12 Body Odour Facts

12 Body Odour Facts

Body odour is a vital function of the body and helped use survive during the caveman days. Here are 12 facts on body odour:

1. Men’s Body Odour is a Turn-on for Women.
Body Odour has been found by researchers to contain a compound that causes emotional and physiological changes in women. The chemical called androstadienone is a male chemical released in sweat. It is also released after a run where it’s released in post run perspiration. The chemical spikes her arousal and releases a hormone which stimulates ovulation. The underarm odour also improves her mood, increases her cortisol and will increase sexual arousal.

2. Sweat doesn’t smell
The body odour you produce doesn’t directly come from sweat as sweat is odourless. There are two types of sweat your body produces these are eccrine sweat and apocrine sweat. The eccrine sweat is the clear sweat that consists mostly of water and is used to regulate body temperature. The apocrine sweat is produced from the onset of puberty, it’s produced in the glands and is much thicker and is located in the groin area and underarms. The sweat is just a good environment for bacteria on the skin to thrive and duplicate, it doesn’t actually produce an odour.

3. Body odour can indicate a Health Problem
People have their own individual body odour and it’s possible to tell if there is something wrong with you by that smell. Its know that if you have a fruity body odour it may indicate you have diabetes and if you have a bleachy smell it can be related to a kidney or liver disease.

4. Less Body Odour for Asians
East Asian people have smaller apocrine glands and less hair follicle where the sweat is collected. It’s more of a problem for European and African people.

5. Your Body Odour is Unique
Body Odour for people is linked to their genes which is different for each and every person. Even if you eat lots of strong spicy foods it won’t matter you will still be able to trace your specific odour.

6. Children don’t produce Body Odour
The apocrine gland only comes into use when children enter puberty around 9-14 and this is the type of sweat that gives off the odour. When the child enters puberty the androgen hormone comes into use and actives the sweat glands that make the odour.

7. Women Can Sense Body Odour Easier
It’s known that women can sense body odour easier and they are more sensitive to the quality and difference in smell. Women can recognise a body odour even if it’s masked by antiperspirant. They have such a good smell because of its evolutionary importance, one of them being that they can tell who their babies are by their smell.

8. Men and Womens Odour Smell Differently
Mens sweat contains high levels of fatty acid which gives off the smell of cheese when mixed with the bacteria from under the arm. For women their sweat contains higher levels of sulphur, and when mixed with the bacteria from sweat creates thiol that has the smell of an onion.

9. Humans are Chosen Sexually by their Odour
Body odour is a significantly important factor for humans to choose a mate as it signals your sexual attraction. This is because we are attracted to people with different immune systems to our own, meaning that their off spring will have a better chance of survival due to the diverse immune system.

10. Body Odour Hints Your Diet
It’s easy to trace foods that are spicy as they consist of compounds that will remain in sweat. Foods like garlic, onion, curry and cumin are some common ones. The body odour would only be produced if you ate large amounts of these foods; they can sometimes stay in the system for longer than 24 hours.

11. Women Smell like Onions while Men Smell like Cheese
A curious study conducted by researchers at Firmenich, a company in Geneva revealed that women's body odor contained high levels of sulphur compound, which together with bacteria, feeding on sweat, produces chemical compound thiol that has a smell of onion. According to their findings, men's sweat was found to contain high levels of fatty acid, which when mixed with bacteria from the underarm, produces the smell, resembling cheese.

12. Your Body Odor is Unique as Fingerprint
Your body produces one of its kind odor, irrespective of what you eat. Individual odortypes are genetically determined odors of each person, containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that give you an odor different from others, just like fingerprints or DNA sample. Scientists are working at creating special devices to identify individual odortypes to find criminals, terrorists or missing children.