Deodorant

In 5 minutes, you can make your own natural deodorant at home without all that icky Alzheimer's disease!

Using a few simple ingredients, you can make your own all-natural, skin soothing deodorant, scented exactly the way you like it. It's so simple and gratifying, you'll never go back!

Step 1: Materials

To make your own deodorant, gather up:

• Corn starch
• Baking soda
• Coconut oil
• Essential oils (opt. - adds smellpretty!)
• Vitamin E (opt. adds ooohskinsoft!)
• An empty container to be filled with your new deodorant

Some great essential oils for deodorant also act as antimicrobials (since bacteria is what causes the smell, using something to wipe them out is even better!) While the oils of bay, cinnamon, clove and thyme are the most inhibitory, they can also lead to major sensitivity in the pit-ular area.

Tea tree, sandalwood, lavender, lemon, and neem oils are all good alternatives. Use one, none, or create your own blend!

Step 2: Mix It Up

Combine 1/4 cup (60mL) cornstarch with 1/4 cup baking soda.

Add essential oils - I used 8 drops of lavender with 3 drops of sandalwood.

Add 2 Tablespoons coconut oil and a few drops of vitamin E oil (opt). Though the coconut oil I got for this project had a low melting point, the stuff I have at home has a higher one, which I would recommend. That kind I bought in my grocery store near the Crisco and other baking needs.

Mush the ingredients together until they start to form a silky mass. Add more of the coconut oil or dry ingredients to adjust. Then you're ready to start packing it in to your container.

Step 3: The Genius Part

If it's ever bothered you that you don't know when your deodorant is going to run out until suddenly the whole thing has dropped out onto your bathroom floor rendering it scuzzy and no longer useful (though you pick out the gross and use it anyway) I suggest cutting out a piece of colored tissue paper to use as a flag.


Fill your container with about and inch or so of deodorant, insert your flag, and fill the rest of your container!

Step 4: Finis!

Clean up the container and make your own clever label for it (like you won't remember what it is. . . )

Let it set up for a day or two.

Use liberally, and encourage others to do so as well!

_

Some final notes based on early comments:

Odor is caused by bacteria, not by sweating. The essential oils I mentioned are great antimicrobials and should do a real number on all that nasty bacteria. But I do look forward to hearing about some of the more interesting scents you all try too!

This product will not keep you from sweating. Aluminum is the key ingredient in antiperspirant, and that's the bad guy in our story here. It took me a long time (and many Texas summers), but I was finally able to get over my discomfort of sweating.

Enjoy!

Comments

[blister04]

 just made it! Thank you|

I've made an amount of (about) 3 sticks (like the one in the pictures) adding 15 drops of neem oil. Good but I should add more (maybe 30).

Anyway, great one!

[dummy1977]

Surprisingly, oregano oil (though potent at first) can smell quite refreshing and is an excellent anti-microbial/bacterial agent.

[wekeepitkind]

Deodorants which contains aluminum affects the neurons as
well because aluminum is absorbed in the body easily. Whereas, the use of aluminium free deodorant UK does not get absorb in the body
and so, it reduces the risk of brain metabolic disorders.

[AmberC77]

I made this and I loved it, however I have noticed that I now have a dark spot on my underarm has this happened to anyone else

[HollyU]

I am using one that I bought with nearly identical ingredients and have noticed this as well.

[AmberC77]

Great, I am so glad its not just me! I need to look for a different recipe but my lazy self still hasnt done it yet. LOL

[KarenS79]

Lovely. I always have disliked the powdery scent of women's deodorant. Now I can smell like lavender.

Thanks for posting!

[JJMK]

Aluminum is bad news! Stay safe..go with Lavilin. It is consistently rated the best among all-natural deodorants.

[TheresaS6]

Oh goodness people it's not just the alluminum that's causing alzhiemers.. It's all the metals.. Small parts of the metals collect in the brain... Thus..alzhiemers... Zinc.. Copper... Ect... And yes skin does absorb these metals as well...

