shirts with armpit smell that does not want to leave even after several wash.

[houseguy]

shirts with armpit smell that does not want to leave even after several wash.

 

I experience a weird thing . some of my shirts even after they are washed quickly smell bad even after 1 hour as soon as there is heat i guess. I read a lot about it and figured out this text below that seems to identify the cause .

 

So yes good hygiene, yes keep hair shorts ok but what to do with those shirts.

I read on reddit a lot of produc suggested but it is hard to pick the right one since they contain different product i m not familiar with.

 

i want a non toxic product that is not putting my skin in geopardy and that does not contain nanotechnologies.

 

i tried vinegar , worked a bit but i feel something else might work best.

 

please if you can tell what you tried and did not have succes with and what you did have succes with it would help. i m open and i am not related to any brand.

 

i read stuff like baking soda, borax , ,oxy clean , Lysol Laundry Sanitizer combined with Downy , Enzymes (yes but wich) . stuff containning its own bactérias like ez clean. Laundry Sanitizer Sport, Tide Sport detergent , Zero Odor – Laundry Odor Eliminator.

 

Very hard for me to know what product to look for that adresses the problem adequatly .

 

what should i be looking for?

 

Edited April 2 by Phi for All
commercial link removed by moderator

[exchemist]

13 hours ago, houseguy said:

shirts with armpit smell that does not want to leave even after several wash.

 

I experience a weird thing . some of my shirts even after they are washed quickly smell bad even after 1 hour as soon as there is heat i guess. I read a lot about it and figured out this text below that seems to identify the cause .

 

So yes good hygiene, yes keep hair shorts ok but what to do with those shirts.

I read on reddit a lot of produc suggested but it is hard to pick the right one since they contain different product i m not familiar with.

 

i want a non toxic product that is not putting my skin in geopardy and that does not contain nanotechnologies.

 

i tried vinegar , worked a bit but i feel something else might work best.

 

please if you can tell what you tried and did not have succes with and what you did have succes with it would help. i m open and i am not related to any brand.

 

i read stuff like baking soda, borax , ,oxy clean , Lysol Laundry Sanitizer combined with Downy , Enzymes (yes but wich) . stuff containning its own bactérias like ez clean. Laundry Sanitizer Sport, Tide Sport detergent , Zero Odor – Laundry Odor Eliminator.

 

Very hard for me to know what product to look for that adresses the problem adequatly .

 

what should i be looking for?

 

Give them a wash at 60C. 

Edited April 2 by Phi for All
No advertising, please.

[TheVat]

Hydrogen peroxide is effective.  (it will even deodorize pet urine, and not fade carpet or upholstery colors)  Any stain removing product that is peroxide based will probably get odor out, too.  

[MigL]

Could just be the material the shirts are made from.
Workout shirts, for example, are made to 'wick' odorous sweat to the outer surface and evaporate.

[Moontanman]

Are your shirts made of polyester or a polyester blend? Polyester tends to preserve body odor and is difficult to removed body odor. It was one of the problems we worried about when making polyester. The problem was never really solved that I recall.   

[iNow]

Is just spam for the link in OP

[Moontanman]

6 minutes ago, iNow said:

Is just spam for the link in OP

I missed that dammit! 

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

I missed that dammit! 

So did exchemist who included the link again in his quote

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

So did exchemist who included the link again in his quote

Oh ballocks!

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

Links removed. 

 

[houseguy]

12 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Are your shirts made of polyester or a polyester blend? Polyester tends to preserve body odor and is difficult to removed body odor. It was one of the problems we worried about when making polyester. The problem was never really solved that I recall.   

i talk about cotton yes  wool is too expensive .

the link was en error . A copy paste probably. I have no interest but to hear your experience with thoses products . 

Here is info i found if it can help you help me

Pit stink chemistry divides into two major class: volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and thioalcohols. VFAs are responsible for the acidic twang of BO. Thioalcohols are sulfur-containing compounds that come in various shades of reek; some can have a meaty-oniony aroma while others are fruitier and less offensive. To make VFAs and thioalcohols, bacteria use special enzymes that hack off the stinky parts of sweat molecules, which evaporate from the skin to create the nose-wrinkling funk that is BO.

