With the recent heat wave in Japan, many people are worried about how to deal with sweat when they go out in the summer. To what extent do people in other Asian countries worry about sweat?
This article uses data from the Global Viewer (conducted in 2024), an overseas consumer data company owned by INTAGE, to explain how people in Taiwan deal with sweat.

Which countries have more people suffering from sweating?

The figure below shows the percentage of people in each Asian country who answered that they were suffering from excessive sweating. Along with Southeast Asian countries with tropical climates, Taiwan is also suffering from excessive sweating.

Figure (1) Body (other than face) skin concern (multiple choices)
Percentage of people who selected "sweat a lot"
(base: 18~64 years old for males and females in each country)
(Source: Intage Global Viewer (2024))

Taiwan tends to have the image of being geographically close to Japan, but the northern part of the country, including the capital Taipei, belongs to the subtropical zone and the southern part to the tropical zone, so the climate is hot and humid throughout the year. It is especially hot from May to October, with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius. The average humidity throughout the rest of the year is 70~80%, making it easy to sweat throughout the year.

In this hot and humid climate, how do people in Taiwan cope with sweat problems?

1. Take a shower immediately

First, let's take a look at when people in Taiwan take a bath.
Many people take a bath before going to bed, but about 40% take a bath right after they get home. In this way, it is thought that people maintain their cleanliness by immediately washing off the sweat they sweat when they go out.

Figure (2) Bathing timing (multiple choice) (Base: Taiwan men and women, 18~64 years old)
(Source: Intage Global Viewer (2024))

Let's also take a look at the bathing habits of Taiwanese households. If you look at some of the bathrooms of Taiwanese households in the Consumer Life Panorama database by Intage, you will see that not many households have a bathtub, and most of them have an integrated shower, toilet, and washstand. Therefore, rather than relaxing in the bathtub at the end of the day as in Japan, the typical bathing style in Taiwan is to take a shower to refresh themselves.

Figure (3) Bathrooms of households in Taipei
Source: Intage Consumer Life Panorama

2. Careful care on the go

Next, let's take a look at measures to protect against perspiration on the go.
Looking at the top five items that people in Taiwan take with them to keep themselves clean, we can see that in addition to masks and tissues, wet wipes and disinfectant wipes are also on the list. It can be seen that people use sheet-type items to protect against perspiration on the go.

Figure (4) Items they carry to maintain a sense of cleanliness (multiple choices)
(Base: Taiwanese men and women, 18~64 years old)
(Source: Intage Global Viewer (2024))

In Japan, antiperspirants, body sheets, neck coolers, and cold sprays have all been on the market. These innovative products may be of interest in Taiwan, where the weather is hot and humid.