Few parents would describe the smells emanating from their adolescent children as redolent of sandalwood. But one of the distinct components of teenage body odor is a compound that evokes that warm, woody fragrance, according to a small new study, which compared the scents of adolescents to those of infants and toddlers.
Unfortunately, that’s just about where the good news ended for teenagers (and their parents). Although there were many similarities between the chemicals wafting from teens and tots, the differences tended to favor the younger children, whose body odor samples had higher levels of a compound with a flowery fragrance. Adolescents, on the other hand, produced a compound that smelled like sweat and urine and had higher levels of substances described as smelling cheesy, musty and “goatlike.”
Source: Toddlers Smell Like Flowers, Teens Smell ‘Goatlike,’ Study Finds – The New York Times