This Is Why Your Armpits Still Smell After a Shower | Livestrong.com (2024)

Your antiperspirant could be the reason your armpits smell after showering.

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Showers are supposed to leave your underarms (and the rest of you) smelling fresh and clean. So if you still smell bad even with good hygiene, what's going on?

"When somebody feels like they're still smelly after the shower, typically it's someone who is more prone to sweating, and may have a buildup of bacteria on the skin in conjunction with the sweat," Marisa Garshick, MD, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Cornell-New York Presbyterian Medical Center, tells LIVESTRONG.com.

Getting to the root of the problem is the simplest path to de-stenching. Here are five common causes of armpits that smell after showering and what you can do to get rid of body odor.

Body odor is the smell given off when your sweat mixes with the bacteria on your skin, according to the Mayo Clinic. (It's not your sweat that smells bad, in other words — sweat itself does not smell.)

There are two main types of sweat glands: eccrine and apocrine. Eccrine glands are found throughout your body; they release sweat to cool you down when you get too hot. Apocrine glands, on the other hand, are found in hairy areas (think: underarms, groin), and they release a milky fluid when you're stressed. Sweat from your apocrine glands can smell especially bad when it mixes with your skin bacteria.

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Do you typically apply your antiperspirant after hopping out of the shower in the morning? That might seem like the most effective way to keep sweat and underarm odor at bay, but in fact, it's not. "Antiperspirants are most effective when used at bedtime," Dr. Garshick says.

Here's why: Antiperspirants work by plugging up underarm sweat glands to prevent sweat from being released. "Because sweat glands are empty at night, they can take up more of that antiperspirant," Dr. Garshick explains.

And because most antiperspirants are designed to work for 24 hours, they'll ‌continue‌ working to keep sweat at bay even after you've showered the next morning. (Though if you'd feel more protected with an extra swipe in the a.m., go for it. Just make sure your skin is completely dry first.)

Make sure, too, that you're using a true antiperspirant rather than a deodorant, which masks odor but doesn't actually stop sweat. If you use the latter, though, you might wonder: Should I not put deodorant on after a shower? The answer is no. Deodorant works differently from antiperspirant, so you should apply deodorant after a shower to help prevent body odor.

Underarm hair traps more sweat than skin alone, so the sweat has more time to mix with stench-causing bacteria, Beth Goldstein, MD, adjunct clinical professor of dermatology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and founder of the skin-care brand GETMR, tells LIVESTRONG.com.

Hair-covered skin can also be tougher to get squeaky clean.

Showering should get rid of that "armpit smell," but if it doesn't, you might be dealing with stubborn bacteria.

We all have a mix of "good" and "bad" bacteria living on the surface of our skin, including the skin in our armpits. "Usually these bacteria are in a balanced state. But occasionally that balance can become disrupted and cause an overgrowth of certain 'bad' bacteria," Dr. Garshick explains. And that can make body odor worse or more intense.

Began taking a new prescription recently? If it seems like you're sweating — and smelling — more than usual, the medication might be to blame.

The following drugs have the potential to cause hyperhidrosis, or excessive sweating that can potentially make your body odor more noticeable, according to a January 2013 review in ‌Drug Safety:‌

A pimple-like or pus-filled spot in your underarm can often be an odor culprit, especially if you notice that just one armpit smells after showering.

"We have all these little hair follicles in the armpit, and when people shave, there are lots of little portals of entry for potentially problematic bacteria to enter and cause what looks like an ingrown hair," Dr. Garshick explains. "But if it's filled with pus, it could be an infection."

Certain conditions or diseases can cause bad body odor, or a change in body odor, according to the Cleveland Clinic. These include:

Some of these conditions, such as menopause and hyperthyroidism, can cause increased sweating, which may cause you to smell bad even with good hygiene. In other cases, the odor can signal that something is off in your body. Kidney or liver disease, for example, can cause a bleach-like body odor because of a buildup of toxins in your body.

Occasionally being stinkier than usual probably isn't cause for concern, especially if at-home measures like applying your antiperspirant correctly, shaving or washing with an antibacterial soap seem to solve the problem.

But if you consistently have smelly armpits after a shower, or the odor seems to be coming from other parts of your body as well, call your doctor. "These could be signs of a medical illness such as liver disease, diabetes or an inability to metabolize certain foods or medications," Dr. Goldstein says.