So firstly, I don’t sweat a lot to begin with. I’ll go for a run and I’ll be at a mile before I feel sweat beading up. I’ll get a little clammy throughout the day, but rarely have whole body sweats. As a result, I have very low body odor. If I don’t shower, it’ll take several days before my significant other will notice.
But I don’t wear deoderant or antiperspirant. If I do, then its like the rest of my body decides it needs to sweat. Anyone else out there with this experience?
Deodorants don’t reduce how much you sweat, it just masks the odor. Antiperspirants reduce how much you sweat.
In the summer, I get sweaty anyway and take 2 showers if I can: a rinse before bed and a full cleaning shower in the morning. I would get smelly quickly if I did not use deodorant.
Antiperspirants don’t really reduce how much you sweat.
They just reduce how much you sweat at your armpits. They use aluminum to essentially clog your armpit sweat glands to keep them from sweating too much. But you are sweating for a reason - because your body thinks it is hot, so you just end up sweating more in other parts of your body. It isn’t some magic no-sweat medicine.
There’s a bunch of people here saying that in a confident tone, but not a single source. You got a source you can cite for that claim, or are you just repeating what you’ve heard other people say?
Yeah this is what I imagine is going on with my body and hence the post. Never heard anyone else talk about it or seen a real source.
For me, I feel like sweating from my pits localizes the smell and thus no one really smells it. Again, I barely sweat anyway. But when I do use antiperspirant (deodorant does the same but to a lesser extent), then I sweat everywhere and find it easier for people to smell and I just feel more gross.
Yeah, most people buy whatever product they see first or smell nice but they most probably are buying a deodorant.
When I noticed this and started looking for antiperspirants, it was a game changer, my days were more comfortable.
If you don’t want to smell, yet don’t want to use a deodorant, I highly recommend using a salycitic acid (SA) product on your armpits. It will kill the bacteria that causes body odor, prevent ingrown hairs, help with inflammation and hyperpigmentation, and it is inexpensive (you can find it in a lot of acne products aimed at teens and young adults, so they are affordable). I use a SA bar soap on my pits in the morning and use a Stridex pad in the evening. I have no armpit odor anymore after making these changes. I use deodorant occasionally for the scent, but the SA is doing the heavy lifting. It won’t stop you from sweating, however,.since it’s not an antiperspirant but I find i don’t mind so long as I smell good.
I found your comment interesting because I hadn’t heard salycilic acid mentioned for this purpose in the past but as I mentioned in my own reply to this post , I recently started using a deodorant product that relies on mandelic acid and it’s been extremely effective for me (but relatively expensive).
I may also have to look for an SA bar soap to try at minimum.
Thanks for the info!
I can’t remember where I first heard about using SA to help with body odor but at some point I found this article. I’ve occasionally used acids that I had on hand like lactic, mandelic, or glycolic (I use then to exfoliate my face or body periodically). But SA works so well and is gentle enough to use twice a day, so I stick with it.
I currently use Dermaharmony 2% SA soap (@$7 on Amazon) and Stridex XL pads for face and body (@$4 also on Amazon, 90 pads IIRC) - I picked the cheapest products that work for me. I’ve used Cerave SA face wash, Alba Botanica SA face and body scrub, different kinds of Korean facial toners, and different brands of SA treatment pads. I think any SA products with 2% SA will work.
Please reply in the future to let me know if it works for you. It’s certainly cheaper than Lume! ETA: If you want to stick with mandelic acid, you could buy a bottle of it from The Ordinary and use a few drops a day. It would be much cheaper. Other companies probably also sell mandelic acid serum.
I go mostly without deodorant but smell here and there. Thank you for suggesting that. I’ll give it a try.
Yes. I stopped using antiperspirants altogether, just regular (ideally unscented) deodorant. On over-the-counter (even “prescription-strength”) antiperspirants, I was getting so upset by the never ending pit sweat that I kept an actual full size towel nearby, and a few times rubbed my pits raw out of intense frustration that it wouldn’t fucking stop.
I actually looked into botox treatments for it, and there’s some treatment that microwaves away your sweat pores altogether, but I spent a year or two using Qbrexa (glycopyrronium) wipes, which while outrageously expensive even with insurance, amd require a prescription, worked very very well for me. I have a bunch of them left but I haven’t used them in awhile, just some plain deodorant. Honestly not sure if they had some long-term effect or if I’ve just become accustomed to my regular perspiration without using any sort of antiperspirant.
Same experience, I used to get so much pit sweat just sitting around in the office, and the residue from antiperspirant would destroy my shirts, too. Stopped using antiperspirant, started using regular deodorant, and my body re-calibrated very quickly. I don’t get pit sweat at all unless I’m actually working out.
I’ve found that when using deodorants with aluminum, my body basically builds up a tolerance to them and compensates by sweating more. The more I would apply, the more my pits would sweat. I’ve switched to deodorants with magnesium instead and that has helped me a lot!
