to think we owe it to our DC to let our armpits go feral?

[ClockWatchingLady]

When our kids are little, shouldn't they see that women have body hair (and accept it rather than remove it)?
Once they're in their teens, they'll probably see endless full-body-waxed women online, whether we like it or not.
So while they're little and forming their basic impressions of the female body, shouldn't we stop all this bloody depilation? Whether we feel comfortable with it or not, don't we owe it to the younger generation?

Yours faithfully,
Mr Tumnus

[mumblecrumble]

I just cannot be arsed.

[ICBINEG]

yes cote but it isn't the sweat that smells is it?

its the skin bacteria...which happen do well in a wet claggy environment (think no hair, sweat staying on skin)...and which do not do well on dry skin...(think hair wicking the moisture away from the skin).

It make perfect sense that when you let your body function as it is meant to you don't suffer the same bacterial invasion that you do if you remove your bodies defences.

But don't let that stop you from continuing to maintain that it is totally impossible that someone you have never met might possibly smell less with hair than without....

Turns out hiding the thread doesn't work when it's in the discussion of the day and you are too stupid to stay away.

cote I can't believe you continued to perpetuate that shit after I explained it to you. You really aren't the person I thought you were.

[ICBINEG]

cote

You said:

"I wonder if that is about when you stop smelling your own body odour, because you certainly don't stop producing it."

This isn't true - you continue making sweat but sweat is odourless. It is the bacteria produce the smell. If they cease to thrive you will stop smelling. If they thrive less well then you will smell less. simple.

"I don't have to personally come and smell your armpits to know for a fact that you body didn't just stop producing body odour just because you didn't shave for several weeks. "

This isn't true. Empirically (as confirmed by a number of witnesses or theoretically (see above).

"You still have functional sweat glands and some bacteria on your skin? The you have body odour. It has a purpose in nature, and letting armpit hair grow naturally will enhance it, not eliminate it. "

This isn't true as previously stated, your hair acts to remove moisture from the environment the bacteria want it in..on the skin. That's the whole fucking point of armpit hair, to stop the bacteria getting totally cooked up on your skin.

"[you smell] Slightly more, in all likelihood, since you have more hair to disperse the smell than most. "

Which isn't true as there is little or no smell to broadcast.

Maybe you might try posting true things in the future...just a thought

[ICBINEG]

vilewoman yes amazing that isn't it...although cote will no doubt be back to explain that it is "physically impossible" for your DH to not smell if he does't use deodorant and doesn't shave...presumably you too have had a nasal bypass of some sort.

[MrsKoala]

As i said, I don't shave, don't use deodorant and don't smell a bit. But the thing is i never have. What i understood from Cote's post was it is impossible for your sweat glands to be influenced by shaving. So if you USED to sweat loads when you shaved, it is impossible that you stopped sweating loads when you decided to stop. Something else must have happened to stop it. Vilewomans husband has presumably never smelled so it has nothing to do with shaving or otherwise. It's a bit like saying cutting/shaving your hair on your head will make it curly/stronger/courser. Of course it wont, your hair is a dead product, how would the root (or sweat glands) know what had happened to the end? What happens is it appears different for another reason, ie blunt at the ends give the visual illusion of thickness/weight lifted means the curl can bounce up/hair is cut sharp at an angle making it spikey rather than tapered if waxed/left natural etc SO the reason for you ICBINEG is perhaps bacteria naving less opportunity to thrive as you said.

[nooka]

I'm another person who doesn't shave or use deodorant. I'm not very sweaty in general, and the only time I have wanted to use anti-antiperspirant is on the few occasions when I have shaved, because the sweat just felt so much more sticky and generally horrible without the hair to wick it away.

Apparently (read it here) the gene for the smelly sort of underarm sweat is related to that for dry ear wax - if you have dry ear wax then you don't have smelly armpits.

[garlicagain]

Gosh, I never realised that was the purpose of pit hair! I thought it was some hopelessly ineffective anti-friction device ... or a means of distributing endocrine pong to the world at large, thus advertising our individual pheromonal cocktails to potentially desirous mates.

Anyway, this thread has come at entirely the wrong time for me. Having spent the past month educating the startled citizens of The Town That Time Forgot in the realities of female body hair (well, mine, at least,) I waxed the lot yesterday.

[garlicagain]

Nooka, that's depressing! I seem to have become more whiffy and more waxy when my menopause started. What with all that, chin bristles, turkey neck and interminable periods, it really is the prime of life

[ClockWatchingLady]

caster8 - I don't understand your post. Please explain. Unless I've missed something, I don't think anyone here is trying to persuade anyone else to do anything. Can you enlighten me?

[Caster8]

Of course there are posters here trying to get other posters and encouraging other posters to stop shaving.

[TheSunTheMoonTheTruth]

I have a female colleague who does to shave her arms, never has. She also does not use soap or deodorant, or any cleaning products that are not organic and made from natural stuff. She drinks lots of water. She cycles in to work (not gruelling, just a plod).

She does not smell. At all. Not even a tiny weeny little bit. And I have been up close and personal with her in a small meeting room in summer on many occasions.

