January 25, 2010 • 17 mins
For many people, deodorants and antiperspirants are a regular part of their daily hygiene routines. But how do they work? What's the difference between men's and women's? Are they safe? Learn more about deodorants and antiperspirants in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From house to works dot Com. Hey, welcome to podcast.
This is Molly and I smell a great today. I
(00:21):
was waiting for my intrama. You just jumped right in there.
I actually think I could useless deodorant right now. That's
all I wanted you to share with I'm not gonna
lie your self assessment on how you smelled, you know.
I gotta be honest, Molly, I could probably use a
little denteron. Okay, be honest with you. That's not bad.
I'm not wafting such a perfect leading since we're gonna
talk about deodorant, Yes, lots of questions about deodorant. Yeah,
(00:44):
so we're just gonna we're gonna try and cover them all. Yes.
First thing I've always wondered, is there a difference between
men's unorant and women's theater because men's deedorant have to
From a personal point of view, I would say, when
you're walking down the deodoranile, they look a little scarier.
There's so much bigger wide, yeah, huge. Yeah. But if
(01:04):
you ever knows Kristen that they are sometimes less expensive
than our dainty little floral deodorants. Yeah, they are a
lot cheaper. And um So I actually found article from
the CBC. They have a street sent show where they
talk about economics and what you should pay for stuff,
and they found that, um, in stores, there were a
lot of places from men's deodorant were priced, you know,
(01:26):
cheaper than female dintorant. And in this day and age,
that matters. Yeah. I mean maybe it's because what is
its secret the secret tagline? Strong enough for a man
yet PhD balance for a woman. I mean, don't we
need that special pH balance? Shouldn't we pay a dollar more?
Apparently not, because if you look at the ingredients list, Um,
the active ingredients in two deodorans, one from men and
(01:46):
one for women, are usually the same and in the
exact same quantity. The only difference is smell. Um. Yeah,
I mean I think it is largely a marketing ploy
that men need a certain kind of deodorant and women
need another kind of deodorant. I mean, there are only
so many under arms, so they've got to figure out
way to get deodorant as many underarms as possible. Yeah,
(02:07):
According to the article which I believe you wrote Molly
for how Stuffworks dot Com called you men and women
need different deodorants. Men's deodorants aren't stronger in any other
way are different than women's deodorants. So um secret, I
don't know about that secret tagline. It all comes down
to how you want to smell, and according to Forbes,
seventy percent of men would like to smell more like
(02:27):
their girlfriends because that's how many men of men who
used diororant use deodorants that are geared toward women. Well,
the interesting thing is too, in the early nineties, unisex
deodorants were really popular. They made up a third of
the marketplace, but today their only account for ten percent
of sales. Obviously, these companies really honed in on this
idea of you know, the niche for a men's udorant
(02:49):
and for women's theodorant and really hammered at home. And
now we you know, I head towards the the light
curvy bottles, you know, while my brother probably goes for
the those. I had huge canisters of old spiced. Yeah,
you want to buy something that you feel is made
especially for you, and you know, the more you know
specific it is if they've identified the girls love smell
(03:12):
of fresh laundry, which I believe is it is that
a deodor center of detergent sent I'm sure there's some
Deodora out there called fresh laundry scent. Anyway, Um, they
figure out that women like it more, so that's the
one they'll buy. And deodor was first introduced in the
marketplace in the nineteen fifties, and back then the kind
of roll on uh type was really popular, but men
(03:35):
uh didn't like it so much because their underarm hairs
would get caught up in the in the rolleyball. Yeah,
and and so that's why the solid stick or gel
is far more popular with the men folk. So I
think that was the biggest difference I found writing this article,
is that men probably don't want the one that's like
your ball point pen with the rolleyball. But men and
women do sweat a little bit differently. Um, men might
(03:58):
smell more they and a woman does, so they do
need different um fragrances to cover up maybe the odor
because their odor is usually stronger according to the Manil
Chemical Sensus Center, and also their their odor is harder
to cover up when women smell them. I mean, we've
talked about this before about how women can just sniff
out exactly who they're meant to be with and um.
