Health & Aging / Skin
Why Showers Aren't Enough After 70
If you shower every day and you're over 70, there's something your doctor should have warned you about years ago. I found out the hard way when my mom moved in with me last year.
My mom moved in with us last spring. She's 72, she's sharp, she's independent, and she has showered every morning of her life.
But within a week, her bedroom started getting this old, musty smell.
I recognized it right away. I've been a home care aide for 15 years, and I'd smelled it in my clients' homes many times. But I'd always assumed it only happened to the very frail, the people who needed full-time care and couldn't keep themselves clean anymore.
That couldn't be my mom. She's the cleanest person I know.
I figured it had to be her things. Maybe they'd just been packed away too long. Maybe her detergent just wasn't strong enough.
So I washed her sheets, her pillows, and all her clothes, but nothing would get rid of that musty smell.
Eventually, I decided to buy her a brand-new set of sheets. A few days later, I washed them, and they still smelled exactly the same.
So it wasn't her things. Somehow, my healthy, active mom had the same smell as my frailest clients.
But I could never tell her that.
My mom has buried a husband, raised three kids, and kept a spotless home for fifty years. Being clean isn't a habit for her. It's who she is. If I told her that her room smelled, it wouldn't just hurt her feelings. It would break something in her.
So I had to figure it out on my own.
What that smell actually is
In my line of work, that smell has a name: nonenal. Most Americans have never heard of it, but Japanese researchers first identified it in aging skin back in 2001, in a study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
What I didn't know, until I really looked into it, is that it doesn't just happen to the frail. It happens to most people's skin as they get older, including healthy, active people like my mom.
She could have showered three times a day, and it still wouldn't have made a difference. Here's why.
2-nonenal was first identified in human body odor by Japanese researchers in 2001. It was found in older adults and effectively absent in younger ones.
As we get older, our skin starts producing something new: nonenal. Here's how it happens. Our skin's natural oils change with age. When those oils sit on the skin and meet the air, they slowly go stale. Think of milk spilled on your shirt. A few hours later, it starts to smell sour.
Our skin's oils do the same thing. Just like the milk turns sour, the oils turn into nonenal as they go stale. And because our skin keeps making these oils every day, nonenal builds up on the skin a little more every day. For most people, it starts in their 40s. By their 60s and 70s, there's enough built up on the skin for other people to notice.
Nonenal is oily, and it sinks into the natural oils on your skin. Regular soap was made to wash off dirt and sweat. It was never made to break down an oil like this.
It's like trying to clean a greasy pan with plain water. You can rinse it as long as you like, and the grease is still there.
Your shower works the same way. The water runs, the soap lathers, you rinse it all off, and the nonenal stays right where it was. You feel clean, because you are clean. But after 70, a shower with regular soap just isn't enough to get rid of it.
Because it's oily, it rubs off on everything you touch: your pillowcase, your sheets, your clothes, your towels. Then it soaks into the fabric, and a regular wash often won't get it out.
That's why my mom's room started to smell within a week of her moving in, and why her brand-new sheets still smelled the same after I washed them. It's also why so many older people's homes have that same musty smell. It's not the house itself. It's years of nonenal built up in the fabrics around them.
Your nose has a built-in filter. Scientists call it olfactory adaptation. When a smell is always around you, your brain decides it isn't important and stops noticing it.
You've felt this before. You spray on perfume, and a few minutes later you can't smell it anymore, but everyone you hug still can.
Nonenal builds up so slowly, over years, that your brain gets used to it along the way. So by the time it's strong enough for other people to notice, you can't smell it at all.
That's why my poor mom had no idea.
And of course, nobody was ever going to tell her. There's no nice way to tell someone you love that their furniture, their clothes, and their whole home have started to smell old.
That's what makes this different from every other sign of aging. You can see gray hair and wrinkles in the mirror. You can't smell this one, but everyone around you can.
Why your doctor never mentions it, and what Japan does instead
Your doctor won't bring it up either. I work alongside nurses and doctors every week, so I can tell you why. Nonenal isn't dangerous. There's no test for it, and there's no prescription for it. Even if a doctor noticed a faint musty smell, they couldn't be sure what was causing it. So in a quick yearly checkup, it never makes the list.
And it's not a strong smell. It's faint, a little musty, a little stale. It's the smell a lot of us remember from visiting older relatives as kids, long before we had a name for it. Nobody pulls a face, and nobody says a word. But whether we mean to or not, it's a smell we all connect with getting old.
In Japan, it's a different story. They've known about it for years, and they even have an everyday word for it: kareishu, which means "aging smell." Most Japanese drugstores carry products made just for it. To them, it's like needing reading glasses. It's a normal part of getting older, and you simply take care of it.