 

Edited April 3 by Phi for All
No advertising, please.

[LuckyR]

Laundry stripping works quite well. Borax, washing soda and detergent, soak for at least 8 hours, wash as normal.

[exchemist]

On 4/3/2024 at 1:45 AM, houseguy said:

i talk about cotton yes  wool is too expensive .

the link was en error . A copy paste probably. I have no interest but to hear your experience with thoses products . 

Here is info i found if it can help you help me

Pit stink chemistry divides into two major class: volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and thioalcohols. VFAs are responsible for the acidic twang of BO. Thioalcohols are sulfur-containing compounds that come in various shades of reek; some can have a meaty-oniony aroma while others are fruitier and less offensive. To make VFAs and thioalcohols, bacteria use special enzymes that hack off the stinky parts of sweat molecules, which evaporate from the skin to create the nose-wrinkling funk that is BO.

 

Actually, this is quite interesting. There was a paper in Nature in 2020 about the bacterial enzyme responsible for generating these thioalcohols that are mainly responsible for the smell: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68860-z

They also did some work to project back in time to estimate the point at which this enzyme evolved in the unique bacterium responsible (Staphylococcus hominis), finding it may have been around the time the primate lineage first appeared, c.60m year ago. From this they suggest there may have been evolutionary selection pressure encouraging this enzymatic function, in the symbiotic relationship between this bacterium and the primates that were the ancestors of modern Man. So the suggestion is that smelly armpits were originally a reproductive advantage. Here is the relevant paragraph from the Discussion section of the paper:

This discovery raises important questions about the role of odour production in the evolution of modern humans. The emergence of an enzyme present in bacteria found in the human underarm with unique activity to catalyse production of 3M3SH suggests selection pressure for the production of odours over an extended period of evolutionary time. This was presumably driven by an evolutionary advantage for both the host (primate, human), that actively produces the odour precursors for no other apparent physiological reason, and their microbiota, which converts them to volatile odorous molecules. Here, we have identified a definite substrate-product relationship, namely the conversion of specific thioalcohol precursors by malodour producing staphylococci. We show that S. epidermidis unequivocally does not metabolise these precursors, despite being the most abundant Staphylococcusspecies present in the axilla. Could these thioalcohol precursors secreted by the apocrine sweat glands be significant for the ecological success of S. hominis in the human axilla? This raises important and as yet unanswered questions regarding the mechanisms that govern the structure and composition of the axillary microbiome.

 

Early man (and woman) may have found the smell a turn-on. To this day, perfume preparations commonly include "musky" elements. (One of these is ambergris, which is basically shit from constipated whales........)  

[StringJunky]

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

Actually, this is quite interesting. There was a paper in Nature in 2020 about the bacterial enzyme responsible for generating these thioalcohols that are mainly responsible for the smell: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68860-z

They also did some work to project back in time to estimate the point at which this enzyme evolved in the unique bacterium responsible (Staphylococcus hominis), finding it may have been around the time the primate lineage first appeared, c.60m year ago. From this they suggest there may have been evolutionary selection pressure encouraging this enzymatic function, in the symbiotic relationship between this bacterium and the primates that were the ancestors of modern Man. So the suggestion is that smelly armpits were originally a reproductive advantage. Here is the relevant paragraph from the Discussion section of the paper:

This discovery raises important questions about the role of odour production in the evolution of modern humans. The emergence of an enzyme present in bacteria found in the human underarm with unique activity to catalyse production of 3M3SH suggests selection pressure for the production of odours over an extended period of evolutionary time. This was presumably driven by an evolutionary advantage for both the host (primate, human), that actively produces the odour precursors for no other apparent physiological reason, and their microbiota, which converts them to volatile odorous molecules. Here, we have identified a definite substrate-product relationship, namely the conversion of specific thioalcohol precursors by malodour producing staphylococci. We show that S. epidermidis unequivocally does not metabolise these precursors, despite being the most abundant Staphylococcusspecies present in the axilla. Could these thioalcohol precursors secreted by the apocrine sweat glands be significant for the ecological success of S. hominis in the human axilla? This raises important and as yet unanswered questions regarding the mechanisms that govern the structure and composition of the axillary microbiome.

