S12 EP2 - Female Body Odor: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

S12 EP2 - Female Body Odor: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Intro/Outro:
Hi, I'm Kristyn Hodgdon, an IVF mom, proud women's health advocate, and co-founder of Rescripted. Welcome to From First Period to Last Period, a science-backed health and wellness podcast dedicated to shining a light on all of the women's health topics that have long been considered taboo. From UTIs to endometriosis, we're amplifying women's needs and voices because we know there's so much more to the female experience than what happens at the doctor's office. With From First Period to Last Period, we're doing the legwork on your whole body so you can be the expert in you. Now, let's dive in.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to From First Period to Last Period. I'm your host, Kristyn, and I'm here today with Dr. Shannon Klingman. Dr. Klingman is an ob-gyn and the inventor of Lume Whole Body Deodorant for pits, privates, and beyond, as well as their men's line, Mando. Hi, Dr. Klingman.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Hi, Kristyn. How are you?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Good. How are you?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I'm so glad to be here. I love that you guys are changing up the narrative on women's health. I think you're doing the Lord's work.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Thank you, back at you. So, last episode, we talked a lot about vaginal odor and the dark history of the feminine hygiene industry, which was super interesting. If you haven't listened to that, please go back and do really fun stuff in there. And then so, today, we're going to be talking a little bit more about like more general body odor and how it kind of changes in the various seasons, or eras, for our Taylor Swift fans.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Oh, ..., you're a Swiftie, right?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, who isn't at this point? But yeah, so diving right in, what are some of, some common myths or misconceptions about female body odor that you often hear?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I think the biggest misconception is people think that men have worse body odor than women, which simply is not true. I think that we'll hear women say, I have to use a men's deodorant because my body odor is so bad. And really, the fact of the matter is, men are hairier than women, and so once the body odor forms, there's a little more surface area for body odor to reside on bodies. But for women who don't shave or wax, I think the likelihood and the tendency is just as high as men. Because we all know that body hair does harbor odor, it makes sense that it would. People who shave their heads don't have the same odor on their heads as people who have a full head of hair. It's just different. But the second big myth in misconception is that the vagina is to blame for odor below the belt, and it's a myth that has been propagated for decades that all odor below the belt is caused by the vagina, and it's for good reason, because the feminine hygiene industry and even doctors get it wrong more than they get it right. The vagina is not to blame for day-to-day odor.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Okay, so what is?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
So, all body odor is the same. It's the reaction between bacteria and fluids on our skin but on different parts. Just like in our, underarms, we have bacteria, our underboob, our thigh folds, between our butt cheeks, and our feet, like any little warm spot where skin kind of rubs on the skin, we have a likelihood to develop body odor.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Why does underarm odor have such like a distinct smell, though?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
It's the compounds that get formed, like two or three hexanoic acids. If I said, what is this? And I gave you that compound, you'd be like, oh, that's BO, but there are other body odors that form, like trimethylamine, which is a fishy odor. There are other foul odors that smell like putrid meat. There are odors that smell like fish, like a goat-like barnyard, and men and women have the ... likelihood anywhere skin rubs on skin. Different bacteria found on different parts of our body are exposed to different fluids, and different odors form. But there are trillions of bacteria on our skin. There's over 100 odor compounds that can form head to toe, and they're all technically a byproduct of bacteria and fluids, they're on our bodies, therefore, they are defined as body odor. But what you are describing is when we smell it or when you smell it, there are so many more odor compounds than just that highly recognizable and expected body odor that we recognize. You step on an elevator; someone has BO. You smell it on your kids, you go your pits stink, you have BO. There are so much more than just that one odor compound that forms.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, speaking of kids, right off the bat in puberty, what accounts for that shift? Is it hormonal when adolescents start to have body odor?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Yeah, the hormone fluctuations, it is just pulsing through our veins at that pre-pubertal stage while things are starting to build, and you'll notice even as early as nine and ten, sometimes younger, those body odors will start to form that we recognize as traditional pit odor. And there are other times in our life when there is also an awakening of those odor-causing reactions, and it's puberty, it's pregnancy, and it's nursing. It's not even a very mild form. It's basically mimicking menopause, where your estrogen falls through the floor, and you notice shifts in body odor after you have a baby, especially if you're nursing, and it's that plummeting estrogen that happens to us chemically.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, I remember specifically that I was like, no one told me about the sweating, the postpartum sweating. I didn't breastfeed twins, and just wasn't possible for me, but yeah, just lots of sweating.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
