I sweat. I mean, I really sweat. I am not sure if this is an age-related thing (I suspect so), but long gone are the days when I needed a sweater any time the thermometer dropped below 80. Now, it takes weather under 70 degrees to get me to wear something more full-coverage than a tank top. As my internal thermostat has risen, so has my desire to find a deodorant that actually works. To date, although I keep purchasing products with higher levels of active ingredients, nothing seems to stop the sweating. As you can imagine, this has completely put the pox on any chance of me finding a natural deodorant, free from all those harmful chemicals conventional deodorant is laden with. An aside here: if deodorant is not somehow involved in breast cancer, why is it that the upper, outer, quadrant of the breast is the most common site for tumors? Could it be that the combination of chemicals and open skin (from shaving) is not a good one?
Ok, back to the matter at hand. I was surfing online the other day and stumbled on the No More Dirty Looks web site. Cruising around, I found a blog entry about a DIY deodorant that the author claims keeps her dry even after a run. The ingredients were simple: coconut oil, baking powder, corn starch, and some optional essential oil (more about the ingredients later). I decided to make a batch. I ended up tweaking the recipe a bit and I didn’t make a lot since this was my first time; no point in having tons of the stuff if it wouldn’t work. My recipe looked like this:
- 2.5 tsp coconut oil
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 1/4 tsp rose water (I didn’t have any essential oil lying around)
I mixed the first three ingredients in a small glass jar, then added the rose water.
When I first put it on, I was skeptical, because there were white blobs that I couldn’t quite get worked into my skin. But after 20 minutes or so, they were gone. I guess the heat from my body let them melt in.
All day, my armpits were dry and smooth. They were touchable. I realise this sounds weird, but when regular deodorant dries, it still leaves a slightly tacky feeling. This was nothing like that – my armpits were dry and soft. The real test came after dinner, when I went for my nightly walk. Now, before you think, oh, she’s walking at night when it is cool, please keep in mind that I live in Florida. According to the Weather Channel, when I went walking at 6:30pm, it was 86 degrees with 75% humidity. And guess what? I only sweated a little bit! Definitely less than with my conventional deodorant. Today, I am wearing the stuff to the gym, but I am expecting success. My daughter is also trying it out today.
Ingredient Confusion
As you can see, I made the concoction with baking powder. When I returned to the NMDL site this morning, I noticed that the picture for the recipe showed baking soda, but the ingredient list (which is what I copied onto a scrap of paper and took into the kitchen with me) lists baking powder. I suppose my next move will be to try the recipe with baking soda. If you end up doing so before I do, let me know how it works!