To add to this, sweating was normal, and though there were various ways to deal with the smell of body odor, the rich mostly just caked on perfumes like how a teenage boy, discovering girls for the first time, over-does the axe body spray (or whatever kids these days use, lol.).

Outside of perfume, which was ridiculously expensive, they’d make do with things like potpourri in little baggies or herbs or flowers. Whatever they could get, and didn’t break the bank.

Other methods of keeping it in check include things like bathing and simply going nose-blind, and contrary to popular belief, people did bathe regularly- including at public baths.

zinc oxide basically dries out the skin and have some anti-inflammatory, hence why its used as diaper cream(babies and adults and used for older people who are prone to stasis dermatitis) in 40%/20% apparently its also useful for specific types of dermatitis, like perioral dermatitis.

I had first read op as “antidepressants” and I was VERY confused at your response.

Yeah, before then you just stunk.

Some cultures started bathing but many did not until later on. The "Dark Ages" was a time where bathing was nearly nonexistent and cleanliness wasn't even in people's minds. People would relieve themselves in buckets and just toss it out the window.

Here is a really good one. Look up information about the Palace of Versailles, huge building with tons of rooms and huge parties with tons of lord's and ladies' eating and drinking but no bathrooms. People would relieve themselves in the stairwell's. That is why the upperclass wore tons of perfume, to overcome the stench. Modern society has come a long way in just a few hundred years.