How do Caucasians aka white Europeans smell?
A question that deserves a serious study because I'm sure many of us feel that the body odor of Caucasians is not the same as the body odor of Indonesians in general. People since ancient times tried to classify race and social class based on smell. In the film Parasite, it is told that a rich couple felt a distinctive smell from their maid and driver.
I can offer an answer based on an article I've read but forgot where.
It is said that there is a relationship between body odor and earwax (cerumen). The world's population is divided into 2 groups, namely those with wet earwax (Africans and Europeans) and those with dry earwax (Asian people). Populations with wet cerumen tend to sweat more than those with dry cerumen. According to the article, the population that sweats the most is the African population because they have larger apocrine glands.
Then, in an experiment published in The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Two African people and two European people were taken as research subjects. The four of them were students, who ate in the same cafeteria, lived in roughly the same neighborhood, and participated in the same school activities. For the experiment, all four of them showered in the same bathroom and used the same type of soap.
During the first part of the experiment, the four students had just taken a shower. For the second part, they were sweating after a hard workout. Experiments are carried out in such a way as to eliminate the possibility of recognizing them. Several people were then asked to identify their ethnicity and the origin of the sweat odor but the majority of respondents said they did not know. So the sweat was initially odorless.
So it can be concluded that white, yellow, black and others have the same smell. If genetic factors determine the composition of sweat, what makes body odor is the bacteria found on the skin. There are 4 types of bacteria in the body, namely staphylococci, corynebacteria, propionibacteria and micrococci. It appears that corynebacteria are the most contributing to body odor. And because each individual has a different bacterial composition, body odor will be less or stronger depending on the proportion of these corynebacteria. Those with a microflora consisting mostly of the latter will have the strongest body odor.
How do Caucasians smell?
The smell of Caucasians and half-bloods in my house smells like Johnson & Johnson powder. But it comes from the laundry soap I use. The rest, our body odor is the same.