(04:19):
The thought was based on these findings is that fewer
chemicals cover up the man's smell, while twenty five chemicals
um will cover up a female smell. Yeah, so I
think you know, the active ingrediy they were talking about
earlier probably had to do more with antiperspirant and controlling
the sweat, whereas the odor it was a different, different
type of thing. And that's what a deodorant covers. If
(04:39):
you've ever wondered the difference between antiperspirant and deodorant, and
deodorant is just meant to shield that smell. And the
smell is not actually the smell of your sweat. It's
the bacteria that live on your skin. They feast on
the sweat and that's what causes body odor. Sweat itself.
It's pretty pretty smell it. It doesn't really smell, you know,
Christen just held her arm up to a rent and smell.
(05:00):
Not that my hand is sweaty right now. But an
anti perseprint is what will actually stop you from sweating altogether.
Now there have been studies that show that people feel
like they sweat all the time. Yeah, there are certain
hormonal changes that can happen, um, you know, adolescents, pregnancy,
menopause for women specifically, that can just make you're just
(05:22):
what go bonkers? True, Christen, And let me just commence
you on your use of the word bonkers. Um. But
the fact is we probably all don't sweat as much
as we think we do. Like, for example, have you
heard of hyper hydrosis, Kristen, I know you have. Yes,
it's an excessive sweating I do believe. Yes. Apparently according
to um doctors, only two percent of population has this.
(05:45):
Yet in studies of women think that they're sweating heavily,
which might lead to some women when they're in that deoterat,
I'll already picking out a specially formulated deodoran for themselves
to pick up a clinical strength deodorant. Yeah, and a
lot of the mainstream A deodorant lines have started putting
out these clinical strength uh types of deodorant and a
(06:06):
persperance for people to use. But do you really need
that much? Well, because they cost more obviously more, and
again unfortunately it all comes down to sales. Like, yes,
they do feature a little bit more of the active
ingredient um that will stop sweating, and you have to
apply them definitely should apply them at night time so
that it gives your your old sweat ducks time to
(06:27):
close up. But I mean, if you look at those statistics,
if only two percent of people are actually sweating that much,
then only you know those people need a clinical strength
or our prescription and strength deodorant. So maybe we are
a little too uh, kind of hyper aware of our
our sweating. We're a little too concerned about our sweating.
That's what marketers are playing into our fears of showing
up at You know that old commercial where the girl
(06:49):
can't catch the bouquet because she can't raise her armpits
because she's so sweaty. That's the worst that always happens
to me. Okay, little a little arsenal inside into Kristen there.
I do remember get really sweaty at weddings. I was
always worried when I had to make a presentation in
front of my class that I, you know, raised my
(07:11):
arms and revealed sweat. I feel like I get more
of the hand sweats if I'm nervous than the pit
sweat which is probably why he smelled your hand there
a while ago. Just an unnecessary fun fact for everyone listening.
Don't ever shape my christ and do we have that
discussion about how we're going to be more careful with
what we shared on the podcast. I just went out
the door, alright. So basically, clinkle strength Antipersprince and deodorants
(07:37):
you may need them, probably not. But isn't there through
this old idea kind of like with shampoo, you know
where you're you're supposed to change it up every now
and again or else you're your hair gets used to it,
isn't it. It's supposedly the same thing for you deodorant.
Maybe maybe you're sweating so much, Molly when you're giving
presentations because you just haven't switched your deodorant and you're
in your body's like, I know how to get around
(07:57):
that stuff. I'm coming out. I'm to get you. That's possible.
I mean that's anecdotally. We just had that conversation about
not showing more anecdotes. But yeah, sometimes you feel like
this is not working anymore. This worked really well for
a year and now it's not. So something must be
going on, but no one can prove that your body
is adjusting to deodorance. It's possible that all those things
you mentioned that will make your body go bonkers. It
(08:20):
does affect you from time to time, but not so
much that you switch your deodorant. Yeah, you might want
to look into what's going on first with your diet.