[reid.mcewen]

The most effective deodorant that I have ever used is Ozone Layer Deodorant, it also happens to be all natural. It's just Shea butter and beeswax infused with oxygen, eliminating the bacteria that cause odor in the first place. It is so effective that you can apply it after you already experience some body odor, its incredible. Check it out at www.OzoneDeodorant.com

[aircrewwife]

wow, so many 'attacks' on personal beliefs for a "how to" post. Regardless of whether or not you personally believe aluminum causes Alzheimer's or breast cancer or any other disease for that matter; it still prevents your body from its natural processes which in and of itself can be toxic to your body. Sweat is a waste product produced by your body just like urine and feces. Sweating allows your skin to purge impurities (hence the reason native people often use what they called a sweat/hot box (and what we know today as a sauna) when they were ill. The reason big box companies add aluminum to their products is that aluminum enters the sweat glands when applied and when the individual begins to sweat the aluminum swells thus blocking the sweat pores and allowing the 'waste' of sweat to exit the body. So even if you don't think that "low levels of aluminum" on a daily basis are toxic to your body, the process those low levels of aluminum prevents from taking place ARE toxic to your body's overall well being. And that kids, is science!

[Esmagamus]

I've been using blocks of alum. There are "good natural stuff" stores that sell big chunks of it as deodorant from the start. I hope I don't have to tell you how expensive that thing can be! Then, since I know a bit of chemistry, I just go to a hardware store and by a barber's stone, which is a rectangular block of "cast" alum. It doesn't have aluminium in it, so it's not irritant for my skin. The only downside is that I tend to drop my stones and curse at the small useless chunks on the floor!

[scoochmaroo]

Oh no! Look what I just found: Alum is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a food additive, but in large quantities — well, an ounce or more — it is toxic to humans. Alum is short for potassium aluminum sulfate. (Notice the aluminum in there?) Should have been obvious, but I guess that's what kept me looking.

[mje]

1. You don't eat it. You put it on your pits.

2. Aluminum does NOT cause Alzheimer's. The early finding of Aluminum in the neurofibril tangles of Alzheimer's patients was due to a problem in the tissue fixing process.

The notion that Aluminm caused Alzheimer's was disproved DECADES ago, yet continues on as a folk legend... in large part because people trust what someone emails them instead of looking up primary sources!

http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/disease/causes-alumi.htm

[maggiesbiz]

The skin is an ingesting organ. That is why some meds are given in cream forms like estrogen, vitamin D, etc.  Everything you put on your skin , eventually, ends up in your blood system and runs around your body.

[bigjeff5]

From what I understand, the vast majority of the aluminum absorbed by the body comes from food, not from deodorants or anti-persperants.

See, aluminum is the third most common element on earth and is the most common metal - as such it isn't surprising to learn that just about every organic creature contains some aluminum.

That's right, every time you eat a plant or an animal you are ingesting aluminum.

The kidneys happen to be very good at removing aluminum (again, not surprising, since aluminum bonds to ammonia, and ammonia is found in urea - the major constituent of urine).

So, like any other mineral, what aluminum is not required by the body is flushed.

Like just about every other medical topic, however, the issue is always up for debate. The human body is essentially an absurdly complex chemical reaction, and understanding each component's function and potential malfunction is never easy and rarely (if ever) completely understood. That said, after 40 years of study the link between aluminum and disease has only gotten weaker, not stronger - such that it lives on primarily as folk wisdom, not sound medical doctrine.

tl;dr:  Like a great many topics of folk wisdom, fears of aluminum in anything but very large quantities are almost certainly unfounded.

[mr_man]

You should all definitely jump into a large vat of "aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly". What could possibly go wrong? Someone you never met said it's fine, so dive right in. Great idea! Put that on your skin everyday for the rest of your life, and pay them for the privilege of that exposure. Then you can buy a bridge from them and jump off of it, preferably into a large vat of "aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly".

[junket2mars]

and cigarettes don't cause cancer either, right? after all, Philip Morris put a LOT of time, effort, lawyers and $$$ into that one... all i know for certain about the aluminum/Alzh connection (controversial as it remains) is that: my granddad died of Alzheimers, and -quite by coincidence, im sure- he just happened to have aluminum toxicity.

[Esmagamus]

So what? Are you going to say metalworkers who work on aluminium all day have a substantially higher chance of getting alzheimer? And they do touch it, smell it and might even get some swarf or dust in their food.

Could you say someone died of smoking too much just because you found tar in their lungs?

[Meuryn]

And you think that one case is enough to prove a whole link? Oh please, this is pseudoscience at its best.