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Episode Description:

If you've tried switching to clean deodorant only to find yourself smelling funky by noon, you're not alone, and it's not because clean deodorants don't work, it's because you're probably using the wrong one for your body and climate.

In this final episode of my three-part "Toxin Free Fails" series on the Toxin Freeish Podcast, I'm breaking down the science behind why clean deodorants fail and how to choose one that actually works for your specific situation.

Here's the truth: sweat itself doesn't smell. It's the bacteria thriving at a pH of 5.5 to 7 under your arms that creates that funky odor! Clean deodorants work by driving your pH either way up (like Just Ingredients with magnesium hydroxide) or way down (like KosasSport with alpha hydroxy acids) so bacteria can't survive. But here's what nobody tells you: what works in winter might fail you in summer, and what works for average sweaters might not work for heavy sweaters.

I'm doing a complete breakdown of my three go-to deodorants: Primally Pure for most of the year, Just Ingredients for sensitive skin, and KosasSport for those brutal summer months. Plus, why I rotate seasonally and why you should too.

In this episode, we're chatting about:

• The bacteria and pH science

• 3 deodorant deep dives

• My seasonal rotation strategy

• The pit detox process

Read The Shownotes Here

  📍 📍 welcome back to another episode of the Toxin Freeish podcast.

As always, I'm your host,   📍 Wendy, an environmental toxins attorney during Clean Living Coach, and today's the. Final episode  in a three part series called Toxin-Free Fails, where we're talking about when clean products don't work, and I'm explaining the science behind why and what you can do. Today's episode is all about deodorant.

📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 If you have tried to switch to clean, non-toxic deodorant and it leaves you a little funky, this episode is for you.

If you haven't yet listened to the   📍 📍 previous two episodes, episode 1 23 and 1 24, talking about shampoo and laundry detergent and those toxin free fails, make sure to go check those out.  Deodorant.

If you are on YouTube right now, you can see my little show and tell. I brought three really popular deodorants with me.   📍 📍 One of them is primarily pure, which is the one I talk about the most that I've used for years and years and years, and that I absolutely love. I also have 📍 just ingredients, which is a magnesium deodorant.

We're gonna talk about that. And then lately I've been talking a lot about 📍 CSIS sport and why that's so fantastic and really hot, humid climates and for the summer,   📍 so. Here's what we're gonna do. First I'm gonna tell you why it's hard for clean deodorant to actually work, and what you can do and what you can choose to make it work for you.

So I can't have the conversation about how clean deodorants can work or don't work without talking about why conventional deodorants do work and why the transition is so difficult for people. So a traditional conventional antiperspirant, which means it stops you from aspiring, uses aluminum to clog the sweat ducts that are actually under your armpits.

Most of them also use synthetic fragrances to mask any smells. Now, both of those are on my toxins to avoid list, so you're not gonna wanna use either one of those if you're looking for a clean option. but that doesn't mean you want your pits to smell bad.

Sweat itself is actually pretty odor free.

📍 It's the bacteria that's in your armpits that interacts with your sweat, and then it makes it have that like sulfur or acid smell to it.   📍 The bacteria that's under your armpit loves to thrive and grow and stink at a pH of about 5.5 to.

But I wanna be really clear. It is important that you let your body sweat. I know that it's something that we are just not comfortable with, right? We're so used to antiperspirants, but there are toxins like dathyl, phalates, and certain heavy metals that are found in higher concentrations in our sweat than in our urine.

So it is a detox pathway for toxins to get out of our body.

So how do clean deodorants work? Well, I just told you odor thrives in a pH between 5.5 and seven. So clean deodorants do one of two things. They either drive your pH up higher where that bacteria can't thrive or they drive it lower.

All right. I am gonna start first with primarily 📍 Pure and why it is a product that I really love, but maybe why it might not work for some people. So primarily Pure does two things. One, they have a little 📍 bit of baking soda in here. Now there are brands that use a lot of baking soda, which is basically intended to just collect moisture and help you feel.

More dry underneath, but the amount that primarily pure uses is really, really small. And that's important for me because I'm actually really sensitive to baking soda. When people switch to a clean deodorant that has a lot of baking soda, they tend to get a massive rash under their armpit and take it from me. It is freaking painful. A rash under your armpit is so painful, so when I found primarily pure, it made me feel really dry, and it does have a little bit of baking soda, but not enough to irritate me, and it has KA one clay, which actually helps draw out any impurities and helps with that bacteria.