Things like garlic, c curry, human caffeine, and sugar can
all bring out some odd odors from your body. Certain
medications or medical conditions that you have might make you
(08:40):
smell funky. Have you washed your clothes lately? There are
probably a lot of other things that you should maybe
consider if you if you think that you are smelling
a little odd, got a certain muski can't get rid of.
So that answers that question I've always had that you know,
it's probably not my body getting used to it. I
think one question that people always have when it comes
(09:00):
to deodorants, anti purse purnts is what are we putting
into our bodies? Yeah? I mean because, for instance, with
with women, there's the warning to not apply deodorant right
after you've shaved your under arms because it will lead
to breast cancer. Well, and it also burns like fire.
But but that makes me wonder, you know, like, if
this stuff is getting into our bodies, you know, and
(09:21):
it is very close proximity to our breasts, are we
doing damage to ourselves by using all of these chemicals
every day? Well, so, now the chemicals that you will
find in just your regular non natural deodorant the concerned
people are aluminium. That's what actually um plugs up the
pores to stop sweats, um parabins, which are used in
many cosmetics products but in deodorants, and both of those
(09:45):
have been linked to UH cancer and aluminium has also
been linked to Alzheimer's disease. And then we also have
to round things out a little thing called tricloson, which
is classified as a pep pesticide by the FDA, which
is used in deodorant to kill the odor causing back tiria.
So are we just rubbing poison on our under arms?
That is what a lot of chain emails would have
(10:06):
had you believe. But all the studies that those emails
are based on were flawed. Yeah, and this is actually
coming from the American Cancer Society UM. The Mayo Clinic
and National Cancer Institute have also kind of come to
the same conclusion that more research is needed to um
you know, to assess the safety of theaters, but for
(10:27):
now they're pretty much in the clear, right because these
studies that found that parabins and aluminum were present and
breast cancer tumors never had a control group of people
who had healthy breast tissues. So scientific method kids always remember,
you need a control group, because they would find that
the tumors had these ingredients and then they assumed from
(10:48):
that that thus, you know, putting that ingredient on your
underarm and closed proximate your breast isssue raised problems. But
they would never look at healthy breast tissue to see
if aluminum, im paramins and the like were also at
present there. And there were other issues with some of
these studies as well, such as, uh, they wouldn't control
for the age groups of the different participants because younger
(11:10):
women tend to use more deodorant than older women will.
And they also show start shaving their under arms at
an earlier age, right, So that's that shaving does do
These props get into your skin and cause problems. So
right now, doctors you're saying that, I mean, if you
take an ant acid, basically you're getting more aluminum into
your body than if you put deodorant on for all
your life. But nevertheless, Molly, if you are concerned about
(11:35):
these chemicals and you really just don't even want to
take the chance. Natural deodorants, yeah, there are plenty of
options out there. Do they work though, Do they work well?
They don't work quite the same because they don't have
the aluminium in them which jams up those pores. Yeah. Basically,
keep using the word deodorant when we probably should have
been more specific antipersonant versus deodorant. And if you're going
(11:57):
in the natural route, you're only going to get a
deodorant something that will disguise the smell of the sweat.
You won't get the anti purse part, which will stop
you from sweating in the first place. So if you're
actually just i mean, if you're one of these people
who just as soon as you get sweaty, apparently like
Christen in her hand, um, and assume there's an odor there.
Now I'm not saying Christen assumes like the cans don't smell.
