Ditch the Deo without the BO

Is it possible?  Yes it is.  Last Friday was my first day in attempting my freeing of the armpits.  I'm going to be honest and say I didn't do much research starting out, so I came by some knowledge just in experience and then wondering why it worked persuaded me to find the answer.

So when I began a week ago I read a blog where a woman was just documenting her experience to a point where it seemed her sweat moderated itself and all was well.  I hadn't heard this was possible.  It sounded like when I entered the "No 'Poo" method of hair washing, where we can get the sebaceous glands to take a chill pill in overproduction as we stop making them overproduce with stripping, but these are different glands.  If this can be done, then logically I approached it the same way -- just as hair needs sebum as a protector, so this excretion is also needed.  I didn't stop my sebum production completely when I went to the "No 'Poo" method; I just taught my scalp to not overproduce because I stopped giving it a reason to continuously replenish -- I stopped stripping it with detergent shampoos.  It was just a thought, but I wondered if overproduction of sweat was due to stripping moisture from the armpits, which in turn is linked to the body odor; to add, that over-kill of the skin's bacteria (odor contributor) made an imbalance of it as well.

First, you need to understand a few things about deodorant and why you should stay away from it.  Well, before that we need to establish that there is a difference between deodorant and antiperspirant.  Most sticks you label "deodorant" are a combination of both a deodorizing agent and an antiperspirant, though a true deodorant itself does not contain antiperspirant.  Most organic or natural deodorants are in this field.  They do not stop sweat production but handle the bacteria on the surface of the skin which causes the odor.  My issue with this is that they are quite costly.

Going back to body odor -- the apocrine glands are those that are associated with hair follicles, and are the ones you find under your armpits.  The fluid is odorless until it is met with bacteria on the skin's surface.  Logically, this should be good bacteria, unless you mess with it, which you often do in deodorants.  My theory above was perhaps the bacterial imbalance that would make very pungent odors are due to messing too much with the bacteria with chemicals in deodorants and antiperspirants.  Most natural deodorants will deal with the bacteria in the form of essential oils like lavender, tea tree, etc.  These oils are good antibacterial agents.

Your conventional deodorant-antiperspirant stick uses a form of aluminum to contract the pores to the point of keeping you dry.  It clogs them, in a nutshell.  I have an issue with this because you need to sweat.  There is a reason why God made those glands, and failure to expel toxins and pheromones, and failure to release sodium back into the blood stream after bodily stress each has their own set of consequences that can be quite damaging to other systems of the body, not to mention outpours of claims that aluminum is toxic internally.

Back to the problem I have with buying natural deodorants:  I already have plenty of items in my house that handle bacteria.  I actually used to make my own deodorant with lemon essential oil, coconut oil, and baking soda.  I was annoyed at how often I had to apply it.  I personally wanted a bit more freedom for my armpits, and not have a sandy, oily, substance sitting under them.  So I decided to just use an essential oil and see how long I could go.  My test was with ylang ylang, simply because I love the smell.

The week was especially interesting.  First, I washed my armpits each day with baking soda.  Since I was trying to handle the sweat-production imbalance in the same way I handled my sebum-production imbalance, I'd use the same product.  I'm not sure if that did much for the sweat production, but in the very least it did help out as I realized that the fluid of the apocrine gland will mix with sebum before it makes it to the surface.  So since sebum was involved, balancing it out with baking soda seemed to be a bonus to my deodorant-free trial.

On with the day to day... Day 1 was my day to clean my house for the week, filled with bathtub scrubbing, elbow grease in the oven, etc.  I only had to apply it once, first thing in the morning and I felt so free by the end of the day.  Weird, I know.  Day 2 was interesting since it was Saturday and I am a part of a flag worship team in our congregation.  I thought it mightily brave of me to do all the dancing and whipping of arms up and down without anything under those pits except for a single drop of ylang ylang applied to each.  Let me tell you, worked like a charm.  Day 3 was especially interesting because it was our hiking day.  We hiked up to a ridge at over 5800 ft elevation.  I applied a drop of ylang ylang under each arm before we even left the house and brought the bottle with me.  I was shocked to note that I did not have to reuse that bottle, and boy was I sweating!  Just in case my own nose was acclimating to my pits faster than my pits were acclimating to my new routine, I asked my family's input.  No body odor apparent.  The rest of the week was quite mild, though one day I tried bergamot instead and noticed that it did not work as well for me, another I tried lemon, and then another I tried lavender.  Both of those worked well.  I am sure they each dealt with the bacteria at hand.  Yesterday when I showed up to dance practice, a couple of people noted how I actually smelled good.  No deodorant and I smell good -- how about that!

