I Stopped Wearing Deodorant For 30 Days
It started with a charcoal mask.
As I was applying my weekly charcoal mask to my face, I decided to apply it to my armpits rather than my deodorant because lately I have been smelling pretty funky. I felt like I had to scrub extra hard to get the funk off in the shower and I would start smelling by midday again.
I use clean deodorants and they mostly work. Yet there are days where I sweat profusely and there’s no hiding the smell and sweat stains. I don’t only sweat from movement, but also from anxiety.
Before I switched over to cleaner and safer products, I was using clinical deodorant because that was the only thing that worked for me. As I learned how harmful clinical deodorant is to our health, I switched to safer and cleaner choices.
As I was standing there, with a charcoal mask on my under arms, feeling pretty silly, I still grabbed a selfie to post on the gram. After I washed it off, I decided to tone my under arms with toner the same way that I tone my face. My thought process was, if it’s good for my face then why wouldn’t it be good for my under arms. Clearly, the kids were asleep and I was bored.
My friend responded to my Instagram story of my charcoaled pits with her own success story. She doesn’t wear deodorant anymore and it made me curious.
The next morning, I woke up smelling better. I didn’t smell great, but I got off that funk that wasn’t scrubbing off in the shower. After doing some major googling on why we wear deodorant, I decided to not wear deodorant that day.
Here’s what I found during my nap time research (the dishes did not get done this day):
“By stopping use of an antiperspirant, Dr. Zeichner notes that your skin’s natural microbiome can potentially reset. “Antiperspirants work by lowering levels of odor-causing bacteria that live in the underarms,” he says. “Some people speculate that stopping use will help your skin’s natural microbiome reset, though it is unclear whether this has any significant impact on your health.”” Source
I did not magically smell like flowers and butterflies on day one. Honestly, I could smell myself and I wanted to shower over and over again. I refrained from putting on deodorant out of curiosity of what would happen. At the end of that first day, I made this pact to myself that I wouldn’t use deodorant on for an entire month no matter where I was going or who I was seeing. We are in quarantine at my house so the only people who can smell me right now are my husband and kids. Call it payback for those stinky toddler farts I deal with all day.
After every shower, I toned my under arms with my toner and went about my day. The concept of a toner is to remove any traces of dirt and grime stuck in your pores after cleansing so it made sense. Every week, I applied the charcoal mask just like I did to my face. As the weeks have passed, I noticed that I don’t sweat as much anymore. Even from my anxiety. Most importantly, at the end of a crazy day with a work out included, I don’t smell anymore. Some days, there’s a tiny tinge of smell, but nothing close to what it was before with clean deodorant.
It seems like I was using deodorant to cover up a problem that doesn’t exist. All I had to do was detox and reset my underarms. I’m still in shock as I write this and sniff my under arms at the exact same time. I never thought that I could go without wearing deodorant. Only hippies in the 70s did that, right? But with proper detox skin care, I smell, well, like me and I have to say, I smell good.
Leave a Reply