Funny things happen in the studio. Um. Anyway, if you're
(12:21):
just conscious about sweat in the first place, then a
natural deodorant will be a bigger adjustment to make because
you will probably realize you sweat more. Yeah, so maybe
don't start using a natural deodorant in the summer. Well,
there are all natural crystal deodorants that you can use
um and these are dry crystals that will um kind
of uh coat the under arm and maybe block out
(12:44):
block the sweat from from penetrating it. And instead of
using that, try closen and the pest decide to kill
the bacteria. You're gonna have things like plant extracts and
essential oils to reduce the bacteria account and I have
a feeling that those probably aren't quite as potent as
tri closen. But you know, the probably probably better to
put lavender than try close and under your arm. Or
(13:05):
you can always just do the old d I Y
think a little bit of bacon sodap there right up? Yep,
I'm back from Kristen. She's full of them today. I
don't know that from experience, but I do know people
who have done the bacon soda out. But it all
goes back to if you would rather put something natural
under your skin, just know that it's probably gonna be
more sweat. Yeah, exactly, but that you are putting natural
(13:27):
things under there to disguise the smell. Yeah, and uh,
in the in the crystal deodorants might if you are
worried about so what, the crystal deodorants might be a
way to go. I mean, if you're if you're a
heavy sweater, the crystals aren't gonna aren't gonna hold up.
But you know, for day to day stuff, and it
all comes on a personal preference. Maybe we're too trained
by all these marketers to think that sweat is a
(13:49):
bad thing. Yeah, maybe you don't need deodorant at all.
Now we're not saying this to you specifically smelling man
on the subway out there, because we've all sat next
to the the smelling man on the subway. But maybe he
just needs a shower. Maybe it's not so much about deodorant, Molly,
that's true. Yeah, something to ponder, just something to think about.
Those are my big questions about deodorant. Do you have
any other ones, Kristen? Those are really all my questions
(14:11):
as well, Milling, But I bet our listeners they might
have some more. So if you've got thoughts on deodorant,
share them. Deodorant preferences makes dislikes. Yeah, we want to
hear it. And just to circle back for a second,
I don't actually go to lots of weddings and sweat
so much that I can't catch a bo knes. You
know you've said it, and I don't want to question.
(14:32):
Thanks so sad, So let's just assume it was real.
All right. Well, let's head over to our listener mail bag,
and I want to give a big shout out to
both Michelle and Ariel, who so far the only two
people who have written in about bod pots. You may
remember my enthusiastic plea to um telling your bod pod experience,
(14:54):
and those are the two I've heard from so far.
Doesn't mean more haven't come, just in the time I've
been sitting here talking. And this was from the episode
of How to Measure Obesity. Yes, and um. Michelle wrote
a very long email about her body product Sperance that
I'll just read some of um just because I think
there's some kind of cool No no no factoids, but how
it all goes down. She writes, when she used the
(15:16):
bob pod, uh, you were either a bathing suit or
bike shorts and a sports top, no loose clothing and
you have to put a cap over your hair and
you step on a scale first, so I just connected
to the bob pod. Then the Chechnisian opens the door
and you step in and sit on the little bench
seat inside. The door closes and you sit there cold
still and breathe. The pod makes some pinning, popping and
slight hissing noises as the air pressure is adjusted. The
(15:37):
test works by slightly under pressurizing the air inside the pod,
and it gives you not a b m I, but
the actual percentage of your body fat broken out by
both weight and percent of total body composition. She's done
this twice, two weeks apart, so she would see a
difference between weight when she was in her menstrual cycle,
and basically there's no real difference. But she's also done
a bioelectric test where um, you just stand in front
(15:59):
of a tech mission, the technician enters your heighth age
and sex. You step on a scale and then the
scale gives you a series of number starting with weight,
then percentage, body fat, percent lean and muscle mass, and
it also tells you uh your metabolic age. And apparently
a Michelle has been a metabolism of twelve year old.
But she's not twelve. I'm not gonna say how old
(16:20):
she is on the podcast, but she's a mom of two. Um.
But basically the point of these emails is that both
of these tests were far more accurate than b M
I and and her experience. If you calculated the b
M I, you would then subtract a few numbers to
get a more accurate picture of body fat. So cool,
well aerial for brightening my day. As promise and always,
(16:41):
you should send us your thoughts as well at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com, and during the
week you should go to our blog how to stuff
and if you would like to read do men and
women need different deodorants? Will deodoran give you breast cancer?
