The biggest reason some cultures don’t use deodorant is biological: up to 95% of people in East Asia carry a gene variant that prevents their bodies from producing significant underarm odor. Without the smell, there’s simply no problem to solve. But genetics is only part of the story. Western deodorant use itself is surprisingly recent, driven by early 20th-century advertising campaigns that deliberately turned body odor into a social crisis. What feels like a universal hygiene standard is actually a cultural habit shaped by biology, marketing, and local norms.
The Gene That Controls Body Odor
A single gene called ABCC11 determines whether your body produces the compounds that cause strong underarm odor. Everyone has one of two versions: a functional variant (the G allele) that produces odor-causing secretions, or a non-functional variant (the A allele) that essentially turns off the process. The functional version dominates in populations of European and African descent, appearing in 70 to 100% of those groups. The non-functional version is the mirror image in East Asia, where it appears in 70 to 100% of people in China, Korea, and Japan.
This isn’t a subtle difference. People with two copies of the non-functional variant produce very little of the oily, protein-rich sweat that bacteria feed on to create odor. Roughly 90% of people in East Asia don’t use deodorant, and the reason is straightforward: most of them don’t need it.
There’s even a simple, visible indicator of which version you carry. The same gene controls earwax type. The functional variant produces wet, sticky, brownish earwax. The non-functional variant produces dry, flaky earwax. Researchers confirmed this link decades ago, and a Japanese study found that 98.7% of patients clinically diagnosed with strong underarm odor had the wet earwax genotype. If you have dry earwax, you almost certainly produce little to no underarm odor.
How Underarm Odor Actually Works
Fresh sweat is nearly odorless. The smell people associate with body odor comes from bacteria, specifically a group called Corynebacterium, that live naturally on underarm skin. These bacteria break down odorless compounds secreted by apocrine glands (the sweat glands concentrated in the armpits and groin). The compounds start out bonded to a molecule called glutamine, which keeps them scentless. A specific enzyme produced by the bacteria snips that bond, releasing volatile fatty acids that smell rancid or cheesy.
The most abundant of these is a compound that researchers describe as having a “rancid, cheesy smell.” Another key contributor has an oniony, herbal quality. People with the non-functional ABCC11 variant produce far fewer of these precursor compounds in the first place, so even though their skin hosts similar bacteria, there’s little raw material to convert into odor.
Diet also plays a role on the margins. Foods like garlic and onion contain sulfur compounds that can be excreted through sweat and skin, temporarily intensifying body odor regardless of genetics. But diet modulates smell rather than creating it from scratch. The genetic foundation matters far more than what someone had for dinner.
How Marketing Created the “Problem”
Before the late 1800s, body odor wasn’t considered a social emergency in Western cultures either. The first branded deodorant in the United States, called Mum, was patented in 1888. The first antiperspirant, Everdry, followed shortly after. But widespread adoption didn’t happen until aggressive advertising campaigns reframed perspiration as a medical and social failing.
The brand most credited with changing American attitudes is Odo-ro-no, which ran ads claiming that “profuse perspiration of any one part of the body is not healthy” while promising women they could stay “sweet and dainty.” These campaigns were initially aimed exclusively at women, using fear-based messaging that claimed women who didn’t use deodorant would be avoided by both potential romantic partners and female friends. The strategy mirrored Listerine’s famous 1920s campaign that invented the concept of “halitosis” to sell mouthwash. Both brands essentially medicalized normal bodily functions to create demand for their products.
This history matters because it reveals that the Western norm of daily deodorant use isn’t some ancient hygiene tradition. It’s roughly a century old, born from marketing strategies designed to manufacture insecurity. Cultures that didn’t experience these campaigns, and where the biological need was already lower, naturally developed different norms around body scent.
Social Norms Around Scent Vary Widely
Different cultures have landed in very different places on how they think about personal smell, and those norms don’t always map onto deodorant use. In Japan, where the vast majority of people carry the low-odor gene variant, the cultural conversation around scent has actually moved in a surprising direction. A concept called “sumehara,” short for “smell harassment,” has become a serious topic in workplaces and media. It refers to any scent that disturbs others in close quarters, including body odor, heavy perfume, cigarette smoke, or even unwashed clothing.
The concept ties into broader Japanese values around group harmony and not causing discomfort to others. Surveys have found that many employees, especially younger workers, feel uncomfortable raising smell issues directly, which has prompted formal workplace etiquette discussions and awareness campaigns. In this context, not wearing deodorant isn’t seen as a hygiene failure because there’s typically no odor to address. But wearing too much fragrance could actually be considered more disruptive than mild perspiration.
In many Middle Eastern, South Asian, and parts of African cultures, attitudes toward body scent are shaped by entirely different factors: religious cleansing rituals, the use of natural fragrances like oud or sandalwood, climate-driven bathing frequency, and different thresholds for what constitutes an offensive versus a neutral or even pleasant natural scent. The assumption that everyone “should” use deodorant reflects a specifically Western, commercially driven standard rather than a universal truth about hygiene.
When Genetics and Culture Collide
Interestingly, studies have found that many people of European descent who carry the non-functional ABCC11 variant still use deodorant regularly. The social expectation is so deeply embedded that people apply it out of habit or anxiety regardless of whether they produce meaningful odor. In East Asian countries, the reverse can create its own pressure: the small minority of people who do carry the functional gene variant and produce noticeable body odor can face significant social stigma precisely because the smell is so uncommon. In Japan and South Korea, strong underarm odor is sometimes treated as a medical condition, and surgical removal of apocrine glands is an option that some people pursue.
This creates a paradox where cultures with the lowest rates of body odor can actually be the least tolerant of it when it does occur, while cultures where nearly everyone produces odor have built an entire industry around normalizing and managing it. Neither approach is more “correct.” They’re parallel responses shaped by completely different biological starting points and the commercial and social systems that grew up around them.