Over the past year and a half,
I have been making changes in our lifestyle.
I've changed the way we eat,
I've changed the way we spend money (and save it)
and I've moved away from chemicals in our cleaning and in relation to our bodies.
I'll cover the eating, cleaning and money changes in later posts
but today I wanted to touch on something we all use.. deodorant!
I've been having a problem for a few years now
and it has been steadily getting worse.
Traditional deodorants make me itchy.
VERY itchy. And that is very uncomfortable!
Not to mention, looking at the long list of ingredients in a deodorant
or antiperspirant is a pretty scary thing.
Long lists of chemical names that can't be pronounced.
Among them, particularly in antiperspirants, is aluminum.
Did you know that besides causing a reaction in folks like me,
aluminum has been linked (albeit sometimes tenuously)
with Alzheimer's and breast cancer?
Whether or not these links truly exist,
I'd prefer to keep as few chemicals off my body as possible,
which is why I began to research how to make homemade, natural deodorant.
I found a recipe that used traditional items found in my kitchen.
After mixing it up, I began to use it.
Its been about a week and I can declare my experiment to be an unmitigated SUCCESS!
The recipe is as follows:
Mix baking soda and corn starch.
That's it!
Now, baking soda can be an irritant to some people
and, of course, I found myself on that list in short order.
If you don't have sensitive skin, you can mix your deodorant in a 1 to 1 ratio
of 1 TB baking soda to 1 TB corn starch.
I moved to a 1 TB baking soda to 4 TB corn starch and so far that seems to be going well.
Others have moved to using up to 6 TB corn starch to 1 TB baking soda.
I have absolutely ZERO underarm odor.. and no itchies either!
If you find traditional deodorants cause problems for you
or if you want to move to a more natural solution,
give it a try.
What have you got to lose?
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4 comments:
This is so great to know! A few years ago I switched to the natural crystal deodorant. However, over the summer, I seem to have developed an allergy to it and have really been having trouble with rashes and pain. I'm defintely going to try this!
Do you just pat it on like powder? Like Lori, I tried the crystal deodorant, which is actually just salt, and almost immediately developed a rash.
I hope it works as well for you ladies as it did for me.
Make sure and start with at least a baking soda to cornstarch ratio of 1:2 minimum. If your skin is sensitive, be prepared to up the cornstarch end of the ratio.
Gina, yes. I just pat it on. The first few days I used a makeup brush (one of the big ones) but quite frankly, my fingertips did just as good a job, much more quickly.
Let me know how it works for you. I am pleased to be completely odor free. I had taken to using Almay scent free deodorant through Drugst*re.com but this is far cheaper and I feel better about what I am putting on my body.
I'm so proud of you!
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