Zero Smells

You have no idea how nervous zero waste deodorant has made me.

Trying to looking on the positive side of my anxiety, I have now typed ‘deodorant’ so many times that I can now spell it correctly. 🙂 Apparently, I didn’t know before…

A little background. I am a sweaty beast. I started wearing deodorant in 2nd grade. SECOND GRADE! I was super sweaty, and therefore super smelly. I have tried just about every deodorant out there – both female and male deodorants, natural to heavy-duty and most in between. I’m very picky about deodorant.

Everyone has their “thing” – deodorant is mine. Recently I was telling a friend about my Lush shampoo bar and she was like, “ooooh….I’m super picky about my shampoo…yeah….I don’t mess with my hair…..yeah….couldn’t do that”

That’s how I feel about deodorant.

But, when I think about all the bad things in deodorant, (aluminum – linked to Alzheimer’s among many others) AND the fact that I’ve been wearing it since the 2nd grade, I can recognize it’s past time to change to something better-for-me (and the environment).

As long as I don’t become the smelly kid.

I knew I just needed to dive in and try something because there is serious potential for this to be a loooooooong search. When I started looking at things, I read a blog post from a zero waste someone that said it takes three weeks to “detox” from the toxins in commercial deodorants. That’s why most people don’t make the switch…..because you shouldn’t wear ANYTHING during those three weeks and if you switch right away, the natural stuff doesn’t work.

Three. Weeks. THREE. weeks. three weeks???

Who has that kind of time to detox from something that is kind of a social requirement??? I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to try this until the summer! When I am off of school for the summer, I would totally allow myself to be smelly for 3 weeks. For the sake of Science and zero waste.

However, when I found my zero waste lip balm I decided to go for it and ordered deodorant from the same shop, FreeWheelin’ Market on Etsy.

I ordered the Tea Tree and Lavender Scent because I like both of those scents, and I know tea tree oil is known for its anti-bacterial properties, which I hoped would help with any funk.

Naturally, I waited for the weekend to try it. I wasn’t going to risk smelling bad at work.

So last weekend, when I went shopping with my sister, brother, and sister-in-law, it was the perfect opportunity to try it out. If there’s one thing I know, my siblings will be blunt honest with me. And, they’re pretty good about taking a big whiff not being bothered when I would continually stick my arm pit in their face and ask for an update:

Last weekend, no bad smells. At all. Just deodorant smells. So, I decided to take a chance and wear it to work on Monday, of course bringing along my usual commercial deodorant as a back-up.

This year, I teach 4th grade; a period of change and growth in so many ways. I teach 4th graders who have not yet had “the talk” about hygiene and “growing up stuff”. Therefore, there are some very potent kids in my classroom. We’re in that “transition” period of adolescence. It happens.

On Monday, I kept getting strong whiffs of B.O. and I would momentarily panic that it was me. I would then do that not-so-casual move where, when you turn to move in a different direction you not-so-discreetly drop your face low to your armpit and get a big sniff mid-turn. I did that A LOT on Monday. But every time, it wasn’t me! Huzzah!

My husband has also been very good about getting up in there and taking a sniff being honest about my smells at the end of the day. And all week long, there have been no negative reports! And I never reapplied during the day. Huzzah!

In fact, yesterday, as we were “snowed in” at home, I didn’t even put on deodorant in the morning and I feel like I didn’t smell as nearly as bad as I would have had I been wearing my commercial deodorant.

Am I mid-detox? Is this a legit thing? Or am I simply looking at things through rose-colored glasses smelling things through a rose-scented filter? Not sure.

One thing that is different for me, is this is just a deodorant, not an antiperspirant. My commercial deodorant was both.

It’s been awhile since I’ve actually sweated when not doing physical activity. This week, I would sweat when I was nervous, but other times I was completely dry. I had NO IDEA that I was having that kind of physiological reaction to stress.

I’m learning so much about myself!

It’s been one week with NO commercial, bad-for-me deodorant. I didn’t even take my commercial stuff with me to school by the end of the week.

Knowing me, I will probably save my commercial stuff for the summer just in case I have any issues, but if there are issues, I hope future Julie tries a different product first before running back to a commercial deodorant. But I have no idea what that girl will get up to; she has a mind of her own.

Another perk, is that in this one week, I have had no deodorant marks on my clothes. Previously, it was not uncommon for me to have white marks on my clothing, even though my mom has shown me time and again how to avoid that when I put on my shirt (Hi, mom!).

I do have some reservations.

First of all, I am nervous to rely on an Etsy shop for anything as important to me as deodorant. Lip balm, there’s plenty out there. Deodorant….super picky. I want consistency. What if the shop owner takes a break? Stops making deodorant altogether? Those are scary thoughts for me.

Second, it’ll be interesting to take this deodorant through a blazing hot, global warming Ohio summer. And running. Neither of those are happening right now, so we’re good.

Lastly, I’ve noticed it feels different when I shave my underarms since it’s more…I don’t know how to describe it….thick? Waxy? So I’m hoping there’s no build-up over time either on my clothes or my razor.

But I’ll post updates as time goes on. I also wrote the date on the bottom of both my lip balm and my deodorant to see how long they last me.

Updates: Since my travel plans were canceled this weekend, I naturally stayed home and ordered zero waste make-up. Like A LOT of zero waste make-up. Foundation samples, loose powder, eye shadows, and a liquid mascara to be exact. So stay tuned for some make-up updates. (I feel a little bad about rushing out and buying all this stuff right away, but I do have every intention of using up my previous products! But I really want to have a solid replacement before I run out so I don’t have to do all these experiments with no back-up.)

I’ve also been trying to look into freezer food storage without plastic and to start limiting my purchasing of over-processed foods pre-packaged in plastic. I’m trying to work up the nerve to call my local butcher this week to clarify their policies because, if you read my depressing post from last Thursday, I went to buy meat and I was denied using my containers. I’ve also been wanting to share some of my responses from companies and elected representatives about what they’re doing to reduce single-use plastics.