[hombre_fatal]

I've had a few girlfriends who barely sweat. Same with a roommate from Iran. All of them had no problem wearing pants and heather gray shirt out into the hottest most humid day.

Meanwhile I'm sweating like a hog in my tank top just existing. God forbid I move.

The only explanation that makes sense is that articles like TFA are written by those in the former group, so showering daily really is performative.

[zyanite7]

Also I've read that people with the gene ABCC11 don't typically smell when they sweat. The more east you go, the more people have that gene.

[LiquidPolymer]

Isn't this also associated with white ear wax?

[soco]

I only ever met one person who claimed they don't need to shower because they don't sweat. Boy, were they stinking, yet totally oblivious to it. No, we weren't friends - also because of the smell, but mostly because that came packaged with all weird extreme naturist beliefs.

[jerlam]

Your body can adapt over time, it's just that most people don't try because they live indoors and control their environment and would prefer to be comfortable.

When I moved to a place with much warmer summers, the first year was awful. I could barely go outside without looking like I just came out of a sauna. Several years later, living without air conditioning and mostly walking everywhere, I was one of those people wearing pants and long sleeves in the peak of summer without sweating. 100F was just another warm day.

Since then I've moved to somewhere much cooler. I sweat profusely when it gets to a mere 75F. I just never trained my body to adapt.

To pivot back to the original topic about showering, people who shower every day strip off the body's natural oils that keep the skin moisturized. In response, the body produces more oils to maintain the integrity of the skin. And then some people want to shower more for that "clean" feeling and the problem gets worse.

In a sense, your body adapts to your daily showering, so when you abruptly stop, you're gonna smell.

In a similar sense, people with long hair are regularly advised to only wash their hair occasionally, because washing removes all the oils that their body generates, leading to dry hair that breaks easily. But people with short hair claim they have to wash their hair regularly because it "gets oily" when they stop.

[hombre_fatal]

I'm sure there's a small amount of variability, but people always tell me "you will get used to it" when they see me sweating balls as if I just moved from Lapland and I think it's trivially false and clearly genetic.

I've lived in hot places my whole life from Texas to Mexico to the beach, the latter two I never even had A/C for 10+ years. Clearly some people are like me and some people aren't and it has nothing to do with acclimation.

Meanwhile my girlfriend who barely sweats certainly didn't train for it, come on. Though she immediately overheats in the sauna which is the only time I feel some satisfaction on the matter.