What are you really smelling when you smell your armpits?

FAMEFLYNET PICTURES / Alex Kasprak / BuzzFeed

Your sweat feeds whole colonies of bacteria that call your body home.

It turns out sweat is real tasty to a number of bacteria who specialize in munching on the lipids and fatty acids found in some kinds of human sweat. These bacteria consist of things like Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium and Propionibacterium species.

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All that body odor you associate with sweat is really just the noxious waste produced by those bacterial feasts.

Once those bacteria consume some of the chemicals in sweat, they convert them into volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and thioalcohols. Volatile means that these bad boys are airborne, so their nasty scent can travel far away from its source (you).

Paramount Pictures

Very few animals outside of humans actually use sweat to keep their bodies cool.

Many mammals sweat, but only humans, some primates, and ungulids (camels, donkeys, horses, and cattle) do it to cool themselves off. Other potential uses for sweat are the removal of toxins, for traction on the palms and paws, and the spreading of pheromones.

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