omorka | A Rant About An Everyday Item

So, not really thinking of myself as a consumer, but wishing to be a responsible one when I am, I try to buy personal hygiene products - soap, shampoo, conditioner, etc. - that aren't tested on animals and that use a minimum of really gross petrochemicals. This means that I tend to buy hippie-crunchy brands that you can only get at Partial Edibles or Middle Market around here. That, in turn, means that if those two stores change what they carry, or if they just both run out of something at once, I'm pretty much screwed.

Now, growing up, my mother (did I mention that my parents were frugal when I was a child?) refused to believe that deodorants and antiperspirants were anything other than a corporate conspiracy, rather like makeup, and she not only did not use such things herself, she forbade me in my early adolescence from using them as well. She mixed up a simple homebrewed deodorant from cornstarch and baking soda, and when I grew old enough, she would give me some of hers to use. My body chemistry is apparently stronger than hers (see also the disastrous Alaska trip), however, so this had less than optimal results. Finally, when my begging and pleading to let me use something stronger was of no avail, one of my teachers mentioned to her that I was becoming soaked with sweat in the un-air-conditioned portion of our school and that clearly I needed an antiperspirant, not just a deodorant. At this request from a grown-up, rather than her child, she relented. However, I quickly discovered that I have virulent skin allergies to most commercial antiperspirants, largely due to the perfumes. We found one unscented one that only caused mild reactions, and I used that, uncomfortably but unstinkily, for years.

Around my last year in college the reactions started getting worse. My best guess is that this time what I was reacting to was the primary active ingredient in any antiperspirant, the aluminum compound. So I started trying out various "all-natural" hippie-crunchy brands, and discovered that none of them worked well with my body chemistry - not that I was reacting to them badly, but that they tended to stop working before a full workday had passed. This is probably because, once again, none of them are actual antiperspirants; it is a given within the health-food community that aluminum is bad for you, not without reason. Finally, I found that Tom's of Maine had among its "natural" deodorants a single antiperspirant/deodorant combination - which had buffered alum as the aluminum component. This returned me to the "mildly irritating but it mostly works" stage.

This past week I went by Partial Edibles to pick up another one, as Middle Market has never carried the item - and found none on the shelf. On asking the nearest salesfreak, I discovered that the manufacturer had stopped making it. However, they had also recently reformulated their deodorants. Frantic, I decided to try one. Unlike all of the other granola deodorants, this one actually seems to have some staying power. Unfortunately, it didn't come in "unscented." I ended up with the lemongrass variety, which is okay as a scent but clashes with most of my body-scent oils. Middle Market today had the unscented variety, which I will try and see if it (a) works as well and (b) doesn't mess with my other scents.

I am worried, though, that the heat of summer will make the fact that these are not antiperspirants all too obvious . . . I suppose I should resign myself to either buying a non-granola commercial one and itching all summer (and killing bunnies besides), or showering twice a day. :/