Is the issue the stains, or smell? If it’s the former, it’s likely your antiperspirant. Switching to non-aluminum deodorant avoids stains, but won’t prevent you from sweating. There are also “non-staining” antiperspirants, but I don’t know how effective they are.
If it’s lingering smells, probably try changing laundry detergents. You can maybe also try dabbing a little baking soda on the pits of your shirts before throwing them in the wash.
Also, I’d OP lives in a hard water area they might need to use more detergent.
They can also try chucking in isopropyl alcohol, that really works well
A little white vinegar works well too.
* white vinegar!
It’s this, aluminum based anti-perspirant creates a waxy substance on your clothes and you’ll never get it out. I use arm and hammer deodorants, it doesn’t stop the sweat but arguable you could be just causing health issues with those others anyway.
I also, despite being in good shape, sweat a ton. I honestly hate it, but there are much worse things to live with.
Anyways, I had the same pit stain problem as you. I found that it was my antiperspirant causing the problem. I switched away from an antiperspirant (which honestly wasn’t really helping me sweat any less anyway) to a straight deodorant (Old Spice) and the problem went away.
Getting in shape, all things being equal, makes you sweat more, not less, since you are training your body to sweat more in response to the greater thermic effect of more intense exertion.
Adding to this, It raises your metabolism so you burn hotter just generally during the day whilst doing nothing too
Well shit, time to get out of shape then. 😉
Being fat retains heat and causes sweating too so you have to be out of shape but thin.
But it isn’t cooling (eccrine) sweat that causes pit stains. It’s apocrine sweat that’s released under stress. I don’t think that increases when you get in good shape. Probably decreases with your cortisol.
despite being in good shape, sweat a ton. I honestly hate it, but there are much worse things to live with.
I used to be this way, using a sauna daily massively reduced how much I sweat.
I’m a big fat guy who sweats a lot. I’ve never cared about the sweat though only the smell. So my whole life I’ve used nothing but deodorant, NEVER antiperspirant.
I’ve never had problems with either pit stains, nor lingering odor. I’m pretty convinced that antiperspirant leads to more smell; I’m not saying I’m fresh as a daisy at all times, but even at my worst, my odor isn’t that bad, while drier people often stink to high heaven.
Old spice is The Best.
Old spice has given me chemical burns so YMMV
I’m going to second the undershirts. They also prevent the wet spots on your good shirt.
Also, Old Spice, the blue gel stick not the powdery stuff, has been the only thing that actually keeps the sweating down.
I enjoyed the OS scent, used the white bars and got stains. Tried their blue gel and my arms break out in nasty rashes. Real bummer.
Sometimes I get the rash too. But at least they’re dry rashes.
My advise is to wear undershirts. Even the tank top ones will make a big difference in keeping your shirts clean.
From my experience, it’s from the deodorant, not sweat itself. Not sure the fix, but I know people have had varying success with their methods.
Yeah, Id always heard the yellow was sebum, but I switched to deodorant years ago and haven’t gotten pit stains since.
Wear an undershirt. It will protect your nice clothes from stains. Get cotton ones as it will absorb and breathe better.
If you’re a guy it will also make you look more solid. Kinda like a push up bra for dudes.
working out in cotton is hell
What are your current laundry methods, i.e., what sort of detergents do you use? Do you wash on warm or cold? Do you know the hardness of your water?
Most of the time when it comes to odor sticking on clothing related to exercise it’s strongly related to the fibers of those cloths. The geometry of polyester fibers often used in athletic wear is known to hold on to oils and other body junk.
Generally, there are three factors that go into successfully washing clothing experiencing these problems.
- Adequate detergents. You want something with good surfactants to capture and lift away soils, and enzymes of the right types that will help break down difficult soils into smaller molecules that the surfactants can better manage.
- Temperature. Just as cold water will have a hard time washing away butter and oils from your dishes, cold water in your laundry is gonna have a more difficult time to wash away oils in your clothing. It’s a common misconception that warm in your laundry is bad for clothes. In reality, in the US anyway, most warm settings on washing machines are only around 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot settings are usually barely reaching the 100 degree mark, so both of these are in line with your own body temperature as you’re wearing the things. If the care tags on your garments say they can handle warm or hot washes, definitely do so. Things that may say cold can probably tolerate warm, too, given the temperature is really not that hot at all.
