I have recently discovered that the main active ingredient in antiperspirant deodorants is aluminum. Even if the deodorant isn't an antiperspirant it can still be found in the inactive ingredient list. Aluminum is on Sophie's Red List of ingredients to avoid.
Aluminum has been thought to cause Alzheimer's disease. "Aluminium has also been reported to accumulate in the brain tissues with age and it can cross the blood–brain barrier through transferrin receptor-mediated endocytosis." (Neurotoxic Effects of Aluminium Among Foundry Workers and Alzheimer’s Disease) This can basically be summed up as: too much aluminum built up within the brain affects some of the brains functions. The paper that I sighted is actually a decent study on it, if you're interested.
Aluminum builds up over time. People use deodorant everyday. As of 2007 the life expectancy of a woman in the United States is 80.4 years, for males it's 75.4. That's over 50 years of applying small amounts of aluminum directly into your blood stream everyday. (Anything applied to the skin is absorbed directly the blood stream, just in case you didn't know.) Sorry I'm slightly freaking out.
So I searched for a natural alternative. Wally World surprised me! They had three products that fit within Sophie's rules! Two of them were by Tom's and were a bit pricey, but I bought one that fits the rules and didn't break the bank. It's a product called Naturally Fresh and it's a solution that you shake (liquid form) and role on.Now for everyday use it's been great. I don't smell and for the most part I don't overtly sweat. It does stop working during the evening, most of the time I just don't care because I'm done with my day. However, I do not recommend the deodorant for physical exercise. For that I'm going to try to find a low level of aluminum antiperspirant. The links given in the book are no good.
*Sorry this was suppose to be a short post.
My sister once linked me to a recipe for natural deodorant, which involved baking soda and I want to say cocoa butter, along with several other ingredients. It was on a blog and the people who left comments swore by it. It was one of those things that I was going to try doing but never got around to (there are a lot of those things.. sigh).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, back at college I was still using the brain-cell killing aluminum deodorant, but here at my family's house I've been using my sister's Arm and Hammer Natural. I'm pretty surprised that it's kept me pretty dry and decent smelling, even after a low level of physical activity (keeping in mind that I'm a very sweaty girl and even the Secret gel that I use at home doesn't keep me completely dry). She is able to get it at the regional supermarkets down here, though I'm unsure of it's availability up north.