OLDER people don’t smell so bad – at least not those in the US. A study has found no evidence of chemicals previously blamed for an unpleasant “ageing odour” in the skin secretions of Americans in their forties and above.
In 2001, researchers at cosmetic company Shiseido‘s Product Development Center in Yokohama asked a group of Japanese men and women to sleep in T-shirts for three consecutive nights. The researchers then studied the volatile chemicals picked up by the material. Volunteers over 40 produced an unsaturated aldehyde called 2-nonenal, which the team described as having an unpleasant “greasy” smell.
“I thought, I’m way older than some…
