The Einstein of Odor and NASA's Master Sniffer Meet in a Rotten Sneaker Stinkapalooza By Buck Wolf Behind every great man, of course, is a great woman. But in the case of Herbert Lapidus, it's a great woman with smelly feet. Lapidus is the famed inventor of the Odor-Eater, the latex inner sole with activated charcoal that's taken the stink out of many a marriage. About one in five Americans will admit, at least on surveys, that their tootsies reek. Unfortunately, many of these sufferers find out about their condition from the ones they love.
Foot stink comes when bacteria starts munching on the body's perspiration.
Each foot contains 250,000 sweat glands and can produce a pint of sweat in a day. The activated charcoal in the Odor-Eater is similar to the filtering system in any office building. We heard more stories of suffering marriages than you would believe. That's when we started to think that we had a winner of a product on our hands. Combe Inc. of White Plains, N.Y., a privately held company where Lapidus serves as vice president of research and development, doesn't release sales figures.