Anyway, later I linked the ylang ylang success to the fact that it is a muscle relaxer of a sort.  It prevents muscle contraction, and though slight contraction is used to expel sweat from armpits, the excessive contraction is the science behind antiperspirants.  Therefore, I wondered if the freedom versus the constraint made my body happy and that even the more often that fluid reaches the surface, the less bacteria has a chance to build up to mix with it and make a pungent smell.  Going against an antiperspirant's contraction, it was the difference between being continuously moist, versus being dry but dumping sweat profusely when nervous.  My balance theory proving itself?  Note, my armpits were not dry, but neither were they sweaty.  Couple this with ylang ylang just smelling good, and hey, it worked!  I later read that ylang ylang is an anti-seborrhic, which tells me it further would balance out the over production of sebum.  I wonder if the oily substance (sebum mixes with the fluid that becomes sweat before it expels) has anything to do with odor lasting, and that even if I had odor from the apocrine glands expelling, it wouldn't stick around anyway without a fat like sebum.   Hmmm...

I'd enjoy hearing your experiences and successes!

Two Cents a Load, as Low as ONE (DIY Laundry Soap)

Yesterday I was trying to configure proportions in laundry detergent ingredients and ended up enlisting my husband's help on his lunch break.  We texted back and forth and the result was a laundry chemist walked through the door shortly before dinner.  He had spent some time reading the science behind detergent during his breaks.  Oh, what a man.  Then before we went to bed I changed my mind on the powder option and decided to go with liquid -- because the last time I used powder I had an issue with it clumping in cold water.  I stopped with an abrupt, "I think I need friends."  Please tell me there have been other women who are at home with their littles all day and have pondered such DIY projects down to the science.

Once I gave up the powder concept, the liquid formula was easy to figure out.  In a detergent I have to think of a few things -- 1) cleanliness; 2) natural; 3) gentle but effective, since I have a baby; 4) does not cause me to strip diapers; 5) does not tear down my PUL diapers nor bamboo.  With this, I opted to eliminate anything too high in pH and too low.  In fact, my detergent from Trader Joe's labels itself as pH balanced.  I know that may shock majority of the laundry detergent makers who understand that you need a high pH to degrease.  Since soda ash is high up there at an 11, I wanted to refrain from using it (bamboo does not like high pH anyway).  I know water is the biggest thing you need for cleaning.  I also know, thanks to my husband's research, that though you may not need soda ash, you need a surfactant.  Magnesium sulfate (Epsom) would be my choice in that -- it is also not too acidic, at an average pH of six.

When I looked at my Trader Joe's pH balanced detergent it reads, "Purified water, plant based surfactant, soy based fabric softener, cellulose optical brightener, lavender oil."  Honestly, I thought to sub a few things and stick with their sort of ingredients -- like Epsom for the surfactant, vinegar instead of fabric softener, salt for brightener, and lavender oil.  However, just by knowing those ingredients, it would keep the solution slightly acidic because of the vinegar.

I also use their dish detergent, which is quite similar in ingredients.  Dish soap is almost always used in liquid homemade detergent, if not a bar soap.  I wouldn't use a bar soap because of the chance of repel in the cloth diapers.  It was easy for me to just use their dish soap in my laundry soap.  So, so far I knew I would use the balanced dish soap and Epsom.  My last active ingredient would be baking soda.  Why?  Because it is a milder alternative of the soda ash.  It sits around 9 on the pH scale.

Using only a shy less than half gallon (multiply accordingly for more), my formula was:

3 TB dish soap
2 TB baking soda
3 TB Epsom salt
(Optional) essential oils

I stirred these in a pot with a few cups of sink hot water until dissolved, then poured into my old detergent bottle and filled the rest with cold water.  I am using the same measurements of others' post to use 1/2 cup per standard load.  For HE, my Trader Joe's detergent uses half (1/4 cup) to yield 26 HE loads, or 13 standard loads.  You could always work between these 2 numbers and go with a 1/3, as I've seen in other posts as well.

So let's talk cost and how I figured it was only 2 pennies a load.  Let me first say, I bought that smallest box of baking soda and smallest bag of Epsom salt.  If you go with the larger quantities, you will truly only spend a penny a load, as these things get cheaper the larger the package.

Dish soap -- $2.99 at 25 ounces (50 TB) That's $.059/less than $.06 an TB
Baking soda -- $.54 at 16 ounces (32 TB) That's $.016/scarcely over a penny a TB
Epsom salt -- $.88 at 16 ounces (32 TB) That's $.027/less than $.03 a TB

For once 13-26 (depending on HE or standard) load bottle (53 ounce) I need $.17 of dish soap, $.03 baking soda, and $.08 of Epsom salt.  Total, this is $.28 of ingredients needed for no less than 13 loads, and up to 26 loads.  Divide that into the 13 loads and it makes each load 2 cents, but divide that into 26 and you get...a penny a load.  I did also put some essential oils, rolling with 7 drops each of lavender and bergamot.  This is optional, as the dish soap already has lavender.  I added lavender to roll with the oil it already had, and added bergamot since it is such a good skin oil.  I imagine I'll switch it up each time, alternating between lemon, sweet orange, peppermint, lavender, tea tree, bergamot, etc.  Again, it's not needed, but at 1-2 pennies a load...why not?