Sun, Dec 07, 2014 page14

• New Bulgarian deodorant candy makes your sweat smell sweet

  The treat’s inventor says his product works like ‘anti-garlic,’ as the essential oils the candies contain are also not digested by the body, but excreted via the skin

  • By Diana SIMEONOVA / AFP, ASENOVGRAD, Bulgaria
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  There are sprays, roll-ons and sticks, but now, one Bulgarian candy manufacturer is offering a new form of deodorant: Odor-neutralizing sweets.

  “It’s an old saying that true beauty comes from inside... Why not from a candy?” said Ventsislav Peychev, who owns the ALPI candy factory in Bulgaria.

  He claims that his DEO Perfume Candy can neutralize body odor and replace it with a lingering sweet scent for up to six hours, depending on a person’s size and how many sweets they gobble up.

  The candies — which look like typical bonbons and are available in hard, chewy and even sugar-free versions — were developed based on research by Japanese scientists who found that a major component of rose oil, geraniol, is not broken down by the body, but excreted through the skin. Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest country, is a major producer of rose oil.

  “Geraniol is an antipode of garlic... It also comes out through the pores, but instead of leaving a bad smell, it perfumes the body,” Peychev said.

  Awarded a bronze medal at the Geneva Exhibition of Inventions in 2011 and a technical innovation award at the SIAL food exhibition in Paris in October, the deodorant candy, selling for US$5.98 a pack on amazon.com, is already on sale in the US, Asia and several European counties.

  Although the concept is not new, Peychev’s product is the only one on the market now after a Japanese manufacturer stopped making its Otoko Kaoru chewing gum based on the same idea.

  Each piece of Peychev’s candy contains three milligrams of geraniol-rich rose or lavender essential oil, which — apparently — men prefer.

  “This quantity is enough for the smell to last for six hours depending on the body mass of the consumer, an average of 65 kilos. Heavier people should eat more candies — two, three, four,” said Dimitar Hadzhikinov, a professor at the Plovdiv University of Food Technology who helped ALPI develop the candy.

  The effect is quicker with the soft and sugar-free candies, which dissolve more easily in the mouth. Since all the ingredients are natural, there is no need to feel bad about eating a few more than necessary, Hadzhikinov said.

  A correspondent who stuffed herself with the bonbons said she did smell more sweetly than usual afterward, although not exactly of roses. A whiff of scent also remained long after the taste of the candies had gone, she said.

  Whether the candy — priced at about 2 leva (US$1.30) for a packet of 20 on the Bulgarian market — will find a large audience remains to be seen.

  George Preti, a chemist with the Monell Chemical Senses’ Center in Philadelphia, said it was difficult to judge if such products worked as their makers “seldom, if ever, present any analytical or clinical data to support their claims of deodorancy.”

  No previous edible or chewable deodorant product appears to have succeeded in getting much of a hold on the market, he added.

  However, that will not stop Peychev, who views functional foods not only as a business, but a passion. The lively 55-year-old former engineer previously developed an energy candy with caffeine and guarana; a cooling sweet with vitamins and calcium; and a slimming one with a soluble dietary fiber called inulin.

  His company in the southern town of Asenovgrad now employs about 40 workers and churned out 500 tonnes of sweets last year, with a turnover of 2 million euros (US$2.5 million). So financially at least, things are smelling sweet.
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