What's the difference between deodorant and antiperspirant?

The function of antiperspirant and deodorant is to prevent sweat or to mask the scent of body odor. Learn about the function of antiperspirant and deodorant in this HowStuffWorks podcast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot com Audi, Welcome to the podcast.
Chuck Bryant, Josh Clark Here, This is Josh. That's Chuck. Hi, Hi, Chuck.
How are you doing? I'm doing well, Josh. But something

(00:22):
something stinks. That's not me, Chuck, that's actually Michael Wax.
You played poker occasionally, but not really. Are you familiar
with Michael Wax? Now? He is a professional poker player.
He's a big guy, four forty pounds, and he was
recently ejected from the Borgottic casino in Atlantic City for
um an unpleasant smell. Basically, he uh, like I said,

(00:46):
he's a big guy. He'd been playing seventeen hours straight,
so apparently he was on a roll. But I guess
he'd also failed to shower him between I don't know.
I guess they didn't comp a room for him or
anything for you know, a half hour or anything like that.
But yeah, Mr Wax was ejected. No no word on
his winnings or anything like that. Well, I hope it
was enough to buy some soap in the odor and

(01:07):
I imagine so, I imagine so. And you know, if
you were close enough to Mr Wax, you'd probably think, well,
this is you know, it's body odor. It smells like
anybody odor I've ever smelt. But were you to really
get up under there and you had a really good scent,
like maybe you're a professional sniffer for a perfume company
or whatever, you would notice that he has a very

(01:29):
distinct what is called an odor type. And all of
us apparently have a unique odor type. Do you know
much about oder types? Uh? Well, I know that we
we do all have one. And uh it's genetically based
and it can be also environmental to write like what
you eat. Yeah, so, so basically, there was one study
in two thousand six that found that vegetarians emit a

(01:51):
more pleasant body odor than meat eater. They smell like broccoli,
and we smell like steak. That's gross. I would rather
smell like steak any day of the week too. There
was there's another study in ninety five that found that
a pregnant woman's body odor was actually a combination of
the mothers and the fetus's um body odor smell. Yeah,

(02:11):
that's fascinating and based on my own personal observations, as
unscientific as it maybe, I've concluded, Chuck that your body
odor is based on your love of hot rod racing
and those delicious morning smoothies you make. Yeah, well, you know, Josh,
based on my findings, I've I found that you smell
like a mix of circus peanuts and old footballs and

(02:34):
desperation and desperation, so strange combinations. Yeah, so it works.
The thing is is, um, we do have our own
specific odor types. We don't know precisely what makes what
and and I don't think any has really been catalogued yet.
Look for that in the future when somebody ends up
with a lot of excessive funding. Um. But we do

(02:55):
have a couple of theories of why we smell. There's
this anthropologist named Leu's Leaky and he postulated that we
actually smell um evolutionarily speaking to ward off predators, which
is something we had to deal with before. You don't
so much anymore unless you're like a lion tamer or
a hill billy that kind of thing. Um, So now

(03:18):
it's just kind of offensive to to a degree, right right, Um,
So what do you do? Well, I would use deodorant
or cold or I would use antipersprint. Aren't they the
same thing? Why would you even go so far as
to say both, I mean it's the same thing, right, Well,
they're not the same thing, And I think anyone that
pays attention in the supermarket of the pharmacy knows there's

(03:41):
antipersprint and there's deodorant. That is true. I just thought
they were different spellings. Well what's the difference. Well, one
keeps you from sweating and actually, uh stops you from sweating,
and one is just a perfume to mask odor. Okay,
well it was very sustained that that's the easy answer.
Did you know that your body odor doesn't actually emanate

(04:03):
from your from your your glands, from your sweat? Do
you do? You know where your smell actually comes from,
something with bacteria, And it does. It does. So you've
got two kinds of sweat glands. Um. One is the
ecrine gland, and it just excretes salt and water and
there's no smell to that. The other is the apocrine gland,
and this one actually is in charge of carrying um,

