Deodorants, perfumes, soaps pollute air at levels as high as cars

Re:Deodorants, perfumes, soaps pollute air at levels as high... by loeg on Friday February 16, 2018 @04:22PM (#16396462)

Exercise-induced sweat is composed primarily of water (98-99%) and a little bit of salt.[0] Obviously, salt water just rinses off. You don't need soap for that.

If you get physically dirty, especially greasy, then yeah, use soap.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspiration#Composition

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Re:Deodorants, perfumes, soaps pollute air at levels as high... by refurb on Friday February 16, 2018 @05:32PM (#16397115)

Those are normal sweat glands. The sweat glands in your armpits and groin are apocrine sweat glands and they excrete things like fatty acids that bacteria consume and cause the nasty BO. That stuff doesn't really come off with water, you need soap.

For most mammals, however, apocrine sweat glands secrete an oily (and eventually smelly) compound that acts as a pheromone, territorial marker, and warning signal.[1]

Before you hit puberty, your apocrine sweat glands aren't really active. That's why prepubecents don't really have BO, just a mild sweat smell.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrine_sweat_gland

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