Adventures with Baking Soda

So, a bit ago, I mentioned something about having more personal experience with the uses of baking soda. A day or so before that, I had eeked out the very last bit I could from my deodorant. I had been using a liquid crystal roll-on. For years, I have used deodorant, and not antiperspirant, avoiding ingredients like aluminum. (Briefly, deodorant deodorizes and antiperspirants prevent sweat.) This proved difficult to do, at times, with several stores carrying only antiperspirants. Even when I found a deodorant I liked, I would discover that several stores didn't carry it, or we'd move to an area where the stores that did have it didn't exist. I've also been paying twice as much, it seems, for deodorant-that-isn't-antiperspirant for several years.

I had had enough.

Trolling around my blog circuit, I had found different alternatives, from simply going without (I sweat a lot, and for me sweat = smelly. Remember, I do work in an office, so I do need to look and smell professional.) to making your own from various ingredients. Crunchy Chicken has a recipe that one applies very much like the regular-old store bought stuff. I remembered this fact, but not the recipe. On top of that, I don't have coconut oil or cocoa butter at home. (Or the sandalwood essential oil, but that is optional.)

I also remembered reading about people using straight baking soda, or baking soda cut with corn starch as deodorant (with varying levels of effectiveness). As I was standing there, needing deodorant, the 6:1 cornstarch:baking soda ratio stuck in my head. I don't have a nifty little jar to put it in, and think I threw out the only make up brush I had (from when I was... let's just say that it was easily over 10 years old). I did have corn starch and baking soda (I did know it was going to come down to this at some point), a small Pyrex dish and left over cotton balls.

To the kitchen I went, and mixed up a corn starch-baking soda mixture with a ratio closer to 3:1. Then, found the cotton ball, and got out some plastic wrap to cover the dish. (Honey I'll leave out, uncovered for a bit, but if baking soda absorbs odor, don't want to leave it out, then apply to my body.) Taking advice from those who went before me, I made sure my arm pits were clean and dry, then applied my new deodorant.

Between the honey, tea tree oil, jojoba oil, and now this, I have a very interesting daily toilette.

Overall, I am happy with the results. It does a good job for a normal day for me. Even on a slightly more active day, I remain relatively dry and odor free.

I did go to an outdoor wedding in the heat, and then danced indoors. The baking soda failed there. I was just sweating too much for it to keep up. I smelled pretty bad, and went to the car to put on my husband's deodorant (out of town wedding, and yeah, it was that bad).

Using the corn starch/baking soda mix, I have not experienced irritation. When this batch runs out, I think I will try the 1:1 ratio suggested in Life Less Plastic. I will also need to get a poof or make up brush, as cotton balls don't hold up for too terribly long, I'm almost out, and I don't really want to buy more.

Have you ever tried this? What were your results?