By Dr. Mercola

Using antiperspirant and deodorant has become second nature to most people. Advertisers have been making arguments against your natural balanced scent to convince you to purchase their fragrant antiperspirants and deodorants, promising everything from matchmaking to self-confidence to result from their use.

No personal care product can follow through on these promises. We are only beginning to tap into the power of your relationship with bacteria living on and in your body. While not all of those relationships are healthy, science is still determining all the ways your body uses the bacteria living on your skin.

Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and advertisers want you to believe your deodorants and antiperspirants are completely safe, you only have to look at the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the ingredients listed in each product to understand this likely is not the case.

Why Do You Smell?

Your body has two different types of sweat glands. Eccrine glands are located over most of your body area. They secrete fluid onto the surface of your skin as your body temperature rises. As this fluid evaporates, it helps to lower your core temperature and cool your body.

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It is the fluid from your second set of sweat glands that causes body odor. These are the apocrine glands, located mostly where there are dense areas of hair, such as your armpits and groin. These glands empty fluid into your hair follicles just under your skin.

While the eccrine glands produce clear, salty fluid, the apocrine glands produce a milky substance in response to stressors. The fluid itself is odorless but quickly develops an odor when combined with the bacteria living under your armpits.

Your armpits offer a dark, warm and moist environment for bacteria to live and flourish. As bacteria break down the fluid from the apocrine glands, they produce a product called thioalcohols. These pungent thioalcohols evaporate from under your armpits and produce the odor.

In an effort to understand which of the bacteria normally living under your arms produces the most thioalcohols, scientists from the University of York measured the concentrations produced by different bacteria.¹

They found Staphylococcus hominis was one of the bacteria producing the most thioalcohols and one of the worst offenders.

Factors That Play Into Development of Body Odor

There are several causes for your body odor:^2,3,4,5

Deodorant, Armpit Bacteria, and Your Skin

Antiperspirants and deodorants are not the same. The primary function of deodorants is to kill the bacteria living on your skin, thereby reducing your body odor. Antiperspirants often have a dual purpose. They both kill the bacteria to reduce odor and plug your pores with aluminum to reduce sweating. Plant Therapy Essentia... Buy New $12.97 ($0.81 / Ounce) (as of 02:15 UTC - Details)

In a recent study, researchers found participants who used antiperspirants had strikingly altered bacterial communities compared to those who use deodorants.¹¹There were also significant differences between those who used either of these products and those who used none.

Individuals who routinely use deodorant or antiperspirants support colonies of Staphylococcaceae bacteria, and those who don’t routinely use these products have higher numbers of Corynebacterium which, like Staphylococcus hominis, contribute to the production of armpit odor.

Participants who used antiperspirants had underarms more highly colonized with specific species of bacteria. The researchers presumed that because antiperspirants have only been used in the last century, the bacteria do not represent those which were historically common in human underarms.

Antiperspirants May Worsen Underarm Odor

Interestingly, research^12,13 published in 2014 found that using deodorant and/or antiperspirants can actually worsen your armpit odor. Here, they found that those who used antiperspirants had higher levels of Actinobacteria, yet another bacterium responsible for foul-smelling armpit odor.

Essentially, the researchers found that the aluminum in antiperspirants killed off less odor-causing bacteria, allowing bacteria that produce more pungent odors to thrive instead.

In some participants, abstaining from antiperspirant caused the population of Actinobacteria to dwindle into virtual nonexistence. The take-home message: using an antiperspirant can make the stink from your armpits more pronounced while quitting antiperspirants may eventually mellow the smell. Coconut Snow All Natur... Check Amazon for Pricing.

Why Ingredients in Deodorants and Antiperspirants Pose Risks to Health

Unfortunately, altering the microbiome in your armpit isn’t the worst thing that can happen when you regularly use antiperspirants or deodorants. The ingredients in these products are the real cause for alarm. While deodorants are designed to work outside the body, they contain chemicals that can pass through the skin barrier. Your skin may appear to be impermeable, but it is not.

