumstances etc though.
I was a bit paranoid for some years, and always asked/checked with trusted people “do I smell?”. I found I can smell myself when I do.
My work is sometimes quite physically demanding, so during the ~two months a year when it’s potentially warm (Northern UK), you can get a bit sweaty - but so is everyone else. If you really feel the need, a quick armpit wash in a sink at lunchtime, or a “festival shower” with a wet-wipe would sort that out.
Anyway, so the rough answer is “There is less body odour. You get used to what’s there. Most of it smells quite pleasant, sometimes even to the extent of it being animalistically magnetically attractive”
I definitely have BO, but I can’t smell my own, typically. however, I also just don’t find the smell of sweat/BO particularly offensive.
I’ve started using not an antiperspirant, but a substance that acts like a deodorant, because my partner is VERY sensitive to smells and mine apparently sets her off pretty badly.
Dude… Maybe re read what you wrote and reflect on it?
There’s a cliche of Internet folk with poor hygiene and it’s something that should be addressed but it can be awkward for people to bring it up.
I think you should read their comment again. Their partner took one for the team and now they are exploring products that will limit BO. We know nothing about their hygiene based on this comment. Some people start to smell the same day they come out the shower.
I’m not against criticism, certainly the number of downvotes suggests I phrased it poorly or should have kept my views to myself.
I tried to present my views in a neutral manner without accusation. I used the term reflect because as you state I have no idea of the user’s situation so it’s for them to reflect.
I used a separate paragraph for the reference to hygiene in order to make a distinction between what I did and did not know. What I had hoped to raise was the distinction between hygiene and just applying masking products. But I didn’t know how to communicate that without being more specific.
I apologise if I caused offense. None was intended. I’m some random person online, my views are my own, if I have caused offense I hope that can be easily dismissed as just another provocative voice online.
I get where you are coming from and I agree that a lot of people suffer from BO that can be easily remedied by better hygiene. Some have never learned the proper way to shower and some are depressed. Then there are those with medical issues. I think part of what makes the topic of hygiene so awkward to broach is that unless you know they are not showering, calling them out can be less than helpful.
That said, don’t fret about the downvotes. They really don’t mean much. And my comment was not meant to be harsh. I use italics for emphasis, but not to be rude. I hope this exchange does not discourage you to make comments!
ITT: Stinky liars.
Artificial scents make me break out, dry my skin out (in a bad way), gives me headaches, cause rashes, and/or cause excessive itching. Nickle, which is in many deodorants, causes rashes and chemical burns, literally had my neck bleed from a shit nickle necklace. Most deodorants will literally hurt me. Sure there are more “natural” ones, but they always feel gross or smell gross.
Sorry if it bothers you, but I’d rather not bleed from my arm pits.
Also people that use axe spray in small spaces, e.g. elevators, can get fucked.