How to stop body odor

The fact that reorders the list

Fresh sweat is close to odorless. What smells is bacteria living on your skin metabolizing it - breaking the compounds in sweat down into the ones you can smell.

That single fact is why this list is ordered the way it is. If the problem is bacteria, then removing bacteria and depriving them of the conditions they like will always beat applying something on top of them. Washing, clothing and drying are the first three items because they address the cause, and product is fifth because it addresses the symptom.

1. Wash properly, which is not the same as showering

The most common single cause. Water running past your underarms in a shower is a rinse, not a wash - it does not remove the bacterial film that is producing the smell. Underarms, groin and feet need a wash and a hand, deliberately, every day.

Which product matters much less than whether you actually do it. A fragrance-free wash is the safer choice on skin that is covered all day - the roundup covers the options and makes the case that bottle size is the specification that decides whether you use enough.

2. Your clothes, which people forget entirely

Fabric holds odor independently of your skin. Synthetic fabrics in particular trap the compounds and release them again when they warm up, which is why a shirt can smell fine from the wardrobe and not fine by eleven o'clock.

• A fresh shirt every day, not every other day, if this is a problem for you.
• Wash at a temperature that actually cleans. Cold washes are kinder to fabric and less effective on the compounds involved.
• Do not leave damp clothes in a pile. That is a bacterial culture, and the smell it produces survives washing.

Applying more deodorant over a shirt that already smells is treating the wrong surface entirely.

3. Dry properly before dressing

Bacteria multiply in warm, damp, covered skin, which describes a rushed dressing routine exactly. Dry your underarms and between your toes properly before anything goes on top. This costs thirty seconds.

It also makes any product you apply work better. Antiperspirants in particular need dry skin to form the plugs their active relies on, which is the real argument for applying at night rather than after a shower.

4. Trim, do not shave

Less hair means less surface for bacteria and less trapped moisture, and both effects are real. Going completely bare adds very little over a short trim and brings ingrown hairs and itchy regrowth with it.

A few millimeters is the useful setting. The trimming guide covers the sequence, and the roundup covers which tools publish their comb lengths so a length you like is a number you can return to.

5. Now change the product - to the right kind

This is where most people start, and it works far better once the four items above are sorted. The important part is picking the right category, because they solve different problems:

If your shirts are wet, you want an antiperspirant. Only an aluminum salt reduces sweat, and Dove publishes aluminum chlorohydrate at 20.2 per cent on a regulated label. If you are dry but you smell, you want a deodorant, and the mechanism is what to look at - Vanicream's triethyl citrate suppresses the enzymes bacteria use, on a five-ingredient list.

The comparison sets the distinction out properly, and the roundup ranks three options on published formulas.

6. The things people reach for first and should reach for last

Diet, stress and medication are all commonly reported factors in how body odor changes. They are last here because they are the hardest to change, the least specific, and the least likely to be your problem if the first five are not sorted.

We are not going to publish a list of foods to avoid. Nobody here is qualified, our editorial policy bans medical claims, and the internet already has enough confident writing on the subject from people equally unqualified.

What is worth saying: a sudden change in body odor with no change in habits, or odor that survives everything on this page, is a reason to see a doctor rather than to buy another product.