subject: The Difference Between Antiperspirant And Deodorant [print this page] Antiperspirant vsAntiperspirant vs. Deodorant
Do you think that antiperspirant and deodorant are basically the same product? I did. After all, they are both designed to make us smell better. Antiperspirant helps us smell better by blocking our pores and preventing sweat. Deodorant merely removes the sweat odor, right? Actually, antiperspirant and deodorant are not similar products. So, which one should you use? Understanding how antiperspirants and deodorants work makes that decision a little easier.
What Is Sweat?
We all sweat. Sweating is nature's way of cooling off our skin. But, sweat causes body odor, so we use either antiperspirant or deodorant to combat that body odor. That's only part of the story. Did you know there are actually two types of sweat: apocrine and eccrine? Out of the 2.6 million sweat glands in our skin, most of those are eccrine glands. So, most of the sweat we produce is eccrine sweat. This is true also along our forehead, on our palms and on our feet.
In truth, we could sweat all day long and not produce body odor, if it weren't for the apocrine sweat glands and the bacteria that flourish in the hot, humid and acid environment under our arms. It's the apocrine sweat that produces body odor. This sweat carries fats and proteins to our skin surface. The bacteria living under our arms actually react with those fats and proteins that the apocrine sweat is carrying and ferment that sweat. It's the fermented sweat that causes the odor and makes us reach for either antiperspirant or deodorant.
Difference Between Antiperspirant and Deodorant
It's how they handle the bacteria that make the antiperspirant and deodorant products different. Neither antiperspirant nor deodorant decrease apocrine sweat, which is the guilty culprit behind body odor. But, both antiperspirants and deodorants do solve the problem, albeit in different ways. Deodorants make our under arms either too salty or too acidic for the bacteria to tolerate. So, the absence of bacteria means there is no smell. The main ingredients in most deodorants are alcohol and fragrance. The alcohol targets the bacteria, and the fragrance masks any lingering odor.
Antiperspirants plug the ducts that carry the sweat from the glands to the skin's surface, and thereby, keep you from sweating. No sweat means the bacteria under our arms has nothing to feast on and ferment. The best antiperspirants contain an aluminum salt. The higher strength antiperspirants contain about 20% aluminum salt. A clinical strength antiperspirant contains more than 20% aluminum salt and requires a prescription.
Unfortunately, aluminum salts have been associated in clinical trials with a health risk for certain types of cancer, such as breast cancer. But these findings are not conclusive, and no-one knows for certain whether antiperspirant really does carry a higher breast cancer risk. So, until better results come in, some of us with excessive sweat will be using an antiperspirant spray or roll-on. Now, that you understand how deodorants and antiperspirants work, which one will you choose?