[TheSunTheMoonTheTruth]

Who does not shave her arms that should have said.

[ClockWatchingLady]

OK, I just genuinely missed that, caster8!

[ICBINEG]

Well I think the title of the OP hints that maybe the OP thinks people shouldn't shave as a default position....doesn't it?

MrsK yes indeed....I haven't stopped sweating, but the smell has gone.

Unless I play badminton in a sauna of a sports hall for 2 hours like I did last night!....that pretty much overloaded the hair system....and certainly made me smell. (unless cote has an explanation for my nasal function being linked to exercise, this further proves I have not lost my ability to smell the products of bacteria breaking down sweat).

[ICBINEG]

It's strange isn't it that people don't think that head hair is dirty, or that it makes your scalp more sweaty....obviously it isn't and doesn't...but then neither does any of the rest of your hair....

Oh wait! Shampoo industry = £billions.....

People would lose money if they convince you all of your hair is dirty....the trick is to convince you that almost all of it is...and then keep a bit to sell shampoo for...

They have this so very precisely stitched up.

I would be in awe if it didn't make me so angry......

And to think people worry about the government manipulating what people think....rank fucking amateurs compared to Unilever and P&G.

[Minifingers]

Just feel it can't be good for my body to be slathering antiperspirant chemicals onto freshly scraped skin very day.....,

And that was before reading articles about the huge number of breast cancers that appear to appear in the upper outside quadrant of the breast (not aware there's any research linking anti perspirant use with breast cancer but still....)

[Minifingers]

I go through phases of being smelly but most of the time I'm not. I shower every day but notice that I smell more when I'm premenstrual or stressed or both.

[CoteDAzur]

Thank you MrsKoala, that is exactly what I said.

nooka's link is interesting. Apparently, about 2% of UK population don't smell and never have because they just don't have the gene for it. I know two people like this who don't use deodorant and never smell.

What I find improbable with ICBINEG's story is that she says she smelled when shaving but doesn't smell at all now that her armpit hair is long. So she has the gene, her apocrine glands are secreting the sticky stuff as before, but... no smell?

This reminds me of people who say their hair self-cleans and doesn't smell since they stopped washing it.

[CoteDAzur]

Re hair on your head vs armpit hair - These are different and have different purposes.

Armpit and groins have pubic hair - coarse, short, oval, and curly texture. Armpit and groins also have apocrine glands, which make the substance that bacteria likes to turn into body odour. The purpose of this hair isnt certain but seems to be to enhance the dispersal of your unique body odour by increasing the surface it's spread on.

Dispersed primarily from armpits, body odour serves an important purpose (or used to, before we masked/confused it with deodorants) - to attract us to more compatible sexual mates, and to steer us away from close relatives. Weisfelt et al showed that the less someone smells like you, the more attractive & less repulsive you find their smell.

All to say that body odour has an important function in nature and that armpit hair is part of it, especially when you leave it au naturel.

[CoteDAzur]

garlic - re "a means of distributing endocrine pong to the world at large, thus advertising our individual pheromonal cocktails to potentially desirous mates"

Yes, that seems to be the purpose of armpit hair, and also why it stays short and is rather curly (more surface to disperse the smell).

[CoteDAzur]

And re cancer & deodorants/antiperspirants:

Antiperspirant use and the risk of breast cancer

[LeBFG]

Keep starting this post and getting baby interruptions!!

The pheremone/MHC thing is not a clear cut story at the moment. I feel the dispersal idea can work both ways wrt smelling. Hairy armpits disperse our lovely body smells, but surely also dry quicker so wet, clammy skin promoting baterial growth and that dreaded BO would seem a very possible outcome. Ancedotally, I have not noticed a change of smell with or without hair tbh. If there is a difference it's small for me. The only time I smell is when I'm stressed or if I don't wash. Same with DH.

I think sometimes people get smell and BO confused tbh. My sister insists she 'smells' if she doesn't actually stink of deoderant and perfume (and scented moisteriser, and smelly shampoo etc).

[LeBFG]

very possible outcome of shaving hairy pits*.

[Guerrillacrochet]

I agree with LeBFG. To me when I think of 'person smell' I think of the smell of a bed after a few nights in it. Not an offensive smell to me. My husband is a hairy bugger and sometimes smells like this before a shower. It is a lovely snuggly smell to me (the thought of it makes me want to cuddle him).
BO is different- that to my mind is stale sweat which has a rank stink smell
I have no problems believing that both shaved and non-shaved people can produce smells at both end of the spectrum.

[HellonHeels]

For those saying we don't see head hair as "dirty", so why regard other body hair as "dirty" I don't quite understand the reasoning. Head hair is dirty and supports bacteria growth if sweaty / unwashed. I wouldn't want to find a head hair on a plate of food.

Many people go to great efforts to groom their head hair - washing every day, drying, styling, colouring, cutting, applying product. Some shave their heads. Most of them presumably do this not just because of hygiene but also due to social constructs/fashion. Perhaps there should be a case made for letting head hair go feral?