Jade’s Guide To Being A Smelly White Girl

Why doesn’t Japanese deodorant work? Basically Asians have different genes compared to those of Caucasians. This goes for the majority of people, but I have known whiffy Asians and non-whiffy Caucasians too.

Warning: This Post Involves A Bit Of Science

We have two main types of sweat gland called eccrine and apocrine. Eccrine sweat glands are small and found pretty much everywhere in our bodies. They secrete a mixture of salt and water directly onto the skin’s surface, which is used to cool our bodies down.

Moving onto apocrine sweat glands! These are the glands that cause body odour, hooray! They are larger and only found in certain areas of our bodies (mainly our pits and private bits). Rather than directly onto our skin, they secrete into a hair follicle, which then carries the sweat up to the skin surface. These glands mainly secrete proteins, lipids, such as fatty acids, and steroids.

The sweat by itself does not smell; however, it is a delicious food source for the bacteria that live on our skin. So essentially the bacteria eat it, metabolise it and then their waste products are what cause the bad smell. So body odour is… bacteria poo.

So, why don’t Japanese people smell bad?

In a nutshell, they have fewer apocrine sweat glands on their bodies. How come? It all comes from one specific gene: ABCC11. This gene has two variations, one with the allele A and one with the allele G. People born with the G allele (I am definitely included in this group) have more active apocrine sweat glands (sigh), while those born with the A allele have fewer apocrine sweat glands and thus little to no body odour.

Apparently the smelly allele G was the original version of the gene, and the non-smelly allele A came around approximately 2,000 generations ago. Why did the allele A appear? No one seems to know, but it could be linked to colder climates… or something.

Mirror, MIrror, On the wall, Who is the smelliest of them all?

Here you can see the different races and the percentage of them that have either the A or the G allele.

Photo credits: Toshihisa Ishikawa

But wait, there’s more.

Not only does this allele affect our body odour, it also affects what type of earwax we have.

Yes, earwax.

In your ear canal, there’s a type of apocrine gland that produces earwax – wonderful!

Japanese earwax. Photo credits: (C) by GR Digital User

Smelly foreigner earwax.

Japanese people have dry, flaky earwax as opposed to the sticky, wet earwax that us Westerners have because they were gifted with the A allele rather than the G allele.

Thank you Gene ABCC11 for all of your joyous presents!

Japanese Deodorants…

Simply do not work on smelly foreigners.

Although a few rare people in Japan have said that there are some deodorants over here that work on combatting body odour, I personally gave up looking for them a long time ago. Instead, I stockpile on deodorant (always Dove Original because it’s clearly the best deodorant in the world) to bring back with me in my suitcase. If I find myself running out, I ask friends who are going back to the UK to bring some back for me or beg my family to send some out in the post. Because Japanese deodorant is just no.

Read more on things you should know before you visit Japan! Or find out how I learnt Japanese by myself here.