Throughout my sustainability journey, I started using sustainable deodorants. And I was feeling very secure at the beginning. However, something changed the last year which made me decide to quit sustainable deodorant. This is, hopefully, something temporary.
What did I try?
I used several kinds of deodorant. I mainly started using sticks and creams. In the beginning, I was very enthusiastic about using them. It felt like I was doing something good while not being confronted with my own sweat. Here are some examples of the deodorants I tried the last year:
As I said, I was enthusiastic about all of them at the beginning. And I do think that these products might be useful for some people. Unfortunately, they are not up to my wishes when it comes to deodorant. I have to say that I always have had issues with finding the right deodorant. And when I started using liquid roller deodorant I found my match. However, this was before I wanted to live more sustainably and deodorant is not very sustainable on its own. Therefore I wanted to take a risk and tried to find a new match, but a sustainable one. But I had to quit sustainable deodorant eventually…
Why did I quit sustainable deodorant?
There were two main reasons for me to quit sustainable deodorant quite suddenly. The first one was that I was struggling with my sweat smell again. This made me very insecure. It started already when I did not have my scent back completely after my covid infection (this took around 1,5 years and is still not completely recovered). From that moment I was not sure whether I was stinky or not, because I did not smell anything. I always had to ask my parents or boyfriend whether I was smelling a little bit. And the deodorant that I was using did not help with that. I even think that it made the smell more present.
Next to that, my body started to react to some of the ingredients. I did not experiment with which ingredient it might have been, but my armpits started to have peeling skin. And that was the red flag where I decided that I had to stop using sustainable deodorant for a healthier body as well.
Hopes for the future
There are already non-sustainable deodorants that do not contain things like aluminum. But I hope that one day, regular deodorants will be completely sustainable as well without losing their power. Think of packaging, ingredients, etc. I am now using an oldie again: Odorex. But it works. I feel more confident and don’t stink anymore!
Do you recognize my struggles and discovered something that works for you? Please let me know! Maybe my journey can slowly start again.