When I say menopause, people think of hot flashes. But menopause, perimenopause is so much more than hot flashes, and there are so many other things to think about, but we basically reduce it to that symptom. But postpartum is being in a pseudo menopausal state, and it's that catastrophic drop in estrogen that happens when you deliver the placenta where all the estrogen is coming from. And once that happens, it's like someone flipped a light switch, and your estrogen just plummets. And so you'll notice those episodes of hot flashing that are commonly associated with menopause. It happens in the postpartum state as well.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, I've even noticed as an IVF patient, IVF veteran, I guess you have done so many cycles doing transfer cycles or retrieval cycles, first of all, but then also transfer cycles that end up not working, and then you have to like hard stop the medication and your estrogen and progesterone fall to the floor. And I definitely noticed fluctuations there as well.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Yeah, IVF cycles are no joke. You're a warrior. There is a special place in heaven for women who go through multiple IVF cycles because the build-up is so physical, and when it's not successful, the letdown can be very traumatic, trying, and challenging relationships, and so I do understand what it is that you're describing. But what happens with IVF is we basically shut down the ovaries, we create a pseudo-menopause state, and they do it. It's whiplash. Hormones are high, then we take them away. And then, if someone flipped a light switch, you don't even recognize yourself. Hormonally, you feel like a transformed person, and there's a lot of, like, what's the matter with me? And it's we just removed all of your estrogen. And so you get like a first-row seat at what that does to your mental and physical well-being.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, it's hormones are crazy. I'm pregnant now, and thankfully, after years of secondary fertility, but just all the hormonal changes. Obviously, in the first trimester, I was still on a lot of meds, but now I'm like, wait, why am I still hormonal? I'm just like, every week is a different story. Dealing with all of these changes throughout the seasons of life, or whether you're pregnant or trying to conceive, what are some of the things you can do to help manage? Because if it is hormonal, how do you combat that?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
In terms of body odor?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
We talked about puberty and how there's this surge of hormonal impact on the sweat glands, and that chemical shift that happens makes you more likely to develop body odor and is raging through your veins. But then throughout our menstrual cycles, and I know we don't technically cycle like the moon, but that's what it feels like sometimes, right? Every week is different, and so you're either building up to ovulation, or you're building up to bleeding, or you're bleeding and then you're bleeding is slowing down. It just feels like not one week is the same week to week for women. And so when the estrogen levels are the highest in the first half of the cycle, right around ovulation, when it peaks, that's the lowest likelihood of developing the strongest body odor that you can create. But then, after ovulation, when your estrogen plummets and your progesterone is the dominant hormone, it functions like an androgen, like an androgynous or a male hormone, and it actually increases the likelihood of you developing body odor in your pits. So you might notice around the time of your period that your body odor is worse, and that is why it is a direct corollary to the hormonal fluctuations of ovulation and then menstruation.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Just add it to the list of reasons why you want to just stay curled up in bed during your period.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I think, in some ways, I am a woman through and through, and I would always want to be the one that gets to carry the babies and deliver the babies, and I feel very fortunate to have had those experiences. As you start to approach menopause, you realize this is a dirty trick that gets played on women. It's like a catastrophic decline in estrogen that happens, and there is absolutely an embarrassing limited number of research dollars that get applied to the learning, understanding, and research of menopause. We know a lot about pregnancy and infertility, but we don't know a lot about women's health beyond the age of 45, and they treat us like men. The research would say just treat women like men, but they haven't really done the research. And so you can tell that I have a chip on my shoulder about this, that because we don't understand things better, we really have to take it upon ourselves to discern what is good medical practice versus like half-ass. And a lot of what we've done in the past is antiquated, it's very minimal compared to what women really need.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely. We're going to dive deep into that in the next episode, too, so I'm excited for that. So, how can lifestyle factors affect body odor, as well, like diet, exercise, etc.?