An intimate post about my....deodorant

Here is my morning routine:
- be woken up by a five year old who is very anxious to start the day
- wash my face
- brush my teeth
- moisturize my face
- apply body lotion
- put on deodorant
- get dressed
- put on make up
- quickly do hair, usually involving some hair spray or anti frizz serum
- spritz some sort of body spray
- leave my bedroom for the first time that morning

Here is the thing to notice about the above: if you count "put on make up" as only one act (and we certainly know it is not) I have touched man made products or chemicals to my skin eight times before I even leave my bedroom!

Recently a friend started asking some questions about green alternatives to deodorant. Now, I love green options as much as the next gal, but lets be honest gentle readers - they are usually very expensive.  So I started doing a bit of research.
The internet abounds with free recipes to make your own deodorant, both green or traditional.  But much of the time I did not have the items I needed for the recipe on hand, like clay.

So I narrowed my search to things I would have in my house. I found some recommendations for baking soda or cornstarch. So I tried them.  Perhaps I was using them wrong but I was not happy with the result. Although the baking soda left me smelling fine I had yucky white bits under my arms. Same happened with corn starch. This time of year the appearance of my under arms isnt really a big deal since its too cold out for sleeveless tops.  But if I am going to make a switch from chemical deodorant to natural I wanted it to be a lasting change - even in the summer months.

When I first came to the suggestion of using a lemon I passed it by.  I figured the juice from the lemon would start to smell "bad" during the course of the day and that would negate any deodorant properties it might offer.  But in continuing my search, lemons kept popping up.

I decided that lemons are certainly cost effective and something I had immediately on hand. In other words, it was worth a shot.

So one morning I got up and did my morning routine, minus the deodorant. I came downstairs to the kitchen and cut myself a slice of lemon.

my lemon slice

Then, feeling like a total goof standing in the kitchen with my hand up my shirt, I wiped a lemon slice under my arms.  The feeling of goofiness was not at all reduced when Walter asked if he could eat some lemon too and I had to explain that I wasn't eating the lemon but rubbing it on my skin.

However, the lemon works AWESOME!! I do not smell like bad lemon juice. I don't even smell like lemon (which is kinda too bad because I really like the smell of lemons). I just don't smell.   Like anything at all.  I don;t have weird residue under my arms either, as I did with the baking soda and cornstarch.

This is a mad cheap, readily available and totally green option that I have wholeheartedly switched to.
So why not save yourself some money, some chemical exposure and some white residue and try out lemons?