Glowing reports
Most of us fret when we sweat in a stressful situation, be it a job interview, a first date or a presentation. But worrying about it is the worst thing you can do.
Scientists at Unilever have found that the human body produces two kinds of perspiration: emotional sweat from stress, and thermal sweat from heat exposure and exercise. Dr Steve Worrall, the company’s consumer research manager, says: “Testing shows that the body can release up to five times the amount of sweat as a result of emotional stress compared with physical exercise.” This means that a football fan watching his team play a make-or-break match can produce as much sweat as a player on the field.
To replicate emotional stress, some participants at Unilever’s research centre face a battery of questions from a character called the “monitor”; others are subjected to temperatures of up to 56C (133F), the hottest temperature recorded on Earth, to test a deodorant’s perspiration-quashing capabilities.
Dr Worrall says: “We want people to feel more comfortable. They become stressed so they sweat. They then become anxious about their body odour and sweat even more.” That’s a viscous circle we’d all like to break.