They just have a scent to them. Not bad or good. Like natural odor, does this prove race isn’t a social construct?
It is not about race, it is about diet. I remember hearing that you can tell an Italian by their smell because of all the garlic they eat in their food. The same thing is said about Indians who eat a lot of curry. The closest thing there is to smell being associated with race is the East Asians like the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese. Their ABCC11 gene is encoded to make their ear wax dry. This also reduces the amount of MRP8 proteins the body produces. MRP8 is responsible for secreting molecules that bacteria metabolize into smelly compounds, thus anyone with dry earwax also has less B.O. than those with wet earwax such as Europeans and Africans, but even this doesn't prove race is anything but a social construct, anymore than curly hair does. There has been so much mixing of the gene pool throughout human history, and almost every gene can be found in almost every population in varying degrees.
Does that mean I smell like an Italian? I normally fry the garlic before, to avoid to stink like it intensely and asked people openly about it and they said no, normally the essential oils are the one causing the smell, which are mostly driven out if you fry it for a short moment. To conclude, East Asians smell better (less intense means better for most noses) than the rest of the world?
like white people, no one smells the same... I would guess you're smelling a skin care or hair care product you're not used to around and associate them with different people just like some people wear perfumes that are different from what you grew up with, and you think the perfumes are different my grandma used a product for thin hair, it always reminded me of old people because of that (though not all old people smell like that), each of us has our own experiences, memories of smells
I have never noticed any difference in smell. Thomas Jefferson did. That was probably because he did not make it easy for his slaves to take baths.
I think I agree with you. Now, it is definitely very true that human scent can be affected by diet (what is eaten), and this can even be true for entire cultures. But I think that cannot be the only explanation in this case. It is a fact that humans with African ancestry produce much higher levels of skin oil. "Previous findings from our laboratory highlighted marked ethnic differences in volatile organic compounds from cerumen (earwax) among individuals of Caucasian, East Asian, and African-American descent..." The Effect of Ethnicity on Human Axillary Odorant Production, Katharine A. Prokop-Prigge, J. Chem Ecol. 2015 Dec 3; 42(1):33-39. They had volunteers wear T-shirts for 12 hours, then analyzed the shirts for various trace chemicals resulting from sweat and body odor. An analysis of the chemicals can be seen in the graph in Figure 2. Caucasians had the least amount of acetic acid (smell of vinegar), while African-Americans had the most. In fact Africans-Americans had about twice the level in Caucasians, while Asians were about exactly in the middle. African-Americans also had much higher levels of butyric acid (not a good smell) than Caucasians, while Asians only had a little bit more than Caucasians. But Caucasians had more than twice as much 2-methylbutyric acid as African Americans, while Asians had the least. (I'm thinking this might possibly be due to higher consumption of cheese and dairy products, since African Americans and Asians do not commonly eat as much of that) African Americans also had about 40% more hexanoic acid than Caucasians or Asians. Hexanoic acid is described as smelling sort of sharp, sour, a little cheesy, fatty-waxy, and reminiscent of the smell of goats. The researchers conclude with: "Overall, our findings suggest that an individual's ethnicity has a significant impact on human axillary odor production."
I have noticed a tendency for black people to smell like coco butter or shea butter. Internets claim that black people are more prone to dry skin (at least in white people climates) and they tend to prefer coco butter and shea butter. Both of which, as someone who also tends to have dry skin, I can say are good options, and smell quite nice.
I've worked with blacks, whites, and Hispanics in construction. Everybody can stink. Never noticed anything unusual about blacks. But I can say that the stinkiest have been white. That could be because most of them were white. But no, can't say blacks are unusual in that regard, ime.
