The Cult of the Cool Mac: Made with 100% USDA real meat!

Wherein our hero offers up his body to science to advance human knowledge...

Last week, a buddy of mine left his little cannister of Axe body spray at my apartment. By fortuitous coincidence, I had just purchased a can of Old Spice body spray from the dollar bin at the drug store on a whim.

The event was fortuitous because it gave me the opportunity to perform a test that I've been meaning to do for several months, comparing body sprays to classic antiperspirant deodorants.

You see, I've noticed something about people who regularly use body spray: They stink. I'm not just talking about the overwhelming stench from over-use of the perfume. I'm talking about the stinky "get the hell away from that guy before I throw up" stench of really bad BO PLUS the stench of perfume.

But many of the folks who use the stuff are otherwise clean, healthy people. So why do they inevitably stink like the refuse pile at a zoo? The sprays are marketed as (just read the label) deodorant products. But clearly they aren't doing their job on those people. Is it JUST those people or does body spray somehow react chemically to make the stench worse? And if the body spray is related to the bad body odor, is it just the new cheap stuff (Axe, Tag, etc.) or would a trusted familiar brand like Old Spice have a similar effect?

I tried each body spray for just one day this weekend, foregoing the use of my regular antiperspirant during testing.

I can now say definitively that these body sprays do nothing whatsoever to STOP odor or discourage sweating and yes, they CAN make BO worse.

In fact, in my testing, both products seemed to encourage underarm sweating. I was a bit surprised by that as I've been led to understand that after regular use of antiperspirant products it is supposed to take several days for sweat glands to get up to speed again and on the occasional day when I've skipped the antiperspirant I never had such a problem. But I certainly sweated lots more while using the body sprays.

In addition to that, while the Old Spice merely inadequately covered up BO, the Axe seemed to react with my sweat to create a truly noxious sub-odor like day old roadkill. This was exactly the effect that I was testing for and honestly it was also the last thing that I expected. I did the experiment as a playful fling. I assumed that those stinky people had naturally bad BO and used the body spray as a cover-up, but it turns out that the body spray can CAUSE the stench!!

Yuck.

In summary: If you use a body spray with the intention of improving your body odor, use an an antiperspirant as well.

Please.