If the odor is a result of the belly button becoming dirty or greasy, carefully washing it is the best way to get rid of the smell. If belly button odor is due to an infection, an appointment should be made with a doctor who can give advice and prescribe treatment if needed. Washing prevents a buildup of dead skin, sweat, and oils that the body produces naturally.
Frequent washing also removes germs. Using warm water and mild soap, use a washcloth to gently clean around and just inside the belly button. Rinse with clean, warm water and dry with a towel to make sure that all water has been removed from the belly button.
Showering or bathing regularly can help to prevent skin problems and odor. Areas of the body, such as the belly button or feet, can get missed, but these need as much regular cleaning as other areas of the body.
Washing is necessary particularly after sweating a lot, for example, in hot weather or after exercising. A range of mild soaps is available for purchase online. Belly button piercings can become infected. An infection can create fluid or pus, known as discharge, that can smell bad. Discharge may be thick and yellow or green in color, and it may harden into a crust around the piercing.
Other signs of infection include redness and swelling around a piercing, a feeling of warmth in the area, pain, or bleeding. A person may also have a high temperature or feel unwell. Someone should see a doctor if they have any signs of infection. A professional body piercer should advise on how to keep a piercing clean and prevent infection at the time the piercing is done.
Washing the belly button should solve the problem of a bad smell if this is due to a buildup of dirt and germs. Remembering to keep the belly button clean, and drying it thoroughly after washing, should lead to a belly button that smells better. Once an infection has been treated, the belly button should stop smelling and return to normal. To avoid future infections, the belly button should be kept clean and dry at all times. If you have a combination of foul smell and discharge, it could be a sign of:.
Rarely, people can develop stone-like masses inside the belly button. Known as omphaliths or umboliths, these growths can fill the entire navel and lead to infection, inflammation, and ulcerated skin. You can use the same saltwater solution mentioned above:. If you develop redness, swelling, pain, or discharge, your belly button could be infected. This is especially likely if you have a navel piercing.
These are the findings of a University of Sydney researcher named Karl Kruszelnicki. Dr Karl, as his fans know him, has an Australian science radio show, and one of his listeners wrote in asking where navel fluff comes from and how it forms. That inspired Kruszelnicki to distribute a survey online, which led him to the conclusion that BBL is an affliction mainly of middle-aged men with sufficient body hair.
For his research, Kruszelnicki received an Ig Nobel Prize in , an accolade given for research that "first makes you laugh, and then makes you think. Fluff may help make bellybuttons cleaner by collecting bacteria as it forms Credit: Getty Images. In addition to the online survey, Kruszelnicki and his colleagues collected samples from willing volunteers and also asked some to shave the hair from around their belly buttons.
It turned out that shaving belly hair indeed prevented the accumulation of lint. While perhaps not the world's leading experts on the topic, Dr Karl and his colleagues arrived at an explanation for the formation of navel fluff that, at least, makes intuitive sense. Hairs around the belly button, they think, operate as a "one-way ratchet mechanism", stealing tiny fibres from inside your clothes and depositing them into your navel.
Older clothes, less lint Kruszelnicki wasn't the only person to take a stab at what forms the fluff that fills belly buttons around the world. In , a Vienna University of Technology researcher named Georg Steinhauser published his hypothesis in the eyebrow-raising journal Medical Hypotheses. For reasons known only to himself, Steinhauser collected his own navel fluff each evening for three years. Though he insists that he maintains good personal hygiene, including a shower each morning, his navel invariably becomes filled with fluff by the day's end.
In all Steinhauser collected samples from his own belly button. Their combined weight didn't even reach a single gram. His lint specimens had an average weight of 1. He also found that the lint samples were the same color as the clothes he was wearing, and that old shirts produced less lint than newer ones. That brings us to our final belly button lint factor: fabric type. Goldbach says, because the loosest fibers have typically already come off in the wash.
And, in general, loosely-knit, natural materials like cotton and wool produce more lint than tightly-woven, synthetic ones like nylon and spandex, Dr. It might not be the most delightful-looking thing, but belly button lint is perfectly harmless.
Navel fluff may even be hygienic. After performing a chemical analysis on his specimens, Steinhauser theorized that cotton in belly button lint may incidentally help maintain belly button cleanliness by sweeping away foreign matter.
Although your belly button lint can fall out naturally, you should clean it like you clean pretty much all other parts of your body. Just be careful not to scratch your belly button with your fingernail or whatever you use to wash your body, because you could pierce the skin, leading to bleeding or increased risk of an infection.
Khetarpal says. Skip the use of any harsh, drying agents like rubbing alcohol.
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