Drug companies commonly use transdermal patches to deliver medications through your skin.¹⁴ For just this reason, smearing chemicals on your skin may be more dangerous than swallowing them. Associate professor of biology at North Carolina State University, Heather Patisaul, Ph.D., is quoted in Time Magazine, saying:¹⁵

“When you eat something, it’s broken down by your liver and digestive system. But when you put something on your skin, there are times when it can enter your bloodstream without being metabolized.”

5 Hazardous Deodorant and Antiperspirant Ingredients

Rubbing chemicals on your skin doesn’t mean they will make it to your bloodstream. However, blood testing shows many of the chemicals used in deodorants are able to permeate your skin and are found in your blood.¹⁶ Here are five common antiperspirant/deodorant ingredients that may pose a health risk.

Giving Up Deodorant and Antiperspirant

Giving up your chemical wash every morning is not as difficult as you might think. There are several natural options you may experiment with to find the combination that works for your unique bacterial colonization.³²

Sources and References

• ¹ Meet The Bacteria That Make A Stink In Your Pits. (2015). NPR.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ² Excessive sweating Causes – Mayo Clinic. (2016). Mayoclinic.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ³ 7 Surprising Reasons You Stink. (2013). The Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ⁴ 10 Sneaky Sources of Body Odor. (2012). Shape Magazine. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ⁵ Body odor can be eliminated through a change in diet. (2016). NaturalNews. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ⁶ What medicines cause body odor?. (2010). HowStuffWorks. Retrieved 10 July 2016,
• ⁷ Listicle List View | Berkeley Wellness. (2016). @berkeleywellness. Retrieved 10 July 2016,
• ⁸ Antiperspirants may actually make you smell worse. (2014). Washington Post. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ^9, 17 Antiperspirants Alter Your Armpit Bacteria and Could Actually Make You Smell Worse | RealClearScience. (2014).
• ¹⁰ Science, L. & Nature, H. (2012). Men’s Shaved Armpits Smell Better to Women, by a Hair. Live Science. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ¹¹ The effect of habitual and experimental antiperspirant and deodorant product use on the armpit microbiome.
• ¹² Real Clear Science August 11, 2014
• ¹³ Arch Dermatol Res. 2014 Jul 31
• ¹⁴ Prausnitz, M. & Langer, R. (2008). Transdermal drug delivery. Nat Biotechnol, 26(11), 1261-1268.
• ^{15, 16, 28, 31} Heid, M. (2016). 5 Things Wrong With Your Deodorant. TIME.com.
• ¹⁸ Aluminium and breast cancer: Sources of exposure, tissue measurements, and mechanisms of toxicological actions on breast biology. (2013). Sciencedirect
• ¹⁹ An earlier age of breast cancer diagnosis related to more fr… : European Journal of Cancer Prevention. (2016).
• ²⁰ Exposure to Chemicals in Cosmetics. (2016). Breastcancer.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ²¹ Antiperspirants/Deodorants and Breast Cancer. (2016). National Cancer Institute. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ²² Antiperspirants and Breast Cancer Risk. (2016). Cancer.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ²³ Heid, M. (2015). You Asked: Can Deodorant Give You Cancer?. TIME.com. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ²⁴ Science & Environmental Health Network – Ecological Medicine: Essays. (2016). Sehn.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ²⁵ Oaklander, M. (2014). Phthalates Are Linked to a Drop in IQ. TIME.com. Retrieved 10 July 2016
• ²⁶ Oaklander, M. (2014). Plastic Chemicals During Pregnancy Linked to 70% Increased Asthma Risk. TIME.com
• ²⁷ The Journal Of Immunology, 196(1 Supplement), 191.21-191.21.
• ²⁹ The bactericidal agent triclosan modulates thyroid hormone-associated gene expression and disrupts postembryonic anuran development. (2016).
• ³⁰ The Journal Of Immunology, 196(1 Supplement), 191.21-191.21.
• ³² 16 Tips and Remedies to Kill Underarm Body Odor Even The Smelliest BO. (2016). Umpah.com

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