(04:26):
fat and protein secretions from your cells. I didn't even
know myself secreted fats and Approacheinus gross um. But it
carries it through these glands or these ducks to the
glands and then out onto your skin, where there's plenty
of native flora, which is another name for bacteria. And
your smell is actually your the bacteria chowing down on

(04:47):
these fats and proteins. That is so gnarly I can't
get to this podcast. But yeah, and of course you've
got um, you know the most the most both of
these types of gland sweat glands under your arm an
exact axillary area. The armpit, as everyone knows, is generally
where the stink comes from, right, which is why we
very infrequently put deodorant, or as Chuck calls it, antiperspirant,

(05:11):
on the back of your neck. Um. That'd just be weird,
although it would have a similar effect, I imagine, it's
just nobody's you know, next smells all that bad. Um. So,
do you know much of the history of deodorance and
anti Well, I know that it kind of started in
the nineteen fifties in the United States, at least, Well,
it became a social taboo to smell in the fifties,

(05:32):
right and watch Madman. Well, I was just gonna bring
that up here because I don't want it. Yeah, it's
it's one of my favorite new shows. I'm kind of
late to it, but I've been watching it on the
on demand feature and uh, there was an episode that
dealt with anti pershmint spray and this is when the
show is set and how they sold it to you.
I think they said, uh, you're not afraid to get

(05:53):
close or don't be afraid to get close, which recalls
get a little closer from I think Arid Extra Dry
was Oodorant that use that. So it's it's interesting that
what they're implying is with a lot of advertising is
is sex, get a little closer, don't be afraid to
get close to your husband, and uh, I just think,
I mean, the show in general is really neat. That

(06:13):
in the nineteen fifties and sixties when add the advertising
boom really started is where I mean a lot of
the things that we we have today and social taboos
like they were told to us by these admin in
New York in the nineteen fifties and sixties and people
bought into it, and all these years later, you know,
you don't want to stink because you want to get
a little closer exactly. And conversely, if you do stink,

(06:37):
you should be afraid to get closer, right, right, so
that it's really paid off. In two thousands six, just
any pursh prints and deodorants accounted for two point five
billion dollars in sales, and me, think about it, what
their four bucks tops for you? Anything you find at
the grocery store right, Um, and uh, it turns out
I have a I've developed a theory about deodor and

(07:00):
any perspirant sales. So there are three big things on
the horizon that I think are going to cause the
deodorant and any persprint market to fluctuate. You want to hear,
I'd love to, Okay. So the first is baby boomers.
It turns out that in in your fifties, right in
the fifties to the sixties, range um, deodorant use kind

(07:22):
of falls off. You don't need it quite as much.
You don't need it or you don't you're not bothered
by your smell. Either way, People in their fifties start
to use less deodorant than they did when they were younger.
That actually affects the market. And we've got a bunch
of baby boomers we're hitting fifties, sixties, seventy now just
walking around stinking pretty much? Have you smelled your parents lately?

(07:43):
To try to keep my nose away from precisely precisely right. So,
with all of this, this this huge aging population going
on right now, I predict that the deodorant in any
persprint market will decline because of that. But but you're ready.
I also predict that they that market will be helped
by global warming because summer sales for are just the biggest,

(08:07):
bulkiest season for deodorants and nanty purse prints. With climate change,
we're going to have longer, hotter summers, right, And hence
the deodorant nanny purseprint market will soldier on. They'll be
able to bounce back from that discrepancy. And the third
thing I think will bump it up even further, uh,
bovine growth hormones. It's all over the place. It's in milk,

(08:31):
it's in beef, it's i I believe, in chickens, and
it's causing early onset puberty in children. Yeah, and I
know that your your glands that that make you stink.
For lack of a bitter word, they don't come around
so you're like eleven to eleven twelve until about the
time you hit puberty. Right, if puberty starts at age
eight all of a sudden, now thanks to drinking regular milk, um,

(08:53):
then you're going to need deodorant soon. So that will
expand the market, the younger market for deodorant nanty perspart companies.
These are just some theories for amblings that come up
with They come to me in my sleep, that kind
of thing. But I wake up thinking about deodorant all
the time, so do I. It's more market stuff that
that I think of. But in this case, it was

