The Holiday season can often be a stressful time, and for some people this can lead to profuse sweating and sometimes the unpleasant smell that comes with it.
This is caused by organic materials that are transported to the surface of the skin with sweat and decomposed by skin bacteria. This stress reaction of the skin, recognizable to everyone, can then increase the individual stress factor even further.
"This is a true vicious circle and a very special challenge for us as researchers," says Dr Thomas Schmidt-Rose, a Beiersdorf researcher, speaking in his ‘Stress and Attractiveness’ study, for the Germany-based firm.
"Stress-induced sweat is different from the sweat associated with physical exertion or heat. All the sweat glands undergo rapid activation - eccrine and apocrine - via the nerves,” he continues.
“This stimulus also increases the heartbeat, blood pressure, ability to react and the attentiveness of a person who feels threatened or criticized. They literally break out in a sweat!”
Research
To deal with this problem, Nivea introduced its Stress Protect deodorant earlier this year, based on the work of many of the scientists in its Hamburg Research Center.
In order to develop this product, the research team created a series of real, but controlled stress situations for volunteer test subjects under lab conditions.
"It became clear to us very early on that we needed professionals in order to develop these test methods and to help guide the research," explains Dr Schmidt-Rose.
This was found in the university city of Trier, where, at the research institute Daacro (Diagnostic Assessment and Clinical Research Organization), Juliane Hellhammer leads the research into the subject of stress.
One of the methods they use is the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in which volunteer participants are temporarily brought into stressful situations and have to complete apparently simple tasks in front of a camera and a very critical and challenging audience; showing the impact of stress on the sweat glands.
Product
With the help of this research and other psychobiological tests Beiersdorf deodorant researchers then developed their deodorant formula for fighting the side effects of stress.
They combine a zinc complex to increase antibacterial effectiveness to offer 48-hour protection from body odour and underarm moisture in unexpectedly stressful everyday situations.
Journal
The team says the research results will be published in a scientific journal in the near future:
Thomas Schmidt-Rose, Frank Lehmbeck, Anette Bürger, Björna Windisch, Reza Keyhani, and Heiner Max: Efficient sweat reduction of three different antiperspirant application forms during stress-induced sweating. International Journal of Cosmetic Science 35, 622-631, 2013.