Do naturally yodorance work? All sorts of deoda and related articles.
(17:02):
You can find a veritable library of information on how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
(17:26):
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From house to works dot Com. Hey, welcome to podcast.
This is Molly and I smell a great today. I
(00:21):
was waiting for my intrama. You just jumped right in there.
I actually think I could useless deodorant right now. That's
all I wanted you to share with I'm not gonna
lie your self assessment on how you smelled, you know.
I gotta be honest, Molly, I could probably use a
little denteron. Okay, be honest with you. That's not bad.
I'm not wafting such a perfect leading since we're gonna
talk about deodorant, Yes, lots of questions about deodorant. Yeah,
(00:44):
so we're just gonna we're gonna try and cover them all. Yes.
First thing I've always wondered, is there a difference between
men's unorant and women's theater because men's deedorant have to
From a personal point of view, I would say, when
you're walking down the deodoranile, they look a little scarier.
There's so much bigger wide, yeah, huge. Yeah. But if
(01:04):
you ever knows Kristen that they are sometimes less expensive
than our dainty little floral deodorants. Yeah, they are a
lot cheaper. And um So I actually found article from
the CBC. They have a street sent show where they
talk about economics and what you should pay for stuff,
and they found that, um, in stores, there were a
lot of places from men's deodorant were priced, you know,
(01:26):
cheaper than female dintorant. And in this day and age,
that matters. Yeah. I mean maybe it's because what is
its secret the secret tagline? Strong enough for a man
yet PhD balance for a woman. I mean, don't we
need that special pH balance? Shouldn't we pay a dollar more?
Apparently not, because if you look at the ingredients list, Um,
the active ingredients in two deodorans, one from men and
(01:46):
one for women, are usually the same and in the
exact same quantity. The only difference is smell. Um. Yeah,
I mean I think it is largely a marketing ploy
that men need a certain kind of deodorant and women
need another kind of deodorant. I mean, there are only
so many under arms, so they've got to figure out
way to get deodorant as many underarms as possible. Yeah,
(02:07):
According to the article which I believe you wrote Molly
for how Stuffworks dot Com called you men and women
need different deodorants. Men's deodorants aren't stronger in any other
way are different than women's deodorants. So um secret, I
don't know about that secret tagline. It all comes down
to how you want to smell, and according to Forbes,
seventy percent of men would like to smell more like
(02:27):
their girlfriends because that's how many men of men who
used diororant use deodorants that are geared toward women. Well,
the interesting thing is too, in the early nineties, unisex
deodorants were really popular. They made up a third of
the marketplace, but today their only account for ten percent
of sales. Obviously, these companies really honed in on this
idea of you know, the niche for a men's udorant
(02:49):
and for women's theodorant and really hammered at home. And
now we you know, I head towards the the light
curvy bottles, you know, while my brother probably goes for
the those. I had huge canisters of old spiced. Yeah,
you want to buy something that you feel is made
especially for you, and you know, the more you know
specific it is if they've identified the girls love smell
(03:12):
of fresh laundry, which I believe is it is that
a deodor center of detergent sent I'm sure there's some
Deodora out there called fresh laundry scent. Anyway, Um, they
figure out that women like it more, so that's the
one they'll buy. And deodor was first introduced in the
marketplace in the nineteen fifties, and back then the kind
of roll on uh type was really popular, but men
(03:35):
uh didn't like it so much because their underarm hairs
would get caught up in the in the rolleyball. Yeah,
and and so that's why the solid stick or gel
is far more popular with the men folk. So I
think that was the biggest difference I found writing this article,
is that men probably don't want the one that's like
your ball point pen with the rolleyball. But men and
women do sweat a little bit differently. Um, men might
(03:58):
smell more they and a woman does, so they do
need different um fragrances to cover up maybe the odor
because their odor is usually stronger according to the Manil
Chemical Sensus Center, and also their their odor is harder
to cover up when women smell them. I mean, we've
talked about this before about how women can just sniff
out exactly who they're meant to be with and um.