It also has arrow root, which helps with that moisture as well. Now this is a really mild deodorant on a normal given day in normal weather or indoors. This works really great for me.

If you're just an average sweater and you like sweater, not sweater, like wearing a sweater, but like a sweater. Somebody who sweats. If you're somebody who has average sweat coming out of your armpits and you like a dry feeling, this is a really good option. I just happen to get a bunch of extra in the mail.

I use primarily pure, pretty much exclusively most of the year.

Now, let's talk about just ingredients 📍 because they 📍 use magnesium.

What magnesium hydroxide does is it boosts the alkaline, right? It boosts the pH all the way up close to nine. So at that really high pH bacteria can't thrive.

Because there's no baking soda in this. It doesn't have that powdery feeling. It's more of like a gel that goes on. People who are super sensitive to those powders or those clays or those baking sodas, they love this option. They love the magnesium hydroxide. It goes on really smooth, and it works really well.

The problem with using magnesium hydroxide is it tends to not work so great if you're a really, I don't know, high sweater if you sweat a lot or if you're in a really hot climate.

And I'm just gonna be real honest when it comes to non-toxic deodorant, if you're somebody who just average has average sweat coming out of you, you live in a very normal mild climate, or maybe it's the winter time or springtime or fall time, you can get away with multiple of these products and where.

Non-toxic deodorant really starts to fail and gets really difficult is when it's the middle of the summer, when it's super hot, when it's super humid, or if you're somebody who's a super sweater or you work out a ton and so you're regularly sweating because you're working out.

So that brings me to CSIS Sport. 📍 Now. I just talked about this over on my Instagram and I've got it linked in my Amazon shop this is my new best friend. Okay, listen up.

This is different than those other deodorants that I just talked about. They do the opposite. They take your pH way down. They use alpha hydroxy acids to drive it so far down that bacteria can't thrive at that lower pH level, which is the opposite of what magnesium does when it drives the pH up.

And let me tell you, in the middle of the most humid Virginia Summer where I'm outside all the time and I'm sweating buckets, this deodorant absolutely performs it. It's, it's a miracle like it performs. All day long. At the end of the day, I don't smell like anything, and I'm using the fragrance free version now.

Their scented versions use botanicals and extracts, so it is clean. I just really like a fragrance free option, so it works really well. But here's the downsides.

So it's super acidic and it's also really exfoliating. So in a really hot, humid summer, or if you have a lot of sweat, it might work really well, but as soon as that temperature drops and you're not in that hot, humid environment, maybe winter comes around, the weather starts to get cooler, you're not sweating as much.

Your body heat is not as hot.

It can start to really dry your skin. And so if you're somebody who has sensitive skin, who has eczema, or you know, even if you're not, this is something that's strong enough that can really irritate you in those colder months. And when you're not sweating buckets.

So it's taken me years to come to this conclusion, but what works best for me is 10 months out of the year, primarily. Pure Works amazing for me. It keeps me really dry, and it just absolutely works. I also love the way that all of it smells. They're lavender, they're blue tansy, they're citrus. It's just fantastic.

And then this COSA sport is now my best friend when it's the two months of the hottest, humid summer that I have going on. Or, you know, if I go to the gym for like a hardcore workout, this COSA Sport deodorant, that's my new best friend.

But I definitely would not use this in the winter.

So to wrap it up,   📍 📍 the reason why you smell under your pits is because you've got bacteria and your pH is roughly around 5.5  

so the way that non-toxic deodorants work is it uses ingredients to drive your pH either up or down, and both work.

They just might work differently for different people depending on how much you sweat, what your bacteria load looks like, what your diet looks like, and what kind of geographic area you live in.

Personally, what works for me is rotating what I need seasonally. And if you're brand new to the non-toxic deodorant situation, I highly recommend doing a pit detox.

You can just get a clay mask. There are 📍 some really good ones at primarily Pure and Oven Healy that are great. You can get some charcoal masks or you can get some bentonite Clay, there's a lot of things you can do to detox your pit. Give yourself a good couple weeks for your body to get used to the fact that you are now sweating.

All right. That's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this three part series on Toxin-Free Fails, why Certain Clean Products Don't Work, and what you can do to make it work for you.

I had a blast and if you want me to bring back this series, let me know. Hit me up over on Instagram.

I really enjoyed this toxin free fails series and you know, who knows, I might do it again. If you want more categories of fails and you want me to bring the series back, I don't know, for my Instagram at 📍 Wendy Toxin Freeish,

send me a DM and let me know what category you want me to cover.

Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.