 

Early man (and woman) may have found the smell a turn-on. To this day, perfume preparations commonly include "musky" elements. (One of these is ambergris, which is basically shit from constipated whales........)  

The hair under the arms and genital area facilitates diffusion of volatile products in those areas. I think we have culturally trained ourselves to think these smells are undesirable. It may have begun with deodorant adverts from companies that needed to shift their products in the early-mid 20th century. They used to be quite blatant in their depictions of presenting body odours and scents as totally socially undesirable. 

Ambergris is a product sperm whales produce to coat the beaks of squid that they eat to reduce abrasion and improve its transit through the gut without harm.

There is such a thing as phantom smells that the mind synthesizes, which could happen if someone is sufficiently emotionally triggered by a smell. You also might actually smell an offending odour type coming from somewhere else but associate it with coming from yourself.

Edited October 14 by StringJunky

[TheVat]

On 4/1/2024 at 9:27 PM, houseguy said:

Very hard for me to know what product to look for that adresses the problem adequatly .

 

what should i be looking for?

Good old baking soda, NaHCO3, is cheap and works better than anything else I've used.  A long presoak in a solution with a generous cupful of baking soda - overnight, if possible.  We had an incident with a tom cat, many years ago, involving a basket of laundry.  Nahcothry to the rescue.  

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

The hair under the arms and genital area facilitates diffusion of volatile products in those areas. I think we have culturally trained ourselves to think these smells are undesirable. It may have begun with deodorant adverts from companies that needed to shift their products in the early-mid 20th century. They used to be quite blatant in their depictions of presenting body odours and scents as totally socially undesirable. 

Ambergris is a product sperm whales produce to coat the beaks of squid that they eat to reduce abrasion and improve its transit through the gut without harm.

There is such a thing as phantom smells that the mind synthesizes, which could happen if someone is sufficiently emotionally triggered by a smell. You also might actually smell an offending odour type coming from somewhere else but associate it with coming from yourself.

This prompts two further reflexions: 

1) My experience is the genital area does not become smelly like armpits, even though no woman I've been to bed with (sample size 13) used any deodorant on that area of the body. Why is that, if both armpits and genital areas have these apocrine glands? Or does Staph. hominis for some reason only inhabit the armpit, and if so why would this be?

2) I read a year or two ago about a man who conducted an experiment by not washing as modern people do but simply allowing nature to take its course. He claimed that after a couple of weeks of being smelly, the smelly gradually reduced until it was no longer noticeable. When I heard of this originally I assumed he had just got used to his own smell, but now I wonder if there might have been competition among skin bacteria that eventually resulted in the Staph hominis population stabilising at a low level, due to being checked by rival groups of bacteria that can't grow when one washes daily in the usual way.

[StringJunky]

10 hours ago, exchemist said:

This prompts two further reflexions: 

1) My experience is the genital area does not become smelly like armpits, even though no woman I've been to bed with (sample size 13) used any deodorant on that area of the body. Why is that, if both armpits and genital areas have these apocrine glands? Or does Staph. hominis for some reason only inhabit the armpit, and if so why would this be?

2) I read a year or two ago about a man who conducted an experiment by not washing as modern people do but simply allowing nature to take its course. He claimed that after a couple of weeks of being smelly, the smelly gradually reduced until it was no longer noticeable. When I heard of this originally I assumed he had just got used to his own smell, but now I wonder if there might have been competition among skin bacteria that eventually resulted in the Staph hominis population stabilising at a low level, due to being checked by rival groups of bacteria that can't grow when one washes daily in the usual way.

