6 Easy Home Remedies to Get Rid of Body Odor Fast
Rise and shine, bathe and brush… Still, during the dog days of summer, you worry about lingering odors. To the rescue: Home remedies for body odor that keep you confident all day!
Body Odor
Swabbing witch hazel under arms (or applying it with a spray bottle) stops BO in its tracks.
The reason: Tannins in the classic toner alter skin’s pH, creating an unfriendly environment for stinky bacteria. And witch hazel is one of the best home remedies for body odor. It’s high in natural polyphenol compounds that have a potent antimicrobial action, USDA researchers say, suppressing bacterial growth by up to 600 percent!
Breath Odor
To make sure sausage with onions doesn’t linger long after the picnic, just enjoy a crunchy salad on the side. Lettuce helps scrub teeth while increasing the production of saliva, which acts as a freshening “rinse cycle” for your mouth.
Researchers reporting in the Journal of Food Science found that enzymes and phenols in the crunchy green lowered breath levels of smelly sulfur compounds produced by garlic and onions by 50 percent.
Under-Breast Odor
When a sour or “stale-beer” odor wafts from your bra, that’s a sign of yeast overgrowth, a problem that occurs when skin under the breasts becomes warm and damp.
Laura Corio, MD, author of The Change Before the Change ($18, Amazon) recommends this quick fix to banish the stink: Mix 3 drops of yeast-fighting grapefruit seed oil with 1 oz. of water, and apply to the undersides of breasts twice daily for a week.
Foot Odor
Apple cider vinegar sweetens feet fast, says dermatologist Marisa Garshick, MD, thanks to antiseptic properties that quash bacteria.
“ACV also combats fungal infections such as athlete’s foot,” she says. Dr. Garshick advises soaking feet in a mix of 1 cup of vinegar and 4 cups of water.
No More Gas
We couldn’t leave this out from a list of home remedies for body odor, could we? As much as we love beans, we could do without their embarrassing after-effects! Thankfully, chewing a small handful of licorice-tasting fennel seeds (or sipping a cup of fennel tea) is a time-honored flatulence fix.
And with good reason: Studies suggest that a compound in fennel (cineole) thwarts gas-producing gut flora to cut odorous after-meal wind by up to 67 percent.
A version of this article originally appeared in our print magazine, Woman’s World.