(04:19):
The thought was based on these findings is that fewer
chemicals cover up the man's smell, while twenty five chemicals
um will cover up a female smell. Yeah, so I
think you know, the active ingrediy they were talking about
earlier probably had to do more with antiperspirant and controlling
the sweat, whereas the odor it was a different, different
type of thing. And that's what a deodorant covers. If
(04:39):
you've ever wondered the difference between antiperspirant and deodorant, and
deodorant is just meant to shield that smell. And the
smell is not actually the smell of your sweat. It's
the bacteria that live on your skin. They feast on
the sweat and that's what causes body odor. Sweat itself.
It's pretty pretty smell it. It doesn't really smell, you know,
Christen just held her arm up to a rent and smell.
(05:00):
Not that my hand is sweaty right now. But an
anti perseprint is what will actually stop you from sweating altogether.
Now there have been studies that show that people feel
like they sweat all the time. Yeah, there are certain
hormonal changes that can happen, um, you know, adolescents, pregnancy,
menopause for women specifically, that can just make you're just
(05:22):
what go bonkers? True, Christen, And let me just commence
you on your use of the word bonkers. Um. But
the fact is we probably all don't sweat as much
as we think we do. Like, for example, have you
heard of hyper hydrosis, Kristen, I know you have. Yes,
it's an excessive sweating I do believe. Yes. Apparently according
to um doctors, only two percent of population has this.
(05:45):
Yet in studies of women think that they're sweating heavily,
which might lead to some women when they're in that deoterat,
I'll already picking out a specially formulated deodoran for themselves
to pick up a clinical strength deodorant. Yeah, and a
lot of the mainstream A deodorant lines have started putting
out these clinical strength uh types of deodorant and a
(06:06):
persperance for people to use. But do you really need
that much? Well, because they cost more obviously more, and
again unfortunately it all comes down to sales. Like, yes,
they do feature a little bit more of the active
ingredient um that will stop sweating, and you have to
apply them definitely should apply them at night time so
that it gives your your old sweat ducks time to
(06:27):
close up. But I mean, if you look at those statistics,
if only two percent of people are actually sweating that much,
then only you know those people need a clinical strength
or our prescription and strength deodorant. So maybe we are
a little too uh, kind of hyper aware of our
our sweating. We're a little too concerned about our sweating.
That's what marketers are playing into our fears of showing
up at You know that old commercial where the girl
(06:49):
can't catch the bouquet because she can't raise her armpits
because she's so sweaty. That's the worst that always happens
to me. Okay, little a little arsenal inside into Kristen there.
I do remember get really sweaty at weddings. I was
always worried when I had to make a presentation in
front of my class that I, you know, raised my
(07:11):
arms and revealed sweat. I feel like I get more
of the hand sweats if I'm nervous than the pit
sweat which is probably why he smelled your hand there
a while ago. Just an unnecessary fun fact for everyone listening.
Don't ever shape my christ and do we have that
discussion about how we're going to be more careful with
what we shared on the podcast. I just went out
the door, alright. So basically, clinkle strength Antipersprince and deodorants
(07:37):
you may need them, probably not. But isn't there through
this old idea kind of like with shampoo, you know
where you're you're supposed to change it up every now
and again or else you're your hair gets used to it,
isn't it. It's supposedly the same thing for you deodorant.
Maybe maybe you're sweating so much, Molly when you're giving
presentations because you just haven't switched your deodorant and you're
in your body's like, I know how to get around
(07:57):
that stuff. I'm coming out. I'm to get you. That's possible.
I mean that's anecdotally. We just had that conversation about
not showing more anecdotes. But yeah, sometimes you feel like
this is not working anymore. This worked really well for
a year and now it's not. So something must be
going on, but no one can prove that your body
is adjusting to deodorance. It's possible that all those things
you mentioned that will make your body go bonkers. It
(08:20):
does affect you from time to time, but not so
much that you switch your deodorant. Yeah, you might want
to look into what's going on first with your diet.
