So if anyone didn’t know this, antiperspirant can have a rebound effect that makes you sweat more over time. And it is also responsible for the crusty stains on your t-shirt armpits. Regular deodorant won’t do that.
When I switched to just regular deodorant my armpits stopped sweating so much after a few weeks, and then it was no longer an issue. And no more ruined shirts. Wish I had known this sooner in life.
I’ve had none of those issues. I wonder what makes the difference between our armpits?
What’s a regular deodorant? Also are there any solutions that don’t involve the plastic container for it, I’m already on solid soap and shampoo for years but my deo still produces plastic waste.
It won’t say antiperspirant on the label, it will just say deodorant, which means it doesn’t have any of the chemicals or metals they use to block your pores (or however it works, I’m not an antiperspirantologist)
Wait, but wouldn’t I just wash it right off the next morning when I shower first thing? Well…3rd thing. First I poop. Then I wait a half hour. THEN I shower.
Hard take that will expose me and a lot of people might not relate. But I shower at night before bed. I don’t shower in the morning. Never smelled or anything. For those who shower after pooping, I’m an evening pooper as well. So, maybe there’s something to this. Even with moderate sweat during the day, I never have body odor. It usually takes very heavy sweat from exercise or sports, or two days at least without a shower (very rare occurrence) for me to smell like anything.
Both of you need to get a bidet so you can decouple your pooping and showering schedules. Then your butthole can get a shower whenever it needs one.
Thank me later.
For anyone else curious about the why
Gel plugs (how antiperspirant works on your sweat glands) are finicky. They need a little bit of sweat in order to form—but not too much. Antiperspirant applied in the morning isn’t ideal, because people sweat more during waking hours, when they’re active. If the armpits are too sweaty in the hours after application, the product gets washed away before it can form the plugs. The body is cooler and calmer during sleep. For gel plugs to form, “baseline sweating is optimal at nighttime before bed,” Glaser told me. Nighttime application has been shown to increase the sweat-reduction ability of normal antiperspirant from 56 percent to 73 percent.
Huh. In the past couple of years I’ve switched from showering in the morning to go to the office, WFH and all, to showering at night after I get sweaty hitting the trails, kayaking, lawn work, whatever.
Never had a BO or sweat problem, but I’m going to try skipping it before I work out in the afternoon. Bet it makes no difference!
To be fair though, most people with a BO problem don’t know they have a BO problem because the human brain is incredibly good at simply throwing away at “constantly present” smells. That’s also why people have a quasi unique scent, but they don’t know what their own is.
I have definitely had a few coworkers with a BO problem that thought they didn’t smell at all, so YMMV.
