Why did body odor start grossing us out? | National Geographic HISTORY & CULTURE Why did body odor start grossing us out? First, grooming habits became a way for the elite to enforce their status. As bathing became widely available, new standards of scent made for lucrative business opportunities. A 1909 lithograph shows a woman preparing a bath. Around this time, social pressures to upkeep cleanliness and limit body odor were mounting in the U.S., creating a lucrative personal grooming industry. Lithograph By Carl Larsson, The Stapleton Collection / Bridgeman Images By Leah Worthington Published June 28, 2024 Why exactly is it so important to smell good? In recent centuries, a confluence of factors—including widespread acceptance of germ theory, increased urban density, and the rise of corporate culture—has brought greater awareness to and disdain for odor and other normal human characteristics. Once belonging primarily to the upper class, body perfuming and other grooming habits have become a near-ubiquitous part of life in the modern western world. Today the personal hygiene industry is worth more than half a trillion dollars —and growing. But while unusually strong or changes in body odor can be a sign of health problems , they're also a natural part of our human biology, according to Johan Lundström, a psychology professor and chemosensory expert at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Our scents can vary in strength and nature, depending on a host of factors including environmental conditions, bacteria that live on the skin, as well as genetics, diet, and health, he says. So, where did our body odor standards come from? Experts trace the evolution of modern-day grooming rituals and what these practices say about us. Associating body odor with social class Humans have experimented with fragrances for millennia: from the thick ointments of ancient Egypt to the expensive essences of the Roman Empire . “People’s understanding in the past is that scent ([like] per