Things like garlic, c curry, human caffeine, and sugar can
all bring out some odd odors from your body. Certain
medications or medical conditions that you have might make you
(08:40):
smell funky. Have you washed your clothes lately? There are
probably a lot of other things that you should maybe
consider if you if you think that you are smelling
a little odd, got a certain muski can't get rid of.
So that answers that question I've always had that you know,
it's probably not my body getting used to it. I
think one question that people always have when it comes
(09:00):
to deodorants, anti purse purnts is what are we putting
into our bodies? Yeah? I mean because, for instance, with
with women, there's the warning to not apply deodorant right
after you've shaved your under arms because it will lead
to breast cancer. Well, and it also burns like fire.
But but that makes me wonder, you know, like, if
this stuff is getting into our bodies, you know, and
(09:21):
it is very close proximity to our breasts, are we
doing damage to ourselves by using all of these chemicals
every day? Well, so, now the chemicals that you will
find in just your regular non natural deodorant the concerned
people are aluminium. That's what actually um plugs up the
pores to stop sweats, um parabins, which are used in
many cosmetics products but in deodorants, and both of those
(09:45):
have been linked to UH cancer and aluminium has also
been linked to Alzheimer's disease. And then we also have
to round things out a little thing called tricloson, which
is classified as a pep pesticide by the FDA, which
is used in deodorant to kill the odor causing back tiria.
So are we just rubbing poison on our under arms?
That is what a lot of chain emails would have
(10:06):
had you believe. But all the studies that those emails
are based on were flawed. Yeah, and this is actually
coming from the American Cancer Society UM. The Mayo Clinic
and National Cancer Institute have also kind of come to
the same conclusion that more research is needed to um
you know, to assess the safety of theaters, but for
(10:27):
now they're pretty much in the clear, right because these
studies that found that parabins and aluminum were present and
breast cancer tumors never had a control group of people
who had healthy breast tissues. So scientific method kids always remember,
you need a control group, because they would find that
the tumors had these ingredients and then they assumed from
(10:48):
that that thus, you know, putting that ingredient on your
underarm and closed proximate your breast isssue raised problems. But
they would never look at healthy breast tissue to see
if aluminum, im paramins and the like were also at
present there. And there were other issues with some of
these studies as well, such as, uh, they wouldn't control
for the age groups of the different participants because younger
(11:10):
women tend to use more deodorant than older women will.
And they also show start shaving their under arms at
an earlier age, right, So that's that shaving does do
These props get into your skin and cause problems. So
right now, doctors you're saying that, I mean, if you
take an ant acid, basically you're getting more aluminum into
your body than if you put deodorant on for all
your life. But nevertheless, Molly, if you are concerned about
(11:35):
these chemicals and you really just don't even want to
take the chance. Natural deodorants, yeah, there are plenty of
options out there. Do they work though, Do they work well?
They don't work quite the same because they don't have
the aluminium in them which jams up those pores. Yeah. Basically,
keep using the word deodorant when we probably should have
been more specific antipersonant versus deodorant. And if you're going
(11:57):
in the natural route, you're only going to get a
deodorant something that will disguise the smell of the sweat.
You won't get the anti purse part, which will stop
you from sweating in the first place. So if you're
actually just i mean, if you're one of these people
who just as soon as you get sweaty, apparently like
Christen in her hand, um, and assume there's an odor there.
Now I'm not saying Christen assumes like the cans don't smell.
