Skipping a shower bumps up VOCs from skin

At home, school, and work, our bodies encounter a host of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, given off by furniture, carpet, or paint . But people also emanate VOCs in appreciable amounts, influencing indoor air quality . New research finds that human hygiene habits such as skipping showers or slathering on lotion also affect the profile of indoor VOCs ( Environ. Sci. Technol. 2024, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.4c01698 ). Compounds in skin oils have been found to react with oxidants such as ozone —an air pollutant that often finds its way inside from outdoors—to produce VOCs. So it may seem obvious that showering or not showering might change the VOC mix. "But actually," says Nijing Wang of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, "nobody has done such a study." Wang and her colleagues had four male volunteers sit together for several hours a day in a steel room that had been rigged