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I've been a pharmacist for 15 years. Parents ask me about teenage body odour at least once a week. I always gave them the same advice. Try this deodorant. Try that body wash. The clinical strength one works well. Then my own son hit puberty. And I realised I had no idea what I was talking about. I tried everything I'd been recommending to other parents. Axe. Old Spice. Dove Men+Care. The clinical strength stuff. None of it worked. I mean, it would work for a few hours. He'd shower in the morning, smell fine at breakfast. By the time he got home from school? It was back. Every single time. His room smelled like onions. His clothes reeked even after washing. I was embarrassed. Here I was, giving advice to mums at the pharmacy counter, and I couldn't even help my own son. So I did what I should have done from the start. I actually looked at the formulations. And what I found made me angry. Here's what I learned: Lesson #1 — These products aren't made for teenage boys. They're formulated for adult men. Adult sweat. Adult bacteria. But during puberty, boys produce completely different sweat. And way more bacteria. These products were never designed for what a 13-year-old's body is going through. That's why they wear off by lunchtime. Lesson #2 — "Fragrance" is hiding things. I should have known this. That one word on the label — "fragrance" — can legally hide hundreds of synthetic chemicals. Companies don't have to list them. Some of these are endocrine disruptors. They mess with hormones. Mimic estrogen. Block testosterone. I was putting this on my son every single day. During puberty. When his body is still developing. I felt sick. Lesson #3 — You need to kill the bacteria, not mask it. Most body washes just cover the smell with synthetic fragrance. But the bacteria is still there. Multiplying. That's why the smell always comes back a few hours later. You need something that actually kills the bacteria causing the odour. Once I understood this, I started looking for something different. I found an Australian brand called Manly. Never heard of it. But the formulation made sense. Made specifically for teenage boys. Australian botanicals — lemon myrtle, tea tree, kakadu plum — that actually kill bacteria. No SLS. No synthetic fragrance. No endocrine disruptors. Every ingredient listed. They had a 60-day money-back guarantee. So I ordered it. First week, I noticed the smell was getting better. Not gone, but better. By week two, it was gone. Not masked. Gone. One day he came home from footy absolutely drenched in sweat. I walked past him expecting that smell to hit me. It didn't. He just smelled like sweat. Normal sweat. Not that sour, stale funk I'd been living with for a year. That was three months ago. Now when parents come into the pharmacy asking about teenage body odour, I don't point them to the usual shelf anymore. I tell them the truth: the stuff in the shops isn't made for teenage boys. That's why it's not working. I tell them about Manly. It's the only thing I've found that's actually formulated for puberty. They're a small company and they sell out a lot. I'll put the link below. www.usemanly.com.au/pages/db-offer