(09:13):
applied to deodorant, so chuck, Maybe we should get a
little more specific, like how does deodorant work versus how
does this any persport you keep talking about work? Well, uh,
I know, deodorants don't keep you from sweating, so all
they can do is, uh, you apply it to your excella,
your armpit, Yeah, your armpit, and that that just masks

(09:36):
the smell. It's a perfume to an extent, fill me
in So basically it also most deodorants today include a
um and an ingredient that actually kills the bacteria, triclosan. Yes,
so you've got that that native flora on your under arms,
on the skin, and that your cells are still carrying

(09:58):
the fats and proteins, or the the facts and proteins
from yourselves are still being carried to your skin. There's
no bacteria there to eat them, hence no smell, right right,
And they also include perfumes too. But what about andy pursprints. Well,
the antie pershprint actually plugs the glands with things like
aluminum and zirconium, which is kind of scary if you

(10:18):
think about it, and that keeps the sweat from ever
being produced in theory. In theory, yes, so any perspants
don't let you sweat at all, well if if they're effective.
So I was doing a little research, a little extra
research for this article, and there's this New York Times
article by a guy named Anthony Ramirez that it came across.
It's awesome, um, and he was talking about a little

(10:39):
bit about the history of andy pershprint's. The first patented
one ever was called ever Dry and it came onto
the market in nineteen o three. You had to apply
it using a swab to the armpit and it was
so acidic that it actually ate through clothing and people
were putting this on their under arm. It's progressed quite
a bit so far. Yeah, and and know that it's

(11:00):
still there's a lot of controversy over the use of
aluminum in products. It could post some health benefits, and actually,
UM deodorance and Annie purse prints are considered over the
counter drugs and are regulated by the FDA. Right, that's crazy,
possibly in part because of the health the health hazards,
potential health hazards like what well, potentially could be linked
to cancer. I think most people have heard that aluminum

(11:22):
deodorance can be linked to cancer by by causing DNA mutation, right.
And then there's another one that's a little a little weirder,
right with the kidney disease. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So, like
I think two thousand to two thousand five something like that,
all of a sudden, this warning label pops up on
deodorance and it says, uh, ask your doctor about kidney

(11:43):
disease or something like that. Um. And it just came
out of nowhere, and there was never any really good
explanation for it. Um. But it turns out that aluminium
can also cause kidney poisoning, right, right, or if you
have impaired kidney functioning, it can sinum out of the edge.
So it's possible all sorts of bad things could happen
to you, which is why, for my understanding, eleven of

(12:05):
the population doesn't use of the American population, I should say,
doesn't use deodorant or uses an off brand, which leads
me to wonder, what is an off brand deodorant? And
why would you use it? Like, do you have like
a friend down the street who whips it up for you?
Why not just go get it? At this story? Well,
I think maybe what they mean bof brand it might
be wrong, is maybe some of these all natural deodorants, No,

(12:25):
those are included. They have made such headway into this
market that the niche market like Tom's of Maine you mean,
has actually expanded their huge players. So what they mean
literally are these hippies that make up I guess although
hippies aren't necessarily known to use deodorant, let alone go
to the trouble to make their own. Now you know,
that's the question for another day. The question for today,

(12:47):
which I advise you to go check out on how
stuff Works dot com, is what's the difference between deodorant
and anti persporant and stick around to find out which
articles homepage are really cracks chucking me up after this.
Thanks for hanging around, Chuck. You want to tell him,
I will. It's actually an article called how ativism works

(13:11):
or ativism and that's when humans have can grow little
tails or little nubbins on their body and the for
those of you don't know, we have a homepage art
that the writers themselves are in charge of finding a
pictures to represent what the articles about. And some articles
are a little harder than others. And I guess ativism
is hard because writer Katie Lambert Clambert, Yeah Clambert. She

(13:36):
she her homepage art is a a little baby kind
of prancing around just from like the waist down when
the waist down with a with a cat's tail photoshops
onto it and it's it really just cracks me up
every time I see it. And Katie did a great
chop with it. You definitely did. Way to go, Katie.
You could check out this homepage art when you look
up how ativism works on how stuff works dot com.

(14:01):
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