Odour Evaluation on Antimicrobial Treated Fabrics: An Assessment of Test Methods

Abstract

Few studies have been carried out to determine the odour intensity retained on fabrics, particularly for antimicrobial treated textiles. The purpose of this study was to develop an in vitro method to collect human axillary odour on fabrics and compare this to the traditional in vivo method (i.e., wear trial); and also to investigate axillary odour intensity emanating from cotton and polyester fabrics without treatment and with antimicrobial treatments of polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB) and zinc pyrithione (ZP). Sensory measurement with line scale was used to determine the odour intensity retained on fabrics. Numbers of aerobic bacteria extracted from fabrics were counted to determine the effect of antimicrobial treatment. Findings suggest that odour can be generated and detected through the developed in vitro method by incubating ‘fresh sweat’ onto fabrics. However despite a reduction in bacteria due to the antimicrobial treatments they do not correspond to anti-odour as bacterial counts were not related to differences in odour intensity.