Why do foreigners smell

There is some quantifiable science behind this statement. The skin contains two types of sweat glands; the eccrine glands that secrete through pores and apocrine glands which secrete through the hair follicles and hair. The apocrine gland secretions are more apt to provide a base for stinky bacteria. However there is a difference between the balance of eccrine and apocrine glands which is based on genetics. Different racial groups have different genetic dispositions in this regard which are genetically related to the A allele eccrine type or G allele apocrine.

Another characteristic of the G allele is damp, soft earwax while A allele people have dry and flaky earwax. Apocrine glands have also been associated with pheromones in some studies. The glands themselves become active after puberty and sweat is often linked to sex hormones.

Your culture may affect your sensitivity to odors; some things you will ignore because of a cultural acclimation and other things will strike you as foreign or novel. Walking through the Korea Town section of Osaka especially under Tsuruhashi station visitors may find it hard to breathe with the overwhelming smell of kimchi saturating the atmosphere. Japanese people are aware of how rare it is for foreigners to tolerate the smell of natto and they seem to delight in watching the over reaction of foreigners gagging on those stinky, sticky fermented soy beans.

Japanese drug store carry their own brands of deodorants. They are generally lightly scented, depend on alcohol for cleaning and make heavy use of menthol for a sense of cool in the summer. American made deodorants heavily scented with anti-perspirants are not available in stores, therefore they are a common request for the contents of care packages sent from relatives back home.

The most popular deodorants are the Nivea 8x4 eight-four roll-on sticks and the Biore body sheets both made by the Kao company are sold in drug stores and convenience stores. Baby powder is useful but relatively difficult to find in Japan limited quantities, few stores and high prices and sold in inconvenient tubs rather than bottles with an applicator. At most workplaces you will have your own desk or locker.

I recommend keeping a complete set of fresh, work appropriate closes button up or polo shirts and khakis in my schools ; this includes socks and underwear as an entire set of clothes can get drenched while commuting in the rain, even if you are using an umbrella and simply walking from the nearest station.

People in Japan are apparently concerned about triggering socially awkward situations. Given the passive nature of Japanese society especially in the workplace , you may not know about your own smell until the situation has snowballed.

This has led to recent examples of invention and marketing; similar to the way that the fear of halitosis was invented by Listerine by acknowledging to politeness and passivity of formal social situations. The Konika company based in Japan has created a device called the "Kunkun Body" which is designed to detect unpleasant odors and warn the user through a connected smart phone app but the device costs about 30, yen.

Warning; lengthy anecdote ahead! A foreigner once worked in an international pre-school; a building that cares for children under the age of 6 many of whom were in diapers , in an English speaking environment, with a mix of education and childcare. View the discussion thread. About Contact Subscribe. Topics Teaching and Learning. By Colleen Flaherty. January 21, Getty Images. Read more by Colleen Flaherty. Most Shared Stories Ex-dean at Southern California indicted for bribery Inside Higher Ed Suit claims department chair shielded serial sexual predator Satiric look at this year's implicit bias module season opinion Inside Higher Ed Faculty call for reinstatement of acquitted professor Higher education should prepare for five new realities opinion Inside Higher Ed.

Subscribe for free today. Inside Higher Ed Careers Hiring? The first thing our noses tell us about those around us is their odor print, the unique collection of aromas that distinguish one person from another, and that allows dogs, for example, to track specific individuals.

Parents learn the odor of our newborns just hours after birth and newborns scootch preferentially towards the odor of breast pads worn by their birth mothers rather than those of other women. And for many of us there is a quintessential comfort in the familiar odor of a grandmother or of a romantic partner. In one study about smell and romance, straight women preferred the body odor of straight men whose immune systems were different enough that any offspring would have healthy immune systems.

For most of human history, infectious disease has been our greatest threat. In modern times we may seek life-partners that satisfy a multitude of needs, but more fundamentally, if you could produce babies with immune systems able to fight a potpourri of pathogens, then your progeny—and your genes—stand a better chance at survival. Earlier this summer, a study by Noam Sobel at the Weizmann Institute in Israel reported that people who became fast friends with each other have similar body odor prints, as determined by odor panelists as well as electronic noses.

This begs the awkward question: How do two individuals, meeting one another for the first time, get close enough for a whiff? Although this information has the propensity to ruin handshakes, it may make people-watching at parties and conferences all the more fascinating. Law enforcement officers have long noticed that individuals arriving for an interrogation smell like their own unique selves—yet they leave smelling potently similar, after the stressful questioning.

Scientists put this observation to the test and found it had merit. When a panel of people sniffed odor pads from individuals who sweat from fear by watching a scary film and those that sweat normally when watching a nature documentary , the panelists could distinguish which sweat samples were produced in fear.

Health status is another fascinating piece of information we may glean from the body odor of others, namely whether their bodies are fighting off a microbial pathogen. This piece of the pathogen was a protein, called endotoxin, that normally sits on the surface of the bacteria. Study subjects injected with the endotoxin were given T-shirts to wear over a few hours to capture their body odor.

They were sent home, while their T-shirts were put in a freezer. The researchers repeated the same experiment some time later, except the study subjects were only injected with saline solution, and no endotoxin, so that normal body odor was collected on a different set of T-shirts.