Women’s armpits more unpleasant than men

A team of testers have now found that women smell of onions while men smell of cheese, and these findings have challenged as it is often suggested that there’s natural smell in females that arouse males.

A team of independent testers recruited by the scientists found the smell from women’s armpits was more unpleasant.

Men had relatively high levels of an odourless fatty acid which turned into a cheesy odour when exposed to the same types of bacteria, the researchers said.

Christian Starkenmann of Firmenich, a company in Geneva that researches flavours and perfumes for food and cosmetics companies said that “Men smell of cheese, and women of grapefruit or onion.”

According to the results, which appear in Chemical Senses, women’s armpit sweat contained relatively high levels of an odourless sulphur-containing compound - 5 milligrams per millilitre of sweat versus 0.5 milligrams in men, the New Scientist magazine reported today.