I think one of the major bacterias in the female  genital area and tract is lactobacillus, accounting for 80-90%. Yes, each area of the body has its own niche bacteria. Why? Because the environmental conditions allow them to thrive and evolve in a particular locality of the body and become dominant.

For example, pH will have a great influence on bacterial habitat suitability for each species. Armpits are 5.5-6.5 and relatively anoxic, suiting Staph.hominis and Vaginas 3.5-4.5, which is ideal for lactobacillus spp. which produce hydrogen peroxide, lactic acid and other byproducts to inhibit other potentially competitive pathogenic species of other micro-organisms.

Edited October 15 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

I will also note that genetic variance in humans, e.g. the ABCC11 also contributes to body odor (and ear wax type).

[exchemist]

5 hours ago, StringJunky said:

I think one of the major bacterias in the female  genital area and tract is lactobacillus, accounting for 80-90%. Yes, each area of the body has its own niche bacteria. Why? Because the environmental conditions allow them to thrive and evolve in a particular locality of the body and become dominant.

For example, pH will have a great influence on bacterial habitat suitability for each species. Armpits are 5.5-6.5 and relatively anoxic, suiting Staph.hominis and Vaginas 3.5-4.5, which is ideal for lactobacillus spp. which produce hydrogen peroxide, lactic acid and other byproducts to inhibit other potentially competitive pathogenic species of other micro-organisms.

Yes but the overall genital area with body hair won’t have such a low pH. And, if it comes to that, I am not aware that men produce a body odour smell from the groin either. Only from the armpit. So I’m wondering if there a different secretion there , or if there is another reason why Staph. hominis can only thrive in the armpit?

Actually, thinking a bit more, one obviously unique feature of the armpit is the huge amount of sweat secreted. There must be a lot of eccrine glands there. Although, as I understand it, it is the apocrine glands, in the hair follicles, that secrete the smell precursors, the sheer amount of sweat and almost continual dampness of the armpit may be what provides the environment for Staph. hominis to do its thing there, rather than elsewhere on the body. 

But I'd still love to know what the bacterial population of the man who didn't wash ended up being. 

Edited October 15 by exchemist

[TheVat]

13 hours ago, StringJunky said:

I think one of the major bacterias in the female  genital area and tract is lactobacillus, accounting for 80-90%.

So if one can't get probiotics from yoghurt due to lactose intolerance or veganism, then there's...

Hmm.  Maybe Trump was trying to treat himself for IBS.

 

[exchemist]

15 minutes ago, TheVat said:

So if one can't get probiotics from yoghurt due to lactose intolerance or veganism, then there's...

Hmm.  Maybe Trump was trying to treat himself for IBS.

 

There do seem to be rumours about him farting uncontrollably, e.g. in a recent court appearance. 

[zapatos]

11 hours ago, exchemist said:

And, if it comes to that, I am not aware that men produce a body odour smell from the groin either.

I'm beginning to wonder if you might possibly have an olfactory issue.

[exchemist]

2 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I'm beginning to wonder if you might possibly have an olfactory issue.

Well nobody puts deodorant on their groin, do they? And I’ve never had any complaints.

Edited October 15 by exchemist

[zapatos]

Just now, exchemist said:

Well nobody puts deodorant on their groin, do they?

No one that I'm aware of.

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

So if one can't get probiotics from yoghurt due to lactose intolerance or veganism, then there's...

Hmm.  Maybe Trump was trying to treat himself for IBS.

 

Greek yoghurt has low levels of lactose. Most of it is converted to lactic acid. Sensitivity will vary between individuals, I would imagine. Even then, there are women who apply it prophylactically. I knew one.

Eating a wide diversity of uncooked plant matter, each one having their own commensal species groups, are good probiotic sources as well AFAIK and probably the best way for its diversity. Kefir, which I use, along with veg and Greek yoghurt, has a few dozen species in it. It's probably the best fermented type of food for diversity in one product.

Edited October 15 by StringJunky