Real Crunchy Step: Deodorant

A certain little girl, lets call her Wistin, informed me a little bit ago that, "When I get hot my armpits sweat and it smells funny."  Ahh, growing into womanhood is such a beautiful thing isn't it?  I'm sooo glad we've entered this phase (or not!).  After I freaked out a little that she was too young for deodorant a voice of reason said, "You're better off starting her in the habit now before it becomes absolutely necessary."  Good point!  I mean no one wants to be the stinky kid.  I can just picture 11 year old Christin Wistin:  homeschooler, making her own hair accessories out of duck tape, still into barbies, and smelling funky.  She'll be so popular!  I can handle the "creativity" and "naivety,"  in fact I actually like that, but the smellyness, that's gotta be nipped in the bud.  

The dilemma I faced, however, is that, like most things, deodorant may be really bad for you and antiperspirant especially so.  It's almost like we were created to sweat and preventing it from happening could be bad for us!  The jury is still out on whether usibg deodorant/antiperspirant can cause cancer, Alzheimer, hormone problems, and a slew of other issues but frankly I'm not willing to take that chance with my little girl.  So off to the world wide web I went to find another solution. I found many solutions but some you had to put on with your hand like a lotion and I wasn't into that.  Of course I finally checked ww.keeperofthehome.org and found what I was looking for:  An easy to make, all natural, stick deodorant that smells pretty.  So without further ado here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1/8 cup arrowroot powder (this is a fine white powder/flour often used as a thickening agent.  The natural food store near me sells it for $3.50/lb) $.11
• 1/8 cup baking soda (helps absorb moisture) $.13
• 2 1/2 Tbsp. coconut oil (has anti-fungal properties and no one wants fungal armpits!) $.70
• 1 heaped Tbsp. beeswax  (I had to buy a gigantic bag of this.  Next time (like in my next life after I use up all this beeswax) I'll order pellets online.) $1
• 8 drops tea tree essential oil (both tea tree and lavender kill yucky things) $.10
• 8 drops lavender essential oil (I like the way this smells so I added a few more drops) $.15
• 2 drops castor oil (makes the deodorant slide in the tube.) $.05

Melt all the ingredients together in a small saucepan on low, stirring often.  

Once it is all melted (it just takes a few minutes) pour the mixture into an old cleaned out deodorant tube and set on counter to cool.  

After a few hours it will be hardened and you can use it!  Super easy and smells nice!  You will still sweat with this but remember you're supposed to sweat!  This will keep you from being stinky and will absorb a little sweat. I used it on myself just around the house and it seemed to work well.  I plan on switching over after I use up all my conventional deodorant.

Cost wise this deodorant cost about $2.25 a stick (that's assuming you have a container) so it doesn't save you a ton of money, especially if you typically buy whatever deodorant is on sale but it is WAY better for you and took just about 10 minutes to make!  

As a side note:  If you are interested in trying any of the Real Crunchy items by me but don't want to buy say a pound of beeswax just send me a message and we'll work something out for a low cost:)

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