Embracing health and sustainability - Why natural deodorants are the way to go!
For this instalment of the easy eco-swap series I wanted to talk with you about deodorant. Hardly the most glamorous of subjects but an important one considering the amount of plastic that ‘regular’ deodorants and antiperspirants are made from, and also some of the awful and unnecessary ingredients they contain.
The average deodorant you’ll find in your local Boots or Tesco will come in one of two forms, the plastic case with a roller ball on the top, or a pressurised spray can, neither of which can be put to any good use once to contents have run out. They are the very definition of single use, and emblematic of what is wrong with a lot of the personal hygiene industry.
We also need to talk about what the huge corporations are putting into their deodorants, body sprays, and anti-perspirants. Thankfully we have the small mercy that CFCs are a thing of the past, but there’s still plenty that isn’t great included in there.
As with each eco-swap blogpost I’m not just going to linger on the doom and gloom but offer a genuinely sustainable, better alternative that you could try whenever you’re ready to!
The problems with antperspirants
First up on the naughty list are aluminium compounds. Found in antiperspirants, the tiny metal particles are included in it so that they can find their way into your underarm pores and block them up, physically stopping your from sweating. While the scientific consensus it out on whether this is actually bad for us or not, I think I’d rather not risk introducing metals to my body in this way!
Sweating is a natural process for our bodies, and helps us to regulate our temperature. Remove the ability for sweat to escape from our pores and we become a whole lot worse at being able to stay warm or cool naturally.
Whilst aerosol antiperspirants and deodorants no longer contain CFCs which were found to be a major contributing factor in creating and exacerbating the hole in the ozone layer, they do contain what are known as VOCs, or Volatile Organic Compounds. These technically aren’t greenhouse gases but they do have a detrimental impact on air quality, and air pollution levels, which then have an indirect affect on atmospheric makeup and chemistry. These VOCs are very fine particles, the same size and potency as the ones chugging out from car exhausts… not exactly what you want to be spraying in a confined space like your bathroom or bedroom!
The final couple of nasties that I wanted to highlight in mainstream products are the parabens and synthetic fragrances. Now I had to do a bit of research as to what parabens actually were, and they are effectively synthetic preservatives included in cosmetics and suchlike to stop them from going off. You can find them in most things in the average bathroom, from shower gels to toothpaste and much more.
So while initially they don’t sound all that bad, helping products last for longer is quite a ‘green’ thing to want to do, the problems start to occur when these parabens begin accumulating in our bodies over time. There are ongoing tests on all sorts of different parabens and only a select few are authorised for use by organisations like the EU, and what’s currently being researched is their potential to cause increased health risks around breast cancers and reproductive issues, not to mention to ecological damage parabens have been shown to do to marine life like coral in labs, so yeah I’d rather just avoid them as much as possible!
The natural deodorant solution
So the alternative is to use natural ingredients in non-pressurised, easily recycled form, and avoid things that clog pores and instead opt for products that work to eliminate the conditions that lead to odour, which is where deodorants come in! Sweat itself isn’t particularly smelly. The smell actually comes from a reaction when it comes into contact with certain bacteria living on our skin.
The way a deodorant works is that it eliminates the bacteria, whilst still allowing our pores to pass sweat, and then when there is nothing for the sweat to react with we don’t create that funk! Thankfully this process can be completely achieved with natural ingredients which are kind to our skin, and kind to the planet!
This is where we come across even more great news, because the majority of natural, environmentally-friendly deodorants are also packaged without the single-use plastic! One of the most popular forms is as a solid stick wrapped up in a cardboard cylinder. You push the deodorant up with your thumb (much like a push-pop if you remember those from the 90s) and once finished with it can just be added to your recycling.
I stock a range of these cardboard covered deodorants in the shop, from a lovely Welsh company called Kutis. They are all vegan, and are available both with or without bicarbonate of soda, which some people can have a mild reaction to. These are tried and tested, great value as they last for ages, and genuinely work at keeping you smelling fresh.
They are genuinely preservative free, not just selectively using ‘the good ones’ like some brands claim, and whilst they do make a range using beeswax, due the fact My Carbon Coach is a vegan shop all of the Kutis range I stock is made with cacao seed butter instead.
I’ve been using these for as long as I’ve been running the shop after some trial, error and a decent bit of research and so far have not heard any negative feedback either about myself (thank goodness!) or from any customers who have made the switch too.
The benefits of switching to natural deodorants
I guess this is the handy recap section if you were just looking to skim the blogpost as I do have a bit of a succinctness problem sometimes when I get in the flow of writing, just like in real life when chatting!
Health benefits: You’ll be exposed to far fewer harmful chemicals and compounds, from aluminium to parabens which lowers many health risks, and because all the ingredients are natural there’s a much lower chance of irritated skin which is awesome in such a sensitive area as your armpits.
Environmental benefits: The biggie here really is that you’ll be ditching the single use plastic and bringing something much more recyclable into your home. Your bin will thank you and ultimately future generations will too!
Sustainable benefits: This is a little bit of a selfish benefit but you’ll be supporting small eco businesses, as I mentioned at the top of the blog Kutis is a small(ish) business, I’m definitely a small business, but one of the biggest bonuses to making these small eco-swaps is the huge message it sends to the big corporations that we as consumers demand better. If we don’t vote with our wallets then the SC Johnson’s of the world are never going to get the message that we want a better world!
The end bit!
So I’m hoping that this has started off some thinking and some ideas for you about maybe making this a new eco-swap. It’s one that doesn’t take a lot of adjustment to, although it’d be remiss of me to not mention that there is a slight transition period of a week or so as your pits and body get rid of the pore clogging metals and chemicals and the new deodorant gets to work on rebalancing the bacteria! It doesn’t last long and soon you’ll be as fresh as a daisy if that’s still even a saying or am I showing my age now?
Anyways, thanks so much for reading! If you’ve made it all the way down here to the bottom I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave me a comment, and if you do decide to make the switch please do drop by the shop and I’ll be happy to help. You can open all of the deodorants and give them a good sniff to find the right scent for you!