Profuse Sweating: Can You Hide It?

by Neel Duggal

Hours of extra sunshine, beach days and catching a ballgame in the grandstands make summer the best season. Hands down. But sometimes it's hard to keep your cool in the middle of a scorching afternoon or a jam-packed rooftop soiree. Follow these tips to help reduce your profuse sweating and make sure you look and feel your best.

How to Reduce Sweat

• Wear antiperspirant. Unlike deodorant, which just fights odor, antiperspirants help prevent odor and plug sweat glands to reduce sweating.
• Exercise at the right time. If you're ambitious and decide to get your miles in at noon, get ready to be drenched in buckets of sweat! To help avoid profuse sweating while working out, exercise at the cooler times of day when the sun is waking up and when it's setting at night.
• Skip spicy food. Food-related sweating, also known as gustatory sweating, is a real thing, says the International Hyperhidrosis Society, and spicy foods are common triggers. If you eat something hot, your body reacts by sweating more to cool itself off. So if you want to stay dry, don't pile your burger with jalapenos and horseradish, as tempting as they can be.
• Remember to de-stress. Summer can be relaxing, but the stress from your job and a sky-high AC bill doesn't always take a vacation. A study published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders suggests that anxiety can increase muscle activity. Muscle activity causes sweating. Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation and yoga are all great ways to de-stress and ultimately help lessen your profuse sweating.

How to Look Your Best

In some parts of the country, there is absolutely no avoiding the heat and humidity. If you're able to control your sweating but you're still a little damp under the arms, don't let your confidence take a hit. There are some clothing options that can help you minimize the appearance of sweat and still look your best.

In the dog days of summer, it's best to wear lightweight fabrics. Cotton and linen breathe well, while heavier fabrics like corduroy, flannel, velvet and synthetics should be avoided if you're prone to sweating a lot. Luckily, even formal summer trends call for seersucker over velvet, so you should be all set. And while light-colored fabrics like white and light blue don't attract the sun as much, darker colors can help hide those telltale wetness spots when you do sweat. Opt for colors like dark navy and leave the pastel pants in the closet.

Another good trick is to keep a handkerchief handy for those moments you start sweating in a party packed with people. A subtle, small towel or swatch of fabric in your back pocket is helpful to mop up any sweat that builds up unexpectedly.

Lastly, there are those days where you can try your best, but you're still drenched in sweat. Sometimes just walking from the parking lot to your desk results in a wet shirt—especially in those hotter parts of the country. Consider packing a change of clothes to look fresh all day.

This article was brought to you by Colgate-Palmolive Company, the makers of Speed Stick products. The views and opinions expressed by the author do not reflect the position of the Colgate-Palmolive Company.