Oh Good – We’ve Been Using Deodorant Wrong This Whole Time

Most of us wear deodorant every day. You’re likely familiar with the routine: you dry off after a shower and apply a layer of deodorant to your underarms in the morning to help reduce the chance of any unwanted smells throughout the day. 

Since we’ve been doing this for years on end, you would assume this is the right way to apply deodorant.

Well, apparently not. We’ve all been using deodorant wrong, according to Dr Noman Mohamed (@Dr.Nomzzy), a London-based expert in cosmetic dermatology, who has over 161k followers on TikTok.

The dermatology expert tells his patients they should be applying deodorant at night as this is apparently when our body temperature is cooler and our sweat glands are less active so it’s easier to plug them to stop sweat release.

Shocking right?

Dr Lawrence Green, another popular dermatologist on the clock app, agrees.

He suggests you could apply deodorant morning and evening, but if he had to choose between the two, he’d choose nighttime. 

“At night our arms are not as sweaty … the deodorant has more time to sink in and the sweat glands can take it up overnight when we’re not as active and not as sweaty,” he says.

Embarrassingly this seems to be common knowledge, and yet most of us apply our deodorant in the morning.

For those who do, it’s really not the end of the world. In fact, some experts don’t think it’s necessary to use deodorant at nighttime. 

Dr Julia Tzu, founder and medical director of Wall Street Dermatology, told InStyle: “Perspiration levels are not as high compared to daytime and usually the ‘deodorising’ is most important during the daytime.

“While using it occasionally at bedtime is not harmful, use of deodorants around the clock may be an additional source of unnecessary irritation to the skin.”