Funny things happen in the studio. Um. Anyway, if you're
(12:21):
just conscious about sweat in the first place, then a
natural deodorant will be a bigger adjustment to make because
you will probably realize you sweat more. Yeah, so maybe
don't start using a natural deodorant in the summer. Well,
there are all natural crystal deodorants that you can use
um and these are dry crystals that will um kind
of uh coat the under arm and maybe block out
(12:44):
block the sweat from from penetrating it. And instead of
using that, try closen and the pest decide to kill
the bacteria. You're gonna have things like plant extracts and
essential oils to reduce the bacteria account and I have
a feeling that those probably aren't quite as potent as
tri closen. But you know, the probably probably better to
put lavender than try close and under your arm. Or
(13:05):
you can always just do the old d I Y
think a little bit of bacon sodap there right up? Yep,
I'm back from Kristen. She's full of them today. I
don't know that from experience, but I do know people
who have done the bacon soda out. But it all
goes back to if you would rather put something natural
under your skin, just know that it's probably gonna be
more sweat. Yeah, exactly, but that you are putting natural
(13:27):
things under there to disguise the smell. Yeah, and uh,
in the in the crystal deodorants might if you are
worried about so what, the crystal deodorants might be a
way to go. I mean, if you're if you're a
heavy sweater, the crystals aren't gonna aren't gonna hold up.
But you know, for day to day stuff, and it
all comes on a personal preference. Maybe we're too trained
by all these marketers to think that sweat is a
(13:49):
bad thing. Yeah, maybe you don't need deodorant at all.
Now we're not saying this to you specifically smelling man
on the subway out there, because we've all sat next
to the the smelling man on the subway. But maybe he
just needs a shower. Maybe it's not so much about deodorant, Molly,
that's true. Yeah, something to ponder, just something to think about.
Those are my big questions about deodorant. Do you have
any other ones, Kristen? Those are really all my questions
(14:11):
as well, Milling, But I bet our listeners they might
have some more. So if you've got thoughts on deodorant,
share them. Deodorant preferences makes dislikes. Yeah, we want to
hear it. And just to circle back for a second,
I don't actually go to lots of weddings and sweat
so much that I can't catch a bo knes. You
know you've said it, and I don't want to question.
(14:32):
Thanks so sad, So let's just assume it was real.
All right. Well, let's head over to our listener mail bag,
and I want to give a big shout out to
both Michelle and Ariel, who so far the only two
people who have written in about bod pots. You may
remember my enthusiastic plea to um telling your bod pod experience,
(14:54):
and those are the two I've heard from so far.
Doesn't mean more haven't come, just in the time I've
been sitting here talking. And this was from the episode
of How to Measure Obesity. Yes, and um. Michelle wrote
a very long email about her body product Sperance that
I'll just read some of um just because I think
there's some kind of cool No no no factoids, but how
it all goes down. She writes, when she used the
(15:16):
bob pod, uh, you were either a bathing suit or
bike shorts and a sports top, no loose clothing and
you have to put a cap over your hair and
you step on a scale first, so I just connected
to the bob pod. Then the Chechnisian opens the door
and you step in and sit on the little bench
seat inside. The door closes and you sit there cold
still and breathe. The pod makes some pinning, popping and
slight hissing noises as the air pressure is adjusted. The
(15:37):
test works by slightly under pressurizing the air inside the pod,
and it gives you not a b m I, but
the actual percentage of your body fat broken out by
both weight and percent of total body composition. She's done
this twice, two weeks apart, so she would see a
difference between weight when she was in her menstrual cycle,
and basically there's no real difference. But she's also done
a bioelectric test where um, you just stand in front
(15:59):
of a tech mission, the technician enters your heighth age
and sex. You step on a scale and then the
scale gives you a series of number starting with weight,
then percentage, body fat, percent lean and muscle mass, and
it also tells you uh your metabolic age. And apparently
a Michelle has been a metabolism of twelve year old.
But she's not twelve. I'm not gonna say how old
(16:20):
she is on the podcast, but she's a mom of two. Um.
But basically the point of these emails is that both
of these tests were far more accurate than b M
I and and her experience. If you calculated the b
M I, you would then subtract a few numbers to
get a more accurate picture of body fat. So cool,
well aerial for brightening my day. As promise and always,
(16:41):
you should send us your thoughts as well at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com, and during the
week you should go to our blog how to stuff
and if you would like to read do men and
women need different deodorants? Will deodoran give you breast cancer?
Do naturally yodorance work? All sorts of deoda and related articles.
(17:02):
You can find a veritable library of information on how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
(17:26):
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
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