My Homemade Deodorant

Very easy to make and works very well.

I would not use this for a date that I know may end up in the bedroom. I wouldn’t say it has that level of confidence behind it.

BUT, it IS very effective for everyday needs, normal stress levels.

As you’ve seen on my store, I offer professionally made natural deodorants, and they’re fantastic. I would lean more towards those for dates. I’m not a big sweater, never have been, but for the natural deodorants I always do at least one more application at some point during the date via either a small travel spray bottle or based on what we’re doing and when, having the deodorant with me and readily available.

Scent is very important during these occasions, especially with someone new. I can’t encourage men enough to consider incorporating fragrance in, and I cover in other parts of my content the natural perfumes I use having made a side research hobby out of it.

All of those perfumes of which I spray on my clothes, not on my skin, for reasons I also explain elsewhere.

That said, the deodorant is of course for direct under-arm application.

INGREDIENTS:

Just two simple ingredients, both of which will last us many many bottles worth of deodorant. Note that we will also need the glass spray bottle, which I’ll also describe.

-Ethyl Alcohol
-Organic Tea Tree Oil

Ethyl Alcohol

The ethyl alcohol I use is methanol-free (which it MUST be) from Belle Chemical, which is the best one I’ve been able to find. I also chose using the ethyl alcohol over a high proof vodka or similar due to this being the main carrier ingredient I’ve seen on the labels of my natural deodorants for years…deodorants that have been, much to my disappointment, discontinued over the years.

For those unfamiliar, these are the types of go-to carriers often used in perfumery. Water can’t be used because oil and water, as we know, do not mix. And trust me, I’ve tried it, with both spring water and distilled. It won’t work.

An added bonus of the ethyl alcohol is that it itself is a sanitizer. So it will also add to the negating of the offending bacteria very effectively. From there, the tea tree oil does the same, while giving us a great scent (in my opinion).

Tea Tree Oil

The one I’ve always used is from my thus-far favorite brand of essential oils (if you know a better one, let me know), Aura Cacia, here on Amazon. They’ve convinced me they’re doing essential oils right. But more companies have come on the market due to demand, that may have just as much to offer. I’ve been happy with this brand, so I haven’t researched it further at this time.

For those unfamiliar with using essential oils, they need to be diluted, especially for skin application. Now: I know some of you have read in other parts of my material that I’ve used full strength for certain medicinal/therapeutic applications. And it has worked very well in those instances. But as a general rule, we need to keep in mind that essential oils are essentially (pun?) very potent and concentrated extracts of the plants they come from. Far, far more potent than the original source due to this concentration.

So they need to be diluted in most instances.

Here, I go one full ounce of the ethyl alcohol to a mere TEN drops of the tea tree oil.

Believe me, this does the job. Perhaps I will under-fill my bottle with the ethyl alcohol, so it’s actually slightly stronger. This gives room to gently shake the bottle effectively before each application. My version of “shaking” is to simply hold the bottle and tilt my hand back and forth left to right several times. I don’t actually “shake” it, I’ve always had a perhaps unnecessary and unwarranted concern that I could damage the tea tree molecules if I shook it too aggressively.

I treat a lot of my supplements/etc that way that require the product be mixed, such as other multi-mineral supplements I take.

It’s just a personal thing.

The Bottle

I use only glass bottles, never plastic, as you hopefully know how I feel about plastic. I don’t want me, nor the chemicals sprayed on my body, to be exposed to plastic if I can help it, or at least as minimally as possible. You’ll also note the vast majority of perfume is sold in glass as well, for good reasons relating to the oils used in the products.

In this example of one ounce amber spray bottles over on Amazon, we can’t avoid the plastic spray tops. But there really isn’t any other decent option, and I have no problem with it. Living in this world unfortunately means living with a certain amount of plastic for right now.

I recycle all of my plastic by the way, both through the local service pick up as well as through special trips to our local recycling plant for the lighter plastics waste.

(Also note in my Home page video, among the image montage, the reference to the technologies that DO now exist that can break down plastics into planet-friendly compounds…why they’re not being utilized on a wide scale yet is a topic for another post).

The amber tint of the glass spray bottle will help preserve the oils as well.

WHY I CHOOSE SPRAY OVER STICK

I choose spray form because I can’t stand residue. It’s more difficult to remove and was staining my clothes for years, and not just in the pit area; when I’d put on my shirts, the residue would often rub against other outer parts of my shirt and show up especially on darker clothes. I was complaining about it a cute young teenage girl working in a tanning salon I used to go to back in the late 2000’s, and she knew instantly what it was…and she was right. I’ve always remembered that, and wondered how I could’ve been so absent minded, but I was also going through a lot of endless health problems, so that’s my excuse.