Swiss scientists found that the smell of male sweat seems more pleasant to many than female sweat. In the experiment, female sweat was more often associated with onions, and male sweat with cheese. 49 volunteers took part, and the authors hope the findings will help create new deodorants for men and women. Other experts note that odor perception depends not only on sweat itself, but also on lifestyle, diet, and even the genes of those who smell it.

A person begins to sweat immediately after birth.
And only recently did Swiss scientists find that the smell of male sweat is much more pleasant than female sweat. The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph writes that employees of the company Firmenich conducted a test whose results showed that women smell like onions, while men smell like cheese.
During the experiment, conducted by a company that researches tastes and smells for the food and perfume industries, volunteers were offered two ways to sweat: either spend 15 minutes in a sauna, or devote the same amount of time to exercising on a stationary bike.
A total of 49 people took part in the experiment — 25 women and 24 men.
Analysis of the samples showed that women’s sweat contains a greater amount of a odorless sulfur-containing compound. Bacteria living in the armpits convert this compound into a chemical called thiol, which has an onion smell.
In men’s sweat, specialists found a higher content of an odorless fatty acid, which acquires a cheese aroma when combined with enzymes produced by bacteria in the armpits.
The head of the study believes that the results of this research will help develop new types of deodorants for men and women.
However, some scientists believe that the data obtained during the experiment cannot be used outside Switzerland, since people in different countries lead different lifestyles. According to the scientist, how you smell depends on what you eat, what you wash with, what clothes you wear, and what set of genes you inherited
In addition, the smell of the same human body is perceived differently by others, and to a large extent this depends not on the person doing the smelling, but on the gene that determines the perception of odors in those who are smelling. As it turned out, the degree to which others perceive the pheromone androstenone directly depends on the presence in their bodies of different variants of the gene responsible for sensitivity to smells. People who have a fully functional version of this gene react more strongly to the smell of androstenone in male sweat. And those who have a modified version of the gene perceive the smell of androstenone either as sharp, or as sweet, with a vanilla scent, or do not smell it at all.