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Diet is something where you think about you are what you eat. So what you eat, things that have more pungent smells like turmeric or some spices, and the stronger like warmer spices, spicy foods, and garlic are more likely to find their way into sebaceous secretions, so into our skin and hair. But those aren't necessarily foul, right? So they're just something that's noted just as a result of you are what you eat to a degree, but it's typically not a foul, off-putting odor. But when you think about the times of your menstrual cycle, when you are building up estrogen, and you're less likely to have body odor, you actually feel your best. Women feel their best right around the time of ovulation when estrogen levels are peaking, and then as they decline, you're more likely to experience body odor, and that's just due to the drop in estrogen progesterone becoming the predominant hormone, and there's a play on your sweat glands there. And so knowing that those times during your menstrual cycle and hygiene practices. I'm a big proponent of acidifying your skin. It's no secret I'm the founder of Lume Whole Body Deodorant. This is my battle cry, is eliminating the odors that get that impact a woman's comfort level in her own skin. And so, by acidifying your hygiene routine, you will be able to really eliminate body odor altogether by acidifying your shower and acidifying the creams and lotions that you put on your skin. Deodorants that you use in your odor-prone areas, and you really can make body odor a non-issue if you are approaching your hygiene in an acidified way.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Love it. That's great advice. I want to be sensitive about this, but because we're not ingredient shamers, and I know you're not either, I just feel like there's a lot of discourse around aluminum, deodorants, and certain things. What would you say to that? Is there science to suggest otherwise? Is it, I don't know; I just think there's so much stigma around body odor. But then there's also this, like other conversation being had about don't use anything with fragrance, don't use anything with aluminum. Don't you think it's like what? It puts you at a loss of what to do sometimes. Oh, I guess what's your professional opinion about how people can tweak their personal hygiene?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I think that there's a lot of fear-mongering going on and a lot of ingredient shaming, and there's companies that are being built around that concept of making people feel like these ingredients are better. And oh, by the way, I also happen to create a line of products that are free from all the things that I'm telling you that are bad. So I think in some ways you have to be careful because there is a conflict of interest there. But I will say that, for the most part, beauty products have gotten way cleaner. We have cleaned up the way we disclose ingredients and fragrances. You can hide a lot of things in a fragrance and call it a fragrance. But if you are participating in the clean beauty standards of Target and Walmart and even best practices with the manufacturers that you're working with. You need full disclosure of what is in those fragrances. And most I would say that reputable beauty companies now are manufacturing and using fragrances that do not contain hormone disruptors or phthalates. So, I think the fragrance fear has really been eliminated. Now, that's not to say that there's not ingredients in fragrances that can exacerbate skin sensitivities, but if you are someone who is prone to having sensitive skin, eliminating fragrances is going to remove one more potential insult. And so we offer fragranced products, but then we also have the unscented varieties that are less likely to have those irritants in them. So I think tread lightly on that. I think there's a lot of shame around fragrance. Not all fragrance is bad. Fragrances have gotten cleaner. So there's that aluminum about a decade ago or more even. I would say up until recently, aluminum was really the devil. There's a lot of ingredient shaming over the aluminum salts that are used in sweat control products. And I think if you really read and dive into the data in a really unbiased, critical way, you will see that the American Cancer Society does not proclaim that aluminum causes breast cancer. In fact, it's the opposite. They'll say there is really no recognizable, clinically proven corollary between aluminum and breast cancers. The American Alzheimer's Association has said that aluminum does not increase your risk for Alzheimer's disease. The Kidney Foundation has to put a disclaimer on products that contain aluminum. Hey, if you have kidney disease, you need to consult with your physician. That disclaimer and that black box warning are likely antiquated as well. It needs to be reversed. So we also know that most women, when we interviewed women. When we offer aluminum-free products, and not because I thought aluminum was a bad ingredient, but because aluminum really didn't have a place in odor control. Aluminum is an ingredient that's used to control sweat, and I was really laser-focused on controlling odor. But then our customers were asking for sweat control and the best way to control sweat, the only clinically proven ingredient that has been shown to reduce sweat and wetness on the skin is aluminum salts. And so you work to find the ones that are going to be the least likely to cause irritation and provide the sweat control benefit, and I feel good about it. But the beautiful thing is that everybody has a choice. You get to research your topics, you get to get comfortable for yourself, and then you get to make your own decisions. And so we're really proud to offer aluminum-free whole-body deodorant, and then also our sweat control that does contain aluminum salts.