By Becca Lemire
Some deodorants scare me these days, with their ingredients lists as long as beef jerky labels and all the strong scents that remind me of car shampoo. And seeing as how deodorants and antiperspirants are products most of us use daily if not more, it’s important to consider what your putting on your skin. The Body Shop has been thinking about this lately, and have released a line of natural deodorants with no aluminum salts or parabens, both of which are pretty intense chemicals to be slathering on at all hours of the day and night. Deodorants cover the odour instead of blocking the sweat like antiperspirants do and I know, you don’t want to smell bad, and that’s fixable, but the sweating part you may have to soften up to a little. It’s just what our bodies do.

In true testing style, I tried two different kinds, one under each arm for the day: Cool and Zesty Roll-On in my left peach-pit-after-dark and Fresh and Floral Stick in my right. All DeoDry Deodorants boast stuff like volcanic minerals, citrus peel oil, aloe and essential oils as ingredients, which already feels nicer on the skin (maybe just a placebo) than potentially cancer-causing parabens. Sidebar: I’ve been told to avoid anything that has the word “araben” in it, fyi. Cool & Zesty Roll-On glides and absorbs clear and smells fresh, but perhaps has a tad too much of a strong citrus punch that comes off a bit as bug spray. I would still rather smell like bug spray then my own bouquet, though. Fresh and Floral Stick is clear as well, and not white, because we all know what it looks like in commercials when they rub white stuff onto black shirts and it looks so icky! This flavour has an intoxicatingly sensual scent of say, walking in a garden when things are in full bloom, with hints of citrus, but it’s not overpowering.

A mid-day sniff test proved positive results, and believe it or not I could still smell the rosebud essential oils in my righty after a soapy shower. Even better than the classic (gasp!) Tom’s, says my nose. At last, something in between rose petals and heavy metals for our underarms. DeoDry comes in 9 different varieties and is in The Body Shop now, or you can purchase it online.