This much we know!
In an attempt to limit the chemicals I use on my skin I have spent the last 2 years using many different skin friendly deodorants.. This much we know...
Having read a lot of scare stories about the possible effects of parabens and aliminium on the body, I decided to look for an alternative. The alternatives I have tried: a solid crystal that you need to wet and then rub on your arm pits; a spray containing mineral crystals that you dilute with water and spray under your arms; solid deodorants; and cream deodorants.
These are easy to buy in health food shops and not too expensive and I was really excited because there is no parabens or aluminium in them. I thought this was going to solve the problem for me. I found these a bit difficult to get on with because once I had wetted the crystal under the tap and applied to my under arms, I wasn't confident that I'd applied enough or whether I'd simply applied a layer of water! Solid crystal deodorants worked very well for my husband but I didn't get the same success, I was smelly by the time I'd walked the kids to school! So, even though these crystal deodorants fitted the bill in terms of chemicals they were no good as a deodorant, for me.
This was easy to buy in Boots or Superdrug, a little more expensive but it sounded good - 100% natural! You simply fill the bottle with water to activate the crystals and spray it on your under arms. I think I over did the number of squirts to my under arms and often felt it trickling down my body, and I think that probably meant I didn't get very good coverage, but it's very difficult to guage how much you need, probably less is more! My husband uses this Bionsen anti odorant spray all the time, but I gave up because after a while I didn't think it was working any more, I was aware of being smelly!
I tried several solid deodorants from Lush and other small cosmetics and beauty companies.They were all like bars of soap that you rubbed under your arm pits, I found them quite difficult to apply because I wasn't sure how much deodorant had actually rubbed off onto my skin. I tried to scrape some of the deodorant bar off and rub it on with my fingers to be sure of getting some deodorant in the right place. I quite liked these and tried several in each range, I liked the perfume of each. My husband didn't like them nor did he find that they worked for him. I gave up using the deodorant bars because my arm pits were getting sore from me rubbing them quite hard with the deodorant trying to ensure some of the deodorant stuck to my skin!
To eliminate the problems I was having with the bar deodorants I bought a cream deodorant from Lush which smelt lovely and worked fantastically for several months, even during aerobics classes and gym sessions. It was easy to apply because you just rubbed it in. It did however, leave a lot of marks on my clothes, and after a while my arm pits got quite sore and sensitive. I think it was probably too astringent. After a while it seemed to no longer work and I found that I was smelly!
I think all the deodorants I tried can all be effective, but my advice is to alternate their use, have 3 different types and use a different deodorant each day!