And for a lot of people there, taking care of it comes down to one thing: a soap made with Japanese persimmon.
The persimmon discovery
Japanese persimmons are full of natural compounds called tannins. They're the same kind of compound found in tea and red wine.
Researchers found that persimmon tannins latch onto nonenal and help break it down. In 2012, a team in Japan tested a soap made with persimmon and tea extracts on 20 men aged 43 to 75. After four weeks of using it every day, the amount of nonenal coming from their skin had dropped significantly. None of this was dreamed up for a marketing campaign.
Think back to that greasy pan. If regular soap is like rinsing it with plain water, persimmon is like using a dish soap that actually cuts through the grease.
And since your skin makes nonenal every day, the fix has to be part of your daily shower. That means swapping your regular soap for a persimmon one.
Not all persimmon soaps are made the same
When I started shopping, I found out most persimmon soaps barely have any real persimmon in them. Some are little more than regular soap with a persimmon scent.
But the answer isn't just to buy the one with the most persimmon, either. Too much can leave older skin feeling dry and tight. What you want is enough real persimmon extract to actually work, in a soap that's gentle on mature skin.
After reading a lot of labels, I found one called Swarva. Most soaps are made for everyone. Swarva is made for mature skin, which is exactly what my mom needed.
It has enough real Japanese persimmon extract to help break down nonenal, balanced so it won't dry skin out. Then it adds coconut oil, hyaluronic acid, and collagen, because skin gets drier and thinner as we age and needs that extra moisture. In other words, it's made for the skin you have now, not the skin you had at 25.
And it's just a bar of soap. It goes right where her old bar went, so nothing about her routine had to change.
I never told her. I gifted it.
I didn't sit my mom down for a talk. I just wrapped up a few bars and told her it was a fancy Japanese soap everyone online was raving about. I even told her I'd bought some for myself.
She loved it and started using it right away. She never asked a single question.
To this day, she has no idea why I gave it to her. And that was the whole point.
- Days 1 and 2
Nothing happened, and I didn't expect anything to. It's a bar of soap. It lathers nicely and smells a little like fresh oranges.
- Day 4
I walked into her room to drop off her laundry and stopped in the doorway. The musty smell was still there, but it was fainter than it had been since she moved in.
- Day 7
On wash day, I stripped her bed, and for the first time since she moved in, her sheets just smelled like clean sheets.
- Day 12
We were watching TV on the couch, and I rested my head on her shoulder, the way I used to when I was little. It was the first time in months I'd sat that close to her. I hadn't even noticed I'd stopped.
Her room smells fresh now, and so do her clothes. When I hug her goodnight, all I smell is clean skin and a hint of orange. And she has no idea anything changed. She never has to.
Within that first week, I'd started using it myself, because of what all of this taught me.
My mom didn't do anything wrong. She did everything right, every day, for fifty years, and this still happened. Skin changes as we age, and regular soap was never made for what aging skin produces.
And nonenal starts building up in your 40s. I'm 50. It's probably already starting with me. Thanks to olfactory adaptation, my nose will tune it out, just like hers did. And my kids will never say a word, because I raised them to be kind.
I never want my kids to be where I was with my mom, trying to fix something they could never say out loud.
60-day money back guarantee
I am not the only one who figured this out
Since this happened I have talked about it with a lot of people, at work and away from it. It turns out half the families I know have a version of this story. Almost none of them had a name for it.
"Don't know if my husband and I have nonenal but just in case I bought the soap. Swarva has an amazing refreshing fragrance, as well as being a quality soap. We are using it every day and would definitely recommend you try it!"
"I thought my partner would be sceptical but he really likes it too. Since using this soap our clothes and bedding and house just smells fresh. No matter how many times I did laundry before, nothing got rid of 'that' smell, until we started using the persimmon soap. Who knew it would be so simple."
"No more old man smell coming from my husband and now when you walk into his room it doesn't smell either. Love it. Love it."
"I'm 58 and I wondered, do I smell old? I know no one would say anything if I did but my grandchild would. Well, I think my grandchildren have proven that it has worked. They won't stop hugging me, kissing my skin, smelling my skin. It's almost weird. But I love it."
"So far so good. As others have said I also like the scent, texture, the little carrying bag (btw perfect for travel) and the little wooden place holder. My wife who used Dove soap, has even converted."
The questions everyone asks me
If I can't smell it on myself, how will I know it's working?
You won't smell it on yourself, before or after. That's just how olfactory adaptation works. The people around you are the ones who'll notice, even if they never say why. Maybe a hug lasts a little longer, or someone sits a little closer on the couch. That's the real test.
Will it dry my skin out?