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Awesome. I thought that was important to clear up because I think, and just speaking for myself, it can be confusing sometimes with all of the mixed messages on either marketing materials or even Instagram accounts that promote clean living. And then there's not really the research studies that you just mentioned to back it up. So it was important to go by the science, I think.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I also think the reason I never liked aluminum was because it stained my clothes, and it was difficult to wash off my skin when we were formulating our sweat control products. I wanted to make sure the likelihood of staining was minimized as much as possible, and it's by looking at the other carrier ingredients that travel with it in the formula, and I wanted all that to be really clean. And then it has to be able to rinse off your skin. You don't want to feel like you're scraping pulp off. You're using to control sweat.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Love it. That's great that you offer both so people can make their own informed choices. How do hormonal contraception or contraceptives influence body odor?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
If you're on Depo-Provera or a progestin, that really does raise the progestins in your bloodstream, which has the impact on your sweat glands, which does, in theory, increase the likelihood of making you more susceptible to body odor. Hormone oral contraceptives that are estrogen and progestin-based, like birth control pills, they keep you just at a really steady state. And for women who notice cyclic body odor, it should have an improving impact on that as well as PMS, in theory. I actually love birth control pills for multiple reasons. Those are two.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Actually, that brings up a point that you mentioned earlier about how androgens can, you spoke a little bit about how androgens can impact body odor. And as someone with PCOS, I'm just curious if there's a correlation there.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Oh, yeah. Polycystic ovarian syndrome is my condition of choice. It is my love language. That is another area of medicine, tremendously under-researched. It's what I did my research on when I was a resident, and I was talking about; it's one thing like polycystic ovarian syndrome is not just about irregular periods. It's about hyperlipidemia and increased risk for diabetes, it's acne and facial hair. It's central adiposity, like more likely to have central obesity, but not everyone with polycystic ovarian syndrome has insulin resistance, but you are more likely to have gestational diabetes or develop type 2 diabetes later in life. So, there is a component of hyperandrogenemia or high androgen level with polycystic ovarian syndrome, and it's a syndrome which is like a spectrum. Some have it worse than others, but you're 100% right that you are more likely to have an imbalance of the androgen hormones that are what cause increased propensity for acne, body odor, and facial hair.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Birth control has always been a godsend for me. When I'm not trying to get pregnant. Yeah, but it's leveled me out in that way.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
You're 100%, right?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah. In the last episode, we talked about how you should familiarize yourself with your vaginal odor and just figure out what's normal for you so they know when there are any changes, and you can let your healthcare provider know. How does that work with body odor just because we sweat more than others? Like how do you know what's normal for you?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I think that if it washes off, or if you use products and it eliminates and prolongs that odor free interval, the chances of there being pathology present is very low. So it's when odors are persistent; if there's itching, burning, or a discharge associated with it. And I'm talking everywhere, not just the vulva from the vagina. I'm talking like if your armpits are red and itchy and they, you notice like a cheesy odor, it's more likely you have yeast in those warm, hot areas. Yeast is more likely to itch if you notice something that smells foul, like the area getting damp, moist, or weeping moisture. And when you smell that fluid, it smells off to you, that is an indication of an infection, and that would be another reason why you would want to talk to your doctor. But if you have healthy, intact skin otherwise, and you're noticing odors on other parts of your body, that would just be body chemistry. You're able to control it with good hygiene practices and deodorants. Honestly, Lume isn't like a replacement for hygiene. You should still be showering and bathing, but how often this idea of a daily shower is not something that most dermatologists will even say is what's best for your skin, prolonging your odor-free interval between showers. I am like crafting a new way of life where it's, hey, if my hair looks okay, I don't want to jump in the shower.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
I'm just gonna say, I know not everyone's washing their hair every day.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
