Product Rave- Deodorant

Wooooaahhhh. You guys. It’s been so long since I’ve posted! And there have been 1000 reasons and excuses, none of which anyone really cares about but to sum it up: 50 days from today I get married!!!  Crazy.

I even planned ahead for this crunch time and drafted extra posts for the blog, and still failed! Sheesh.

But I fell in love with a product and I couldn’t go one more week without sharing it with all of you- seriously, in love.

As a lot of you know I try really hard to use “clean products” for my beauty and personal care routine. What does that even mean? Basically I look for products that are nontoxic and don’t have chemicals or known harmful ingredients.

Many people spend a lot of time and money and effort to monitor what they put IN their bodies without giving much thought to what they put ON their bodies. The skin is the largest organ in our body and it only takes something like 26 seconds for what you put ON your skin to be absorbed and can be detected in your blood stream. And I’ve also read that absorption rates on our faces and scalps are 5-10 times higher than on other parts of our body. Scary stuff!

Anyway, one of the products that I’ve been leery of for quite some time (but up until recently couldn’t find a healthy alternative) was deodorant/antiperspirant. It’s a pretty common fact now that traditional deodorants, and specifically antiperspirants containing aluminum, are bad for you and have been linked to a number of nasty illnesses and side effects  (cancer, enlarged lymph nodes, list goes on….)

I had decided last year to ditch the antiperspirant deodorants and go a more natural route. This included trying the “crystal”, trying baking soda/enzyme sticks from those ‘natural stores’ and other nontoxic options. Nothing really worked. I mean sure it worked but I’d still sweat a lot and it would smell somewhat bad under there pretty quick, almost mildewy (gross I know- sorry) and also it was really hard to get over the “wet” feeling you’d get upon application.

ME- with all other natural deodorants 😉

Sidetrack: one of the resources I use to help me shop around for products is an app called Think Dirty. You can check it out here.  Basically it lets you scan the barcode on any product you have at home or see in the store and it will give you a rating from their database on “cleanliness” ie if the ingredients are toxic, if any have been linked to cancer etc…. so I use it frequently and I love it. I’ll note that they are adding new products all the time. I can’t imagine the time and organization it must take to have each and every item in the world there, but not everything I try to scan shows up- be patient.

Anyway, one of the features is that if a product you scan is “dirty” it will offer you cleaner alternatives. I scanned my current deodorant at the time (just curious) and it popped up a yellow (not great, but not aweful) and it showed me some suggestions. One of them was my new love, Schmidt’s Natural Deodorant. I checked it out and read all the reviews with a little skepticism- I mean everyone was literally singing their praises for this stuff from the rooftops and from what I knew about natural deodorants, how could it possibly be that great? By some grace of god I talked myself into giving it a try, maybe I’m a shopping addict? Maybe I was desperate?  Maybe both? I don’t know, but I’m glad I did. I couldn’t make up my mind on what scent to order; there are five options. So I found a travel size 5 pack on Etsy and thought that was a great (and cost effective!) option to try them out before I fully commited.

I used it the first day I got the stuff and haven’t turned back since. You guyyyysssssssssssss all the reviews were right. This stuff is a miracle in a jar.

*Keeps you dry.

*Keeps you smelling nice.

*Lasts through workouts.

*Lasts through HOT MUGGY weather.

*Smells awesome.

Me so happy that my deodorant works 🙂 haha

I’ll warn you right now, it might take you a little while to get over the application. You basically use a little scooper to get a little pea sized amount out of the jar, and then apply it to your pits with your fingers. Personally, that didn’t bother me at all, but Jake still gives me weird looks when he sees me doing it. My favorite scent is a tie between lavender + sage and bergamot + lime. But I love them all and actually just rotate through the scents occasionally. I gave the unscented one to my mom since she likes unscented and I don’t, and now she is hooked too! She’s a really un-sweaty person (why wasn’t that gene passed on to me????) and says she can wear it for two days at a time without smelling.

If you have been struggling with your natural deodorant options or have been considering making the change to a natural alternative- YOU NEED TO CHOOSE THIS ONE! You seriously will not be disappointed- I promise.

Hope you are all doing well and staying happy and healthy and enjoying life! I’m so sorry again for leaving you all hanging for > a month!! I’d say it won’t happen again but fo’ realzzzzz this wedding biz is a lot to handle!!! I hope I’ll be keeping you updated as things start to really come together!

xoxo