Home Made Deodorant

I did a thing

Photo by Bee Naturalles on Unsplash

It’s pretty amazing to have a fully functional liver. Unlike the Berkey water filter on my kitchen counter I never have to do any maintenance or fill it up when it gets empty. The body systems just keep chugging along until old age or something toxic throws a monkey-wrench in the gears. While trauma is clearly worth mentioning as a major source of organ failure, it doesn’t hold a candle to the FDA-approved nastiness that we are exposed to every day of our lives. The chronic disease epidemic didn’t come from nowhere, and even the most hardcore conspiracy theorists agree that RFKjr’s movement got absorbed by MAGA in order to capture and redirect the momentum. A critical mass of people have finally noticed how Americans have become sicker and weaker than ever, and once the Normies no longer fear the social consequences of expressing their outrage things will get ugly fast.

As a proud conspiracy theorist myself I’ve been watching the process play out for quite a while now, but up until the past decade or so I didn’t have much skin in the game. Nobody warns you about it, but apparently after humans turn 40 our liver function starts to noticeably decrease. I used to down a 12 pack of PBRs and still go surfing the next day, but now all of a sudden eating too much ice cream makes my knees hurt. The process was mercifully designed to be gradual enough so that we can transition to the next phase of life and accept our new role in society while letting go of the previous patterns. Then industrial civilization happened, and we now live an existence where pretty much everything has poison in it.

One of the most shocking aspects of the pandemic was watching previously chemically-aware health-conscious people turn into little Eichmanns for the pharmaceutical industry. It was like being inside a Jim Jones cult where everyone knew what was in the Flavor-Aid but still wanted to die for The $cience because it temporarily filled some of the missing meaning in their lives. It usually takes about 15 years for a new drug to be tested before it goes on the market, and for good reason. We are not even at halftime yet and brand new words like Turbocancer have already been introduced into lexicon. If that wasn’t tragic enough, now we’ve come to learn that certain people turned themselves into spike protein factories who put everyone around them (including their pets) in danger.

While it would be convenient if the shedders self-isolated or labeled themselves so we can avoid them, there’s no getting around the fact that functioning in modern society inevitably exposes us to circumstances that are beyond our control. The only appropriate strategy is to adopt the wisdom of the occult societies that inspired Alcoholics Anonymous by asking our gods to grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

As someone who recently experienced a sudden and overwhelming sensitivity to certain chemicals, I have been forced to accept an important karmic lesson that has to do with responsibilities that can no longer be avoided. My body decided that it no longer wants to be the dumping ground for whatever odious substances I come across, and the cumulative effect of small doses of toxins can no longer be ignored. While this journey has resulted in a fruitful self-study course that includes the exciting frontier of banned medicine, the real work involves minute-to-minute choices for the rest of my life. Also there is the issue of the environment, since I can no longer claim plausible deniability regarding the effects of the substances in question.

While many less-toxic products have come on the market that promise to not put my biology in a blender, many of them have suffered the same inflationary pressure as everything else and will likely become prohibitively expensive in the years ahead. Fortunately I’ve always enjoyed mixing my own concoctions in the kitchen and the garage, so taking that philosophy to the medicine cabinet was a natural progression. As someone who sweats a lot (especially in my current condition) the path inevitably led me to creating a less-toxic deodorant that won’t set off my systemic flares but still allow me to go do a shopping trip to Costco without becoming unnecessarily offensive. Today is my first day trying it out and so far the results have been excellent, although I probably have some work to do on the texture as there was a little bit of grit.

Here is a brief summary of the ingredients: The shea butter conditions the skin and provides the base, the coconut oil softens the texture and has antimicrobial properties, the beeswax raises the melting point so that it doesn’t run in Honolulu heat, the tapioca starch absorbs sweat and gives it a silky feel, the baking soda neutralizes odor by raising pH, and the Borax helps fight mold while hopefully prolonging shelf life. Borax specifically tells you on the package to not do stuff like this, so you can skip it if you want to try this on your own. My goal was to create an unscented version, and the refined shea butter (vs the raw stuff) helped keep it pleasantly neutral.

Notes: Depending on how much beeswax you add, the mixture will set up really quickly once you take it off heat. It’s important to have the jar you want to store it in ready to go in order to avoid fumbling around with crusty bits. The amount I made is probably enough to last me for at least a couple months, but we’ll see how it goes. Scooping out a pea size dollop with my fingertip and smearing it under each pit seems to work all day while not making a mess. So far so good, but I’ll keep this post updated if there are any interesting developments. Enjoy!

2 tbsp refined shea butter

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp beeswax (pastilles or grated)

2 tbsp tapioca starch

1 tbsp baking soda

1 tsp Borax powder

Instructions

1. Melt the shea butter, coconut oil, and beeswax together over low heat.

2. Remove from the heat and add the Borax.

3. Stir in the tapioca starch until smooth.

4. Mix in the baking soda last.

5. Pour into a small jar and let cool.