05:43 PM MST on Wednesday, June 16, 2004

By Scott Simonson / Arizona Daily Star

Is Tucson the sweatiest city in America? Not even close, one deodorant maker says.

When it comes to damp, dark rings under shirtsleeves, beaded brows and the plip, plip, plip of drips off the ends of noses, El Paso is the nation's sweatiest city. Tucson is a distant No. 24, according to Old Spice's annual ranking of the nation's capitals of human humidity.

The sweatiness rankings were calculated by Tim Long, a member of the research department at Procter and Gamble Co., maker of Old Spice. He is a self-described "sweat expert," which he said is different than being a "sweaty expert."

The rankings rely upon estimates of how much a person will sweat during an hour of walking, based upon a place's average summer heat index, and its residents' average height and weight.

Thanks to Long, the Southwest finally has an answer to one of its hotly debated math story problems: If a Tucsonan and an El Paso resident go outside for a walk and collect all of their sweat in gallon jugs, whose jug will fill up first?

The answer: the El Paso resident, in 55 minutes.

Long explained it scientifically. "That's a lot of sweatin' going on," he said.

It takes the Tucsonan 77 minutes to perspire a gallon.

"That's still a lot of sweat," Long said.

Greenville, S.C., ranked second overall. And perspiration-slickened Phoenix finished third, a slight improvement upon last year's first-place showing.

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©The Arizona Daily Star, 2004