It shouldn't. Swarva is made for mature skin, which tends to be drier, so it's gentle by design. Every bar has coconut oil, hyaluronic acid, and collagen to help keep skin soft, and there are no harsh sulfates. I wash my hands about forty times a day for work, so I notice quickly when a soap dries my skin out. This one doesn't, and my mom's 72-year-old skin hasn't complained once.
Where on the body does it actually matter?
Behind the ears, the back of the neck, the chest and the upper back. Those are the areas where the skin oils concentrate. Most people are already washing everywhere else perfectly well.
How long does a bar last?
About four weeks per bar with daily use. Let it dry between showers instead of sitting in a puddle on the tub edge, and it'll last even longer. It comes with a little mesh bag that helps with that, and helps it lather too.
Does it have a strong scent?
Very light. It smells a little like fresh oranges, and it comes across as clean, not perfumed. It won't clash with anyone's perfume. My mom has worn the same perfume since before I was born, and the two get along just fine.
How is this different from the cheap persimmon soaps online?
This is what I checked hardest, because the cheap ones I looked at had barely any real persimmon extract, or none at all. A few of them even put the word Swarva in their own product titles to catch people searching for the real one, which tells you everything you need to know. Swarva uses real Japanese persimmon extract, balanced for mature skin, along with green tea, coconut oil, hyaluronic acid, and collagen. It costs what it costs because real persimmon extract is expensive to make.
How quickly will I notice a difference?
Persimmon starts working from the very first shower. But the smell has built up in your sheets, clothes, and towels over months, sometimes years, so it takes a little time to clear. In my mom's case, her room smelled noticeably fresher within a week, and her sheets were back to smelling like clean sheets by wash day.
What if it does nothing for me?
There's a 60-day money back guarantee. If it doesn't help, you contact them within 60 days of your delivery date and they refund you. I read the policy in full before I ordered, because fifteen years of care work teaches you to read the fine print on everything.
What I spent fighting the room, and what the actual fix costs
At some point during all this I added up what the wrong answers had cost me. I did it out of curiosity and then rather wished I had not.
Swarva is $49.99 for 3 bars, which lasts one person about three months. That's about 60 cents a day, and it replaces a bar you were buying anyway.
One thing I noticed and appreciated. There is no discount code hiding at the bottom of this page and no countdown clock, because there is no fake sale. If you want it cheaper, you put it on a subscription and it costs 20% less every time, which brings 3 bars down to $39.99. They would rather you never run out than catch you in a promotion. That is the only discount that exists.
And the honest reason not to wait is not a stock counter. It is that your skin is producing this today, and it is transferring into your clothes, your bedding and your furniture today. The fabric is the part that takes longest to win back. I know, because I spent weeks, and over $200, learning it.
60-day money back guarantee
60 days. Use it and see who notices.
Swarva gives you a 60-day money back guarantee from the day it arrives. So here's what I'd do. Put it where your old bar sat and use it every day. Give it a few weeks, and pay attention to the people around you. If it doesn't help, contact them within 60 days of delivery, and you'll get your money back.
If you take one thing from all of this, do not let it be the soap.
Let it be this. There are only two ways anyone ever finds out about this. Either someone who loves you quietly buys you a fancy Japanese soap one day and never explains why. Or you get ahead of it now, while there is nothing for anyone to be quiet about.
My mom got the first way, and she was lucky, because I happened to know the smell and happened to find the answer. You are reading this. Which means you get the second way, and the second way is better.
Denise Kowalski
If it doesn't help, get your money back.
What other customers say
"It really works! I had thought it was my clothes that weren't getting clean and so they smelled kind of bad, but after using the soap, I no longer feel I need a new washing machine or detergent. It had been me! So I'm a believer! And very happy I don't have to buy a new washing machine!"
"We were hesitant about how effective this soap would be but being over 70 decided to give it a try. Both my husband and I are extremely happy we did and just received our second shipment. I recommend giving it a try."
"It DOES eliminate odors, is soft and refreshing, makes my wrinkled up, 82 year old skin feel pretty good. I'm old so my smeller isn't what it used to be, but it smells nice as far as I can tell. The thing I like the most is that it rinses off really clean and easy."
60-day money back guarantee
References. Haze S, et al. 2-Nonenal newly found in human body odor tends to increase with aging. Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 2001. Tatsuguchi I, Matsuoka T, Izumi R, Ijichi S, Shibata H. Preventive effect against the aged men's body odor by the soap containing polyphenol. Journal of Japan Association on Odor Environment, 2012;43(5):362-366.
This page describes one customer's individual experience. Individual results vary. Statements refer to published research on persimmon tannins and 2-nonenal and are not a claim that this product treats, cures or prevents any medical condition. This product has not been evaluated by the FDA.