We're not. ... I grew up in the 80s when it was all about hot rollers and aqua net, where you needed your hair as big as possible. So you were washing your hair every day because you were shellacking it before you went to school. But now we're much kinder to our hair, and the recommendation to not wash it every day has been like so freeing for me.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, absolutely agree. So, what advice do you have for women who might be self-conscious about their body odor during these various different stages of life?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I think body odor is cultural to some degree. If you can recognize it as normal and you're comfortable with it, there's no need to change. But if it is something that is bothering you and you wish that it wasn't there. Understanding, I think this is where Lume is very different, it's not about showering with soap and water, and you're good to go. Soap is not your friend, especially for odor below the belt and acidifying your hygiene routine by starting in the shower. In fact, there were people who were reluctant. They wanted the freeing aspect of no body odor anywhere on their body, but the thought of applying deodorants or creams to other parts of their body that shift in activity was something they weren't necessarily ready to adopt right away. So we created deodorants that you can use in the shower with our acidified body wash and our acidified cleansing bar, which looks like soap and it lathers like soap, but it's not soap, and it's acidified, which wasn't easy to do, and it's going to eliminate those odor reactions in the shower better than soap. And then it's going to continue to control odor for 24 hours. Just a deodorant would. If you want to acidify your shower routine, use an acidified product outside of the shower; that is going to be your best defense to feeling like you are now a fairy. You will achieve a level of odor freedom where you will say, am I even human? You will start to question, is it possible for me to even produce body odor anymore? And then you stop using deodorant for five days, and you go, oh yeah, here she is. She's ... She's still in there. But it's actually shocking how you don't even realize the body odor that you've just been living with until you adopt like an acidified hygiene routine that Lume provides, and you're like, man, this is a new normal for me. It's like the difference between a land phone and a cell phone.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
That's been such a big takeaway for me throughout this mini-season of the podcast because I don't feel like we're really marketed, that we need an acidified routine. I feel like it's kind of just like, you smell bad. Here's something to pay, you smell better. But it's not, here are the ingredients you actually need to balance your body's pH or whatever. You could explain it better than me, but I don't know. Like, that's such an unlock in so many ways.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
I think that when you mentioned when you balance your body's pH, there is so much marketing being served up to women on, its pH-balanced. What does that even mean? We need products that are pH-optimized to control those odor reactions, and it just so happens that your skin wants to be acidic anyway. You have a healthy acid mantle that is there to protect your skin from pathogens. It wants to be acidic. Lume makes sure your skin stays acidic even with the high pH. Alkaline in salts of sweat, semen, blood, and urine, products you put on your skin. Lume acidifies your skin first, and we try to hold it in that state for as long as humanly possible. We're still continuing to make improvements to our products you have not seen everything from Lume yet, but the idea of approaching that by acidifying your skin, you're also impacting the bacteria's ability to digest fluids and create odor on your skin, stopping odor before it starts versus covering it up with a fragrance or neutralizing body odor after it happens, which is the case with ingredients like baking soda.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Okay, gotcha. That makes sense. So what would you rescript, I always like to ask before the end of each episode, about the way body odor is viewed by society and how people feel about taking care of it?

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Yeah, I think the first and foremost everybody needs to know, that body odor is normal. It's just a normal part of being human, just a unibrow, we wax our eyebrows, we whiten our teeth, and we color our hair. There are a lot of things that we do to try to make ourselves feel more comfortable in our own skin, but it's also an option to do absolutely nothing about any of those things. All of those things are normal, but for some of us, it's unwanted. And so we make choices that eliminate those things that we want to eliminate from our lives. So, body odor is normal. The vagina is not to blame for the odor below the belt. Getting familiar with what your normal vaginal discharge smells like so that if there's been a shift, you will come to understand that, yeah, Dr. Klingman was right. These odors are happening between my butt cheeks and on my vulva. It's not my vagina. And there are now conversations that we're having, and you should feel very comfortable knowing all body odor is normal, and you can control all body odor anywhere you have it, but wish you did it with Lume. And there has never been a product on the market before Lume addressed body odor in the same way Lume does. It's very different from anything you've ever tried before. And so my goal is to change the narrative on especially feminine hygiene for women because, I'd love to put it on a t-shirt, the vagina is not to blame for the odor below the belt, but I don't think that could be our tagline at Walmart. I don't think they would go for that.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
That's so true. Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Klingman. This is great, and there's nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to body odor and lots of great options to manage it, so appreciate your time.

Dr. Shannon Klingman:
Thank you so much.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
If this podcast means something to you, be sure to hit Follow or Subscribe. This helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. For science-backed women's health content that meets you exactly where you are, head to Rescripted.com or follow us on social @HelloRescripted.

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