- Time. Surfactants and enzymes need time to work. If your wash time is brief, or you’re using a speed wash setting on your washer, you may not be giving enough time to let the chemicals do their work.
In regards to detergents, in the US, probably the best thing you can get is powdered Tide or Gain. These products includes a good surfactant system, a complete enzyme package, and oxygen bleach all in one. You don’t really need anything more than that.
If you’re using liquids, there are more options but also limitations. Again, Tide is probably the best as far as surfactants go but all liquids are going to be missing the other components. Certain enzymes don’t like to live in a solution with water so they are missing from almost all formulations. Oxygen bleach is activated by water so by definition it can’t be in a liquid product. In these cases you can use a booster product. OxiClean is a common one for just the oxygen bleach but it lacks enzymes. There’s another product called Biz that you can find at Walmart and Meijer stores for very cheap. It’s like seven bucks and has all of the oxygen bleach and enzymes you need.
TL;DR: wash in warm water for a longer time, and add Biz booster powder to your liquid detergent.
If you’re using antiperspirant that boasts that it lasts all day, it works by encasing the aluminium salts that make it antiperspirant in microscopic wax beads that are supposed to break open over the day as you move around. This leaves waxy stains behind that are a pain to wash out as the aluminium salts and wax protect each other from detergent and water.
What works is something acidic that will react with the aluminium salts and ideally the wax, too. I’ve had great success soaking t-shirts in water with some sulfamic acid (also available as coffee machine descaler) for a day or two. Vinegar might work, but it’ll be less effective and so take longer and need more, so will be smelly and more expensive.
They make non aluminum antiperspirants (least according to the package, I’m using Dove ones currently) that boast all day protection. Since I switched my shirts don’t get stained in the arm pits anymore.
Also found trimming armpit hair helped too.
My top tips:
Wash or at least rinse the garments as soon after getting them sweaty as you can.
Wash them with actually dirty clothes if possible. The dirt particles will absorb smell and act as an abrasive on the stains. If your clothes are generally too clean for this, use an oxy powder additive which will achieve the same effect.
Also: consider going without deodorant and antiperspirant and just use some isopropyl alcohol or similar to kill the bacteria in your armpits as needed; this results in less smell and less junk in your sweat to clean out of your shirts.
Lastly: wearing a technical shirt when working out will mean less sweat actually adhering to the fabric, making cleaning easier.
I have never heard about this technique before. Is it better for the skin/health or worse? We use it on our hands all the time, so I guess it would be fine.
Does it damage the clothes or keep them in tip-top shape?
Have you been doing it for a long time?
I presume you’re talking about the isopropyl? Doesn’t seem to damage the clothes at all; dries out the skin a bit, which isn’t generally an issue for armpits. I’ve been doing it for around 20 years.
Interesting, thanks!
My “wicking” shirts are the ones that smell the worst, even after washing.
I bought a specific detergent for removing odors from sports clothes, but i can’t say if it works…
I don’t know but im now going to read to see if anyone has good tips.
Once I started making my own deodorant, which is surprisingly easy, my shirts stopped getting pitted out. There are a bunch of recipes on YouTube and you can buy empty deodorant twist up containers. Bit of a pain but it works.
The trick is not to wait until the end of the week to do it all during laundry day.
If your nice dress shirt got sweat on it during the day, best to wash it immediately when you get home.
How does your washing machine work? A standard cycle with mine takes 3 1/2 hours, and after so much soaking at 30C, even my workout t-shirts smell fine. The detergent is standard aldi powder.
They’re pretty basic. I live in a condo building so I use the little laundromat.
Sometimes when I use a faster cycle, my t shirts are still smelly; so the smaller machine could be the issue.
I rub a bit of detergent in trouble spots when I take my clothes off. Works really well with blood too.
I also switched to a deodorant that doesn’t leave marks on my clothes.
Mix oxyclean with washing soda and soak your shirts in it for a few hours before putting them in the washing machine with Gain detergent.
