I'm sure there are a variety of homemade deodorant concocktions out there, but recently there were a few recipes floating around on the internet that caught my eye. First it was Angry Chicken's. Her's looked awesome, and simple, but it contained a few ingredients that I didn't have on hand, namely the shea butter, cocoa butter, and vitamin E tablets. All good things, I'm sure, but meh, it was just too much effort.
Then, I saw this one on Sew Green. Just four ingredients! And one is optional. woo to the hoo. Can it be any more simple?
Yes, actually, when you're living in the "one-spoon kitchen" that I'm currently in, you can toss those measurements out the window and just wing it! That's what I did, and I think we have a winner! I had two essential oils on hand: spearmint and lemongrass. I went with the spearmint this time and love it, but am excited to try out the lemongrass soon.
Just as the recipes say, I just scoop out a pea-sized dollop, rub it on and I'm good to go. And, seriously guys, I know everyone making homemade deodorant says this, but really, there's no stink! It's amazing. And I've done a few stress tests this week: two intense hot yoga classes, a sweaty trip to the gym, and constant moving around the city. And at the end of every day. nothing.
So, after all of that blabbing, you might be wondering why make my own deodorant? Well...
~ it's just as much fun as making anything else!
~ four ingredients! How many ingredients are on the back of your deodorant stick?
~ it only took 5 minutes. That's less time than going to the store to pick up a new stick, AND it's true, I have to buy the ingredients to make the deodorant, but they're all multi-purpose ingredients that will get used up in other projects.
But wait! there's more! {this is an infomercial for homemade deodorant}
~ I wanted to do this because there's some controversy over the use of aluminum in antiperspirants {not deodorants}. The aluminum compounds react with your sweat to clog your pores in an effort to reduce sweating. Studies have shown the the aluminum can pass through your skin leading to higher concentrations in your body. In tiny doses this isn't necessarily a big deal but in large doses may be a problem... this is where I'm going to stop there are a variety of studies out there, you can read them if you like.
~BUT, this leads to one very bad thing : I still sweat like a @(*#&^$%. So, I'm taking the good with the bad, less nasty aluminum, more nasty sweat. I'm not crazy, there's still a stick of antiperspirant handy for those important moments. Like mowing the lawn. kidding.
~Ok, one more thing on aluminum... in my research I did find out that when aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly mixes with sweat, it's the cause of those yellow stains. yuck! If that's not a reason to use the new potion, I don't know what is :-)
A few things on this...
ReplyDeleteI switched to a "natural" non-aluminum deodorant a few months ago, I think I started using it in springtime. So along with not having yucky deodorant residue ruin my clothes - yo, huge benefit! - I have found that on average, I am actually sweating less than when I was using an antiperspirant deodorant. Like dude, omfg. I always sweated a hellish amount, it seemed to me, and now just using a non-aluminum deodorant (not anti-persperant), I think my body has kind of regulated to a normal amount of sweating. I swear. Because I've noticed a change over the past 6ish months. So if your recipe works and actually doesn't smell, I will have to check it out, because my hippy deodorant works sometimes, sometimes not so great. I think if I sweat a TON it sort of washes away - I walk a very quick mile to work (like in 13 minutes) and I'm sweating by the end of it, so by the end of the day, I will notice that I might not smell as great. But the weird thing is, not always. Hmmm... probably more than you wanted to know. But I haven't really had a ton of people to talk about it with. So I'm very highly interested to try out your recipe and if there's no smell by the end of the day, I'm golden! Whoo! Do you know that they think the higher rate of breast cancer in women has to do with the aluminum in the anti-persperants?
Oh, one more thing - I was just thinking back to when I started using anti-persperant. I was like 12 or 13, and until then, I had never really sweated a whole lot. And I just REMEMBER just HELLISH amounts of sweat all through middle, high school, college. All the while using aluminum based product. And F*uck dude, it was an *issue* - not wanting to wear certain clothes because they would just be abnormally soaked and show sweat stains. I change to non-aluminum and it wasn't overnight, but still, kind of - boom - my body adjusts, and self-regulates, and i'm sweating less. i can actually wear a shirt all day and not sweat through it. Dude, that is AMAZING. for me. and think about it, what is the purpose of our sweat glands, besides cooling us? TOXIN release. So you know what, it makes sense that if we're shoving some toxic shit right up into our bloodstream, right where we would normally sweat out the toxins, that part of our body is going to go into motherfing OVERDRIVE trying to get that shit away from our open, sensitive pores. And what do we stupid fucking humans do? Shove more shit up there. Aaargh. God, I feel so dumb, I JUST figured this out just now. Oh well, consumerism connned me. Welcome to being An American. sorry for all the caps, etc. but I just had to emphasize. I feel excited and emphatic.
Thanks for the post!
But I do have a question - does the oil from the coconut stain your shirt? Or get it oily? That's why I've stayed away from recipes like these.
ReplyDeleteOh, and thing number two that is amazing to me - after half a year of using unscented, non-toxic deodorant - my GOD - the STINK of aluminum based deodorants with all of their perfumes, that I once found normal, is freakishly overwhelming. Like, I can SMELL THE BAD in them. Even the deodorant that I used for years and year and I thought was mild - it stinks so strongly to me now.
Yet another amazing thing about what our bodies are capable of, once we stop handicapping them.