This stinks to high heaven.
As put-upon New Yorkers suffer through yet another summer heatwave, a new, noxious smell is seeping out into already pungent streets and filling overstuffed subway cars — everyone else’s sweat.
Did somebody shoplift all the deodorant from Duane Reade? No — the unwelcome underarm scent creeping into the already questionable fragrance bouquet of a Big Apple summer comes courtesy of grungy Gothamites who, in the name of environmental friendliness or their personal health, have opted to put the kibosh on pit protection.
Kate Caretta is among the many proudly going au naturel in this year’s hotter-than-Hades weather — the 36-year-old hairstylist and carpenter from Bushwick makes no apologies for her personal choice to not cover up, calling antiperspirants “a stupid thing to waste money on.”
“I just don’t see it as something that’s necessary — like, if I smell, I’ll just wash myself,” Caretta, who works as a hairstylist/carpenter and doesn’t consider herself a “very smelly” person, told The Post. “I also don’t shave my armpits, so I feel like there’s a bit of a natural deodorant quality to that, because your armpit hair wicks moisture away from your skin.”
“You already have soap and water in your house … your natural biome works better when you disrupt it less with more product,” said Carretta, insisting she’s not a “woo-woo” person, or anything like that. “I also just don’t think it makes sense to mask a natural smell with another smell. I feel like it tends to just make it worse.”
But while those ditching the deo may have their own reasons, there’s no escaping the reality that the shared air out there is becoming increasingly unctuous. As the scorching season rages on, cranky commuters are spouting their frustrations online — imploring their fellow citizens to reconsider their hygiene habits.
“It is going to be one hundred effing degrees out in New York tomorrow — now is not the time to whip out your all-natural, all-organic deodorant,” content creator Zach Olson told followers in a July 1 Instagram reel that reached 6,000 likes. “I’m not trying to smell manure when I’m walking down the sidewalk. Stick to the chemicals. That’s going to keep you from smelling like utter trash and B.O.”
“It’s hot as hell in New York City right now, this is not that natural deodorant kind of weather,” creator Chris Vargas echoed in a similar TikTok that received 13.6K likes. “We need you to put on the deodorant with aluminum. I’m not playing with y’all. I don’t need y’all to be out here with these Bushwick pits.”
Brooklynite Thomas McGuigan is unfazed by the angry crowd — the 28-year-old film editor/associate producer, a self-described wellness fanatic, doesn’t use traditional deodorant or anti-perspirant, but instead opts for a botanical body spray from his local mom-and-pop health store to mask the musk when the heat turns up.
McGuigan first decided to forgo drugstore underarm products after attending a talk on the dangers of toxins and chemical additives in mainstream personal care products, back in his college days.
Loved ones pleaded with him to take another whiff — even calling him “crazy.”
“(My parents) disagreed at first, but then they were just like, ‘Fine, do whatever you want — we can’t stop you,” recalled McGuigan. “A lot of people were kind of annoyed.”
Despite the pit pushback, he couldn’t shake what he’d learned.
“It reminded me of when I watched the ‘Super Size Me’ documentary for the first time,” McGuigan told The Post, referring to the 2004 film where documentarian Morgan Spurlock chronicled his health decline while eating only at McDonald’s. “I was just like, ‘OK, I don’t want these metals and toxins inside me anymore.”
Since then, the eager enviro guy has been vetting his personal toiletries using databases provided by consumer safety organizations like the nonprofit EWG, or Environmental Working Group. These days, he likes the “After Pool Spray,” a rose and cucumber solution from Naturally Connected Life, a small, North Carolina company.
“Your body needs to perspire and sweat stuff out,” McGuigan explained, emphasizing that he showers once a day or every other day (depending on how, he says, his body is feeling) to keep clean. “When you use that chemical stuff on your armpits, it’s like you’re basically clogging up those pores…I’m just like, ‘Wow, if only science would look at the unhealthy toxins and chemicals that are in these products.”
He knows most people won’t understand, but he’s fine with the decision he made for his health, which he described as “everything to me.”
“I think it’s really about understanding the kind of person you are and what you value in terms of what your sense of great hygiene is,” he said. “Really just owning who you uniquely are, despite pushback, and helping people understand that health is not just one fixed definition. It’s different for everybody.”
While The Post spoke with multiple people who cited safety concerns surrounding traditional methods of odor control, Dr. Jessica Weiser, a board-certified dermatologist and assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Columbia University, told The Post there’s nothing to worry about from your typical deodorant or stronger-acting anti-perspirant, the latter of which usually contains the metals that many fear.
“Sweat glands primarily function to control body temperature and are not a source of body detoxification,” said Weiser. “The skin absorption of aluminum is minimal and therefore skin and breast concentrations are exceptionally low, if present at all.”
The expert also clarified that the use of hygienic underarm products that utilize aluminum is “entirely safe,” per the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCERF), National Cancer institute (NCI) and American Cancer Society — and further suggested bulking up on product when necessary, introducing an antibacterial soap to your cleanliness regimen during the hotter months, to “further reduce body odor resulting from high ambient temperatures.”
Thanks, but no thanks, says New Jersey commuter Terry Tatossean, who made the choice to scrub the scent a decade ago after perimenopause caused her underarms to develop a “rancid” stench — which only cleared once she pitched out all the sweat-masking products she’d tried.
“The smell wasn’t like a normal sweat smell, it was unwashable,” the 49-year-old midlife health coach recalled, adding that her husband — now her ex — commented on the change, which turned out to be a common perimenopause hormonal symptom per Harvard Health. “I had to get rid of my clothes, it was so bad.”
The stinky struggle sent her down a three-year research rabbit hole — during which she says she read up on the potential dangers of ingredients like aluminum found in antiperspirants to the lymphatic system and auditioned countless mainstream and natural products that ”made things worse.”
Then, a vacation to Mexico, where she accidentally forgot her toiletries, prompted her to embark on an experiment — to cut all underarm hygiene products cold turkey.
Though two weeks of even more intense sweating and odor followed (which Tateossian dealt with by taking frequent ocean dips and increasing her already diligent shower schedule), by week three, she noticed that the sweat had lost its pungent chokehold.
Tateossian, who worked on Wall Street for seven years and now travels to Midtown regularly for meetings, counts herself “very familiar” with the city’s abrasive summer heat and the “garbage smell everywhere.”
She does not, however, see her own decision to ditch underarm hygiene products — even the natural ones — as part of the problem. She showers one to two times a day, wears breathable fabrics and even stuffs paper towels in her armpits as a sort of armor when going into stressful situations, she said.
Though she notices her sweat has a “faint odor” when she eats certain foods, like onions, it’s “nothing like what it used to be before.”
She urged others to be similarly mindful of how they go about changing things up, down there.
“I absolutely don’t think it’s OK to purposefully not shower, be super stinky and raise your arms on the subway,” Tateossian said. “It’s such a congested, stressful commute in the summer…If you are making the choice not to wear antiperspirant or deodorant … you [should be] considerate to other people.”
