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.
For anyone else curious about the why
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.