Don't diss deodorant

Cast Aside Underarm Protection, if You Dare - New York Times

This article argues that deodorants are now overused. Most people, it suggests, probably barely need it at all if they wash once or twice a day.

A lot must depend on the particular bacterial flora that inhabit your body. My father never used deodorant a day in his life, laboured in the summer humidity of Southeast Queensland for a living, and never smelt at all. Sadly, such mysterious immunity from body odour never extended to the rest of the family.

The New York Time article notes that:

Gabrielle Glaser, the author of “The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival,” argues that the phenomenon [ a "fear of dampness and smell"] started in the early 1900s when marketers urged immigrants to eliminate their body odor to become more American.

“If you were new to the country, you wanted to do whatever you could to not offend,” said Ms. Glaser, a former contributor to The New York Times. “During the Depression, the marketing encouraged people to think that they could lessen their anxiety about losing their jobs by making sure that they didn’t stink.

He makes it sound like it was a pure cynical marketing ploy, but who could dispute that reeking of BO might have been a disincentive for employing an immigrant?

Then there is the argument that comes close to suggesting deodorant use is the cause of increased divorce:

“There is experimental evidence in humans to suggest that we may have some mating preference for those who have a different immune system then we do,” Dr. Preti said. “The scent caused by underarm bacteria is part of what signals a different immune system.....From a biological standpoint, deodorants are overused because they can make people seem more attractive than their basic biology.”

Well, sounds vaguely plausible, but most people would take the higher risk of a mating mismatch over sitting next to someone who reeks on the bus.