OK.  I know you all think I’m a teeny bit weird, but even for me, this is a little bit out there.  Via twitter, I came across a very interesting blog post from Recycle your day about their quest for a home-made deodorant.

I have to say when it comes to deodorant I am NOT adventurous at all. I’ve been using Sure stick since I started using deodorant in my teens (right after I worked out that Impulse sucked). I’ll be completely honest, as long as I didn’t stink, I was happy. But there was a little niggling voice at the back of my head who kept remining me that deodorants are full of nasties, like aluminium, which is good for wrapping your turkey, not so good to rub on your skin.

I read the recipe and realised that I had all the ingredients to hand – but I didn’t fancy smearing it on out of a pot.  I kept reading and realised that there was a ‘Quick Stick‘ version which sounded more appealing – especially since I had an almost finished stick deodorant ready to fill.

So I tried it – and guess what, it works! I waited until today to write the post because I wanted to test it out properly, on a night out and at the gym. Result – no smell! Seriously, I had a good old sniff and it was absolutely fine, no bad smell at all, just a faint tea tree lemon smell.

I tweaked the recipe as I didn’t have coconut oil to hand.  Cornflour is a natural moisture absorber, baking soda is a natural deodoriser (try it on mattresses wheich have been puked on…a lifesaver!) and tea tree lemon which stops any nasty niffs occurring.

Home-made Deodorant Recipe

Ingredients

• Chunk of cocoa butter (15g approx)
• Chunk of shea butter (15g approx)
• Bicarbonate of soda  (40g approx)
• Cornflour (40g approx)
• Essential Oil (I used Cheeky Wipes Tea Tree & Tea Tree Lemon Mucky Wipes Oil)

All my measurements are approximate because I didn’t weigh the cocoa or shea butter, I just used similarly sized chunks of butters and added the cornflour and bicarb in alternating spoonfuls until the consistency was right.

Method

• Melt your butters in the microwave in a glass bowl or similar
• Add a tablespoon each of bicarb of soda / cornflour at a time until your mixture is a stiff paste
• Add essential oil.  I used about 15 drops for my mixture and that seems fine.
• Pour into empty deodorant stick & leave to harden

 Use with a light hand – you don’t need loads.  And if you rub your arms into your side once after applying that seems to spread it nicely without needing to smear it with your fingers.

At the moment it’s winter so I’m not sweating much anyway (aside from the gym of course).  So we’ll see how it does in Summer – because of course it’s not an anti-perspirant, it’s just a deodorant.    But for the moment I’m really pleased.  Let me know what you think…