Polyester clothes 'stink' more than cotton post workout

A new study has found that polyester clothes reek badly than cotton ones after people do rigorous exercise, since they contain bacteria that causes the stench to grow more.

In the study, the investigators collected t-shirts from 26 healthy individuals following an intensive, hour-long bicycle spinning session, and incubated the shirts for 28 hours before having them inspected by a trained odor panel. The researchers also investigated the taxonomy of the bacteria on the shirts, and in the axillaries.

First author, Chris Callewaert of Ghent University, Belgium, said that on the clothes, the main culprit bacteria were micrococci. They are known for their enzymatic potential to transform long-chain fatty acids, hormones, and amino acids into smaller, volatile, compounds, which have a typical malodor.

Staphylococci, which inhabit both axillary skin and adjacent textiles (the latter with much less diversity), create a normal, non-malodorous body odor, he added.

Callewaert advised wearing cotton clothes since they would reduce the problem to some extent. But he aims to solve the problem of body odor, by transplanting microbes from non-malodorous relatives to those afflicted.

The research is published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.