Introduction

Sweating or perspiration is a normal biological phenomenon found in all mammals, and especially in humans. In its simplest sense, perspiration means transpiring through the skin. The mammalian skin is porous and it contains sebaceous glands (commonly known as sweat glands) in its outermost epidermis region. From time to time, the sebaceous glands filter out the impurities from under the skin through the porous openings. This results in what is known as sweat or perspiration.

The basic component of human sweat is water, and indeed human sweat is made mostly of water with some dissolved impurities in it. Sodium chloride is also one of the substances that are found dissolved in human sweat, due to which it is salty. Human perspiration contains two main odoriferous ingredients – 2-methylphenol and 4-methylphenol. These are the substances that cause odor from the perspiration.

When we say someone perspires a lot, it is not actually true, because all humans perspire to the same degree. However, conditions like external heat and humidity do matter. Also, when we do heavy physical activity, the sebaceous glands tend to overwork, due to which a large amount of sweat is produced from the skin. All people sweat in more or less the equal volume, but it is true that some people have more offensively-smelling sweat than the others. This is due to a heavy concentration of the odorants in their sweat. So when we talk about excessive perspiration, we are generally indicating more offensive perspiration.

Home Remedies for Excessive Perspiration

If you commonly suffer from profuse perspiration which smells quite offensive and the odor persists on your body long after the sweat itself has dried out, then you can try one of the following remedies. These will help you a lot in getting rid of your perspiration problems:-

Home Remedy # 1

• Roast some horse gram on an open flame. Then make a fine flour of it. Apply this flour on the body on the regions where the perspiration is severe. This will greatly reduce the perspiration on the body.

Home Remedy # 2

• Take the seed of the tamarind and its flower. Soak both of them in water. Then grind them in the water itself. Apply this paste on the body, especially in the regions where the perspiration is severe. This will reduce the perspiration and also take care of its offensive odor, if present.

Home Remedy # 3

• If you have excessive perspiration from the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet, then the following remedy will work in a very good manner. Take the seeds of a fresh datura flower. Dry them in the sun, then crush them to a powder. Burn this to obtain an ash residue of the seeds. Take one gram of this ash and eat it. Continue this therapy for seven days. This will definitely stop the perspiration.

Home Remedy # 4

• There is one good Ayurvedic remedy to take care of extremely offensive perspiration. Prepare a mixture of the bael fruit (Aegle marmelos) and the Indian gooseberry (Emblica officinalis); or of the bael fruit and the chebulic myrobalan (Terminalia chebula). Then make a fine powder of this mixture. Every morning have a bath first. Then sprinkle this powder in your armpits. Also, before going to sleep in the night, apply a paste of this mixture on the parts of the body which sweat the most. This will take care of the offensive odor effectively.

Home Remedy # 5

• One very simple method to keep the excessive offensive perspiration at bay is to add some peels of the pomegranate into a bucket of warm water and to have a bath in that water. This will ensure freshness throughout the day and will keep the perspiration to a minimal extent.

Home Remedy # 6

• Zinc is an excellent remedy for any kind of sweat problems. Just taking a tablet of zinc everyday will help drastically in solving the problems of offensive sweat odors, especially from the armpits. Zinc must always be taken in a glassful of milk, however.

Home Remedy # 7

• Soak a few lemons in water until they become soft. When done, cut them into halves. Then rub these lemons onto the armpits. This will help to kill the bacteria that breed in the sweat and will eliminate the bad odors.

Home Remedy # 8

• Tomato is very good in allaying perspiration odors and in stopping the body from sweating uncontrollably. You must stick to a tomato soup therapy as follows. Drink a bowl of tomato soup everyday in the mornings. Put minimum amount of salt in it, and no other spices. After a week, drink one bowl every alternate day. In most cases, this therapy works at reducing the smell that is caused due to the sweating.

Home Remedy # 9

• Having bath with some drops of rosewater put in it in the beginning also helps a lot in keeping the body smelling good throughout the day.

Avoiding Excessive Perspiration

Perspiration is a common body phenomenon, which you cannot avoid. In fact, perspiration is good because it removes the toxic matters from the body. So, it is beneficial to let the body perspire sometimes (it also burns down calories). However, you can work at reducing the odor of the perspiration, which is where most of problems lie.