You've probably noticed that synthetic t-shirts stink more after a work-out, compared to cotton. But hey, it's not the fabric's fault, it's the microbes that hang out on synthetics that creates that characteristic stench. That's according to a study in the journal applied in environmental microbiology. Twenty-six volunteers, half men, half women worked out on spinning bikes for an hour and they did so outfitted with t-shirts of cotton, polyester, or a cotton synthetic blend. Then researchers stuffed the sweaty shirts into plastic bags. the next day, a trained panel sniffed them, reading their funk, unlucky job, because yes, the polyester shirts were indeed more musty, sour and ammonia like than the cotton. DNA analysis reviewed that microbe coccus bacteria were to blame.they aren't actually all that common in the armpit itself, and they don't flock to cotton. But researchers say they thrive on the open-air latus of synthetic fibers, where they sit chomping on the long-chained fatty acids in our sweat, turning them into shorter stinkier molecules. These findings might just explain one of the most vexing questions of adolescence: why do your stinky shirts smell so unpleasantly different, from the body odour in the armpit themselves. could be because your favorite shirt has a microbe bio of its own.