How Is Odor Generated?

We’ve all been there, maybe you were at the gym or on a camping trip and you start to realize that you are giving off a rather unpleasant odor. Not only is it coming off your body, but it is also on the clothes you are wearing. If you are hunting, or on a camping trip with limited clothes, this can be a big problem.

Odor is a multi-stage process

So what is causing this odor? The generation of odor starts with the bacteria on your skin. We all have bacteria on our skin and it’s actually healthy. However, when we introduce moisture (sweat) to the environment, it provides nutrients for the bacteria.

The bacteria begins to feed on the nutrients in your sweat and breaks it down into smaller molecules. The smaller molecules can evaporate at skin or room temperature and be detected as odor. The next question is, what can you do to prevent these unpleasant odors from coming off of you? Well you certainly can’t stop sweating, so the answer lies in the garment you’re wearing.

Odor control solutions Antimicrobials alone are not enough

Antimicrobials can be applied to apparel to control the growth of odor causing bacteria. However, this does not stop all the odor. Along with the odor being cause by bacteria, your body is also releasing odor vapors that can pass through the fabric and be detected as odors. Luckily there are odor adsorbers that can also be applied to apparel to capture and trap these body odors.

Looking around, you may see that most anti-odor apparel simply incorporates an antimicrobial. As you can see, the antimicrobial alone is not enough. The antimicrobial helps prevent odor causing bacteria from using you garment as a 2nd platform for odor generation (Skin + Garment), but what about he odor coming off your skin? A dual-function odor control incorporates both antimicrobial and an odor adsorber, providing complete odor control.