Rubbing someone else’s sweat on your armpits could help treat bad smelling BO, scientists reveal

Forget deodorant, all you need is a less pungent family member

Body odour puts people off from doing things like going to the gym, poll finds. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Got BO? For an unlucky few, no matter how much they bathe, the pungent stench of smelly pits can’t be masked - but science might just have the answer.

Forget spending all your money on fancy deodorants, all you need is a liberal splash of someone else’s sweat. No, really.

According to new research from the University of California, San Diego, rubbing the sweat of a more fragrant family member into your armpits could actually reduce body odour.

The lead author of the study, Dr Chris Callewart, found that by replacing strong-smelling armpit bacteria with some that doesn’t smell as bad, your armpits are tricked into breeding nicer smelling bacteria.

This is called bacteria transplant.

To test the theory, Dr Callewart took two identical twins – one of whom suffered from bad body odour, while the other had little to no smell.

The twin without odour issues was instructed not to wash for four days, so he could produce as much of his own less-smelly bacteria in his armpits as possible.

Meanwhile, the twin with BO was told to wash himself thoroughly using antibacterial soap, so his armpits were as fresh and clean as possible.

Dr Callewart then rubbed the sweat of the twin without BO into the armpits of the other.

The result? The bad-smelling twin’s odour problem all but disappeared and the researchers report that this effect has lasted for well over a year now.

The same experiment has since been performed on 17 more pairs and found that all but one of the BO sufferers experienced a vast reduction in body odour after just one month.

Now, the team is trying to cultivate its own universal bacteria instead of using the ones in the sweat from relatives.