Is that all there is?
RAISE YOUR ARM TO JOIN THE PIT CREW
Q: How do antiperspirants work? When did women start shaving their armpits? - Kathryn Johnson
A: Welcome to another episode of "ARMPIT HUNTER"! I'm the Right Guard for your Secret, you can be Sure. Roll on!
Sweat itself doesn't smell bad. In areas like underarms, where sweat can't readily evaporate, bacteria thrive and break down the sweat. That's what causes a stink.
Solid antiperspirants are made with several ingredients, including wax, a liquid emollient and an active ingredient made from an aluminum-based compound. It's that active ingredient that gives antiperspirants their sweat-blocking power.
As your deodorant dissolves, aluminum ions are taken into the cells that line the sweat gland ducts. When the aluminum ions are drawn into the cells, water passes in with them, causing the cells to swell and squeezing the ducts closed so that sweat can't get out.
Repeated tests show blocking the sweat is not bad for you. In a day or so the antiperspirant wears off and the sweat gland ducts open again.
In the spring of 1915, sleeveless dresses and modern dance were suddenly all the rage. This literally bared a new part of the body to marketers. A shocking word - "underarm" - began to appear in fashion columns and ads. Fashionistas dictated that when women raised their arms there should be no hair there. That's when the custom - on this side of the Atlantic - began.
SOURCES: Howstuffworks.com, Secret
QUICK QUIZ
This time on cowgirls:
1. Who kept her own name when she married a movie star cowboy?
2. What native of Princeton, Mo., drank hard, wore men's clothes, cussed, chewed tobacco and rescued soldiers in Old West battles?
3. True or false: Connie Douglas Reeves, a 101-year-old Texas cowgirl who taught more than 30,000 young girls to ride horses, died this summer of pneumonia in a nursing home.
4. What obstacle race is a hallmark of women's rodeo?
ANSWERS
1. Dale Evans
2. Calamity Jane
3. False. She did die this summer at 101, but after a fall from a horse.
4. Barrel racing
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Jeff Elder is a columnist for The Charlotte Observer. Comment or try to stump him by clicking here.
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