Beauty Tips©

DEODORANTS AND ANTIPERSPIRANTS

The socially aware person not only wants to look good, but also wants to have a pleasant body fragrance. Conspiring against this are two problems-wetness and odor, each a product of a specific kind of sweat gland. Wetness comes from the apocrine sweat glands.

About three million tiny eccrine glands prevent the body from overheating. They secrete a clear, odorless liquid of 99 percent water and one percent sodium chloride salt. When the water evaporates from the skin, it removes heat from the body. The eccrine gland responds to two kinds of stimuli-thermal (heat) and emotional (fear, pain, tension, and sexual excitement). Eccrine glands on the palms, soles, and underarms respond to both stimuli. Those on the rest of the body responds only to thermal stimulation, except in extreme emotional stimulation, which brings on a "cold sweat" over the whole body. Wetness alone does not cause body odor.

Apocrine glands serve no known useful purpose. Far, fewer, they function primarily in hairy underarm regions. Present at birth, they begin to function at puberty and respond only to emotional stimulation. Their activity reaches a peak with sexual maturity and diminishes with old age. When stimulated, they secrete a liquid composed by bacteria on the skin to form "body odor" or "underarm odor."

Since sweating causes two problems-wetness and odor- two types of products are used. The deodorant works against body odor. The antiperspirant works against both wetness and body odor.

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