Controversial!
Here’s my take. We all have some level of natural body smell, and I mean people who bathe regularly.
The thing is, we do not notice our own natural smell – we are too used to it.
And, in theory, different races have different smells. Genetic.
Except for the Koreans. Allegedly they don’t use deodorant because they simply don’t give off any odour at all.
As a child in rural NZ, local Maori kids would call white kids “fish heads” because they said we smelled like fish. Personal experience, nothing to back it up…
When I first visited the USA, and travelled on Greyhound buses, I distinctly noted that African Americans had a different scent. Not offensive, just different.
So on a whim, I did some research after being in Japan and camping overnight (in a volcano!) without bathing.
AI says:
Yes, there is a widespread stereotype in Japan that white (and other non‑Asian) people have stronger body odor than Japanese people. It’s rooted in both genuine biological differences and cultural perceptions, and it shows up in language, media, and everyday conversation.
A gene called ABCC11 strongly influences underarm odor and earwax type. The variant that causes dry earwax and very low underarm odor is carried by roughly 80–90% of Japanese people, but is much less common in Europeans and Africans.
In Europe and the U.S., heavy perfume/cologne use is common. Many Japanese people report smelling “perfume + body odor” together, which can amplify the impression that foreigners “smell strong.”
The phrase “gaijin kusai” (foreigner smell) and the older expression “bata‑kusai” (butter‑smelling) have been used to mark things or people as overly Western or foreign, sometimes with a negative, “they stink” connotation.
Academic and journalistic sources note that some Japanese explicitly state beliefs like “Whites and Blacks have strong body odor; Japanese are almost odorless,” and that odor has historically been invoked in racialized thinking.
I don’t feel like returning to Japan 🙁