What You Should Know About Your Deodorant

If you had to make a list of the skincare/personal care products you can’t live without, my guess is that deodorant would definitely make the list, if not be one of the top three. Deodorant and antiperspirants are a staple in most of our hygiene routines and for good reason, no one likes to be stinky! But have you ever thought of what’s actually in the deodorant or antiperspirant you’re using?

Similar to the skincare, makeup and personal care products that are most readily available, a lot of deodorants and antiperspirants are made with chemicals that are not only unfamiliar, but even difficult to pronounce. We don’t need to dig that deeply into the ingredients list though to find ones that are of concern to our health.

Let’s start with the most familiar. . . aluminum. In deodorant, aluminum, a metal, is used to “plug” the pores and sweat ducts to actually stop us from sweating. Not only is that a problem because we actually need to sweat as a means for riding the body of toxins, but aluminum has also been shown to cause genomic instability. In laymen’s terms, genomic instability is the increased rate of DNA damage and DNA mutability and it’s often a characteristic of cancer cells or tumor growth (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4274643/). You don’t have to be a geneticist to know that’s concerning, right?

Of course, we’ve been taught to use deodorant to keep the stank away and not only that, but that it helps us to actually smell good. I’m all about the smell good, however, fragrance can be one of the most harmful ingredients in our personal care products. Fragrance is tricky because companies are not required to actually list all of the ingredients they use to give a product that “good” aroma. When you see fragrance on a lable, there could be hundreds of chemicals used to crate that scent and most often, those ingredients are cause for concern. While it’s impossible to identify exactly what’s been used to create a fragrance, one of the key ingredients, which has been uncovered, is phthalates. Phthalates are used to make the product stick to your skin so the scent hangs around on your body for hours.

And then there are parabens. Parabens are used in personal care products as preservatives. They are absorbed through the skin and are known endocrine distruptors, which means they mess with your hormones. Keeping our hormones in balance is difficult enough without using products that mimic estrogen, influence breast health and impact sexual development when we’re younger.

Now, we’ve really only dipped our toe in the deodorant ingredients list and yet, that’s enough for me to want a better option.

Enter Beautycounter’s Clean Deo!

Let me tell you, if you’re kinda freaked out after hearing all the cons to normal deodorants and antiperspirants, rest assured, this is the deodorant you’ve been waiting for. Not only does it have clean ingredients, which makes it safer, but it’s also sustainable and it really WORKS!

Made without aluminum or synthetic fragrances, Beautycounter’s Clean Deo is long-lasting. It neutralizes odor and absorbs sweat without limiting your body’s ability to detox naturally. The Clean Deo is available in three scents : Clean Rose, Fresh Coconut and Soft Lavender. With all of our fragrances, we screen them rigorously for trace contaminants (which are often present in raw materials) to ensure they meet our high safety standards. When you check out our ingredients list, you’ll find we list every single one of the ingredients used to make our fragrance, so you’ll know just what you’re getting.

So if there’s no aluminum and no synthetic fragrance, what’s it made of, right?!?!

Clean Deo Ingredients:

Cornstarch & Baking Soda - together, they help absorb wetness to keep your skin dry, while simultaneously helping to neutralize odor.

Coconut Oil & Shea Butter - natural emollients that are rich in essential fatty acids to help your skin stay hydrated and smooth.

Candelilla & Beeswax - another key ingredient to help maintain moisture and hydration.

You might also be thinking, how can deodorant be sustainable??

The Clean Doe is refillable! When you finish our deodorant, you’ll just pop the product out of the super chic and cute outer case and refill it with a new deodorant. By making our deodorant refillable, we lessen it’s water, fossil fuel and greenhouse emissions by 47%. Not only does that smell good, but it feels good too!

Detox those Pits!

If you haven’t used a safer deodorant before, just know it will take some time for your body to adjust. It can take several weeks for your underarms to detox the toxins that have been trapped in your sweat ducts by your previous antiperspirant. With that in mind, you might notice a bit more odor at the beginning, but as your body gets back to it’s natural detoxification process, you’ll find the Clean Deo was well worth the wait.

Pro Tip: To help speed up this process, we recommend grabbing our Counter+ Charcoal Facial Mask to use on your underarms once a week since it’s great for pulling out impurities from your pores.

So who’s ready to try out the Clean Deo?? Lucky for you, you can get your hands on the Clean Deo Tuesday, January 12th!

Happy detoxifying and happy swapping to safer.

Light, Love & the Highest Vibes,

Lon