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Sweat is natural and happens to all of us. It’s a mix of salt, water, proteins and oils that’s produced by over 3 million sweat glands all over your body. Sweating (also known as perspiration) is your body’s natural way of controlling and reducing your temperature. You actually sweat about a litre every day, but most of it evaporates, so you don’t notice. This sweat can increase to up to 10 litres a day if it’s really hot or you’re exercising hard. Excessive, constant sweating is clinically known as Hyperhidrosis. If you constantly have excessively sweaty palms, sweaty feet, sweaty armpits, you’ll find that a clinical strength antiperspirant gives you a more effective level of protection, so that you can move more without the worry of excessive sweating.
You sweat to cool down. Perspiration lowers your body temperature as it evaporates – it’s your body’s natural way of maintaining your optimum temperature. However, other factors such as illness, hormones, the environment, exercise, adrenaline and stress can also cause you to sweat – sometimes profusely – or can trigger severe night sweats.
When we get sweaty, it’s from either two types of sweat glands on the skin: Apocrine – found mainly in the underarm area – and Eccrine glands, which are found all over the skin surface. Sweating is controlled by the body’s autonomic nervous system – the part of our nervous system which is under involuntary or ‘unconscious’ control. Apocrine glands become active from puberty and are found mainly in the underarms. They produce sweat when we feel stress, pain or exercise. The sweat from apocrine glands that’s responsible for producing smelly sweat. Eccrine glands are the most abundant type of sweat gland, found all over the skin and start to function soon after birth, releasing a dilute salt solution made up of 99% water. It’s the Eccrine gland that’s responsible for the wet sensation of sweat. Sweat produced from the Eccrine glands are key in keeping the body cool by thermoregulation.
Surprisingly, sweat doesn’t actually smell. In fact, it’s completely odorless. We call the smell associated with sweat “body odor” (or BO) and it’s caused by the bacteria that lives on your skin. Your body is home to millions of harmless bacteria that thrive in moist, humid and nutrient-rich environments like your underarms, producing by-products that have a very distinctive smell. Smelly ‘sweat’ isn’t harmful to your health, but it can be a bit embarrassing. To help prevent sweaty body odor, ensure your underarms are clean and dry and use an antiperspirant regularly to keep you feeling (and smelling) fresh.