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Deodorant Vs Antiperspirant

Scotty's thread about Antiperspirant leads me to ask this question:

Which of the two do you prefer, and please list what brand you use.

Personally, I CAN NOT use Deodorant. Maybe it's my body chemistry, maybe I've only tried the wrong brands, but it's never worked.
 
Only deodorant. Anti-P causes irritation and stains my clothes.

I use Crabtree & Evelyn's Sandalwood. Understated and conservative :cool:
 
I recently saw Mama Bear's post about using an alum block as a natural deodorant. I have the same problem with others using anti-perspirant in that it gives me some itchiness, and am wondering if alum is a good alternative. Anyone else tried this?
 
I've been using an Alum block as deodorant for several years now and it works great for me. A couple of things to keep in mind though:

- you will sweat. After using the alum though, if I go back to an anti-perspirant, I feel claustrophobic and it drives me nuts. I just remember to wear an undershirt and it typically is not a problem.
- make sure you put enough on. If you do a once over and don't get enough salt on to cover things well, there will be problems later in the day.
- keep the alum block in the open so it can air dry. If it stays wet, it will turn rancid and smell bad.
- blocks can be bought cheap . . . I paid $1-$2 for mine a Vitamin Cottage. When this block is gone in the next 10 months or so, I would like to get one of those ShaveEx blocks from Mamma Bear.
 
Tom's of Maine Woodspice deodorant. Anti-P irritates the hell out of my underarms, so I bailed on using it nearly 20 years ago.

used the crystal/alum stuff in college for a while, and I never really liked how it worked. ToM stuff keeps me mostly non-smelly in all but the hottest weather (assisted by Gold Bond powder on those days).
 
I've been a fan on ammonium alum deodorants for years. Though I have found that using the block can be drying, instead I use the aloe enriched alum solution version.

Works far better than any smell masking deodorant I've ever used, won't clash with anything else I may be wearing and unless you've used a blocks worth at once shouldn't leave marks.
 
For almost a year now, I've been using Mitchum Anti-Perspirant/Deodorant unscented gel with great success. It goes on light, undershirt staining is very minimal, and it works. I'm kept dry and I don't stink. I, too, struggled a long time with finding the right product and am very happy with this discovery. Good luck in your search!
 
WOW, quite a variation in the answers!!

Basically, I'm more worried about the golf course than anywhere else. Funny time of the year to ask this I know, but I'll keep it in mind for next year and try a bunch more.

This summer I've tried maybe 5 different ones and there's still times I have to walk alone and make sure I stand downwind from everyone else (and yes, I have tried washing!!!:lol: )
 
I use deodorants, mostly because I don't have a good answer to "Where does sweat go when it's blocked from coming out?"

I'd imagine there is a reason we sweat from where we sweat. And I don't like messing with a system's design too much. So if we clog such out-pipes up, where does th sweat go? Does it come out instead from behind our ears? between the eyes? feet? Or does the sweat/heat/pressure/alcohol/salts just get backed up in the body.

Anyhow know the answer to this?
 
Anti-sperspirant is the devil! Not really, but after a horrible case of Apocrinitis as a teen, I've never touched anti perspirant since. The lymph nodes under my arms swelled so bad I couldn't raise my arms. My doctor flat-out told me never to use it again - he said use deodorant instead. A.P. feels like sticky underarm hair spray to me - hate the stuff.

As an aside, I was in the Peace corps in Africa for a couple of years. Upon arriving at my third country language training we all immediately noticed the strong B.O. present with our host-country national language instructors. They were all wonderfully professional people and they were always impeccably groomed and fastidiously dressed - they just didn't use deodorant. The funny thing is we all all ran out ourselves withing weeks and a funny thing happened... we could no longer detect the smell of anyone's B.O! It was still there of course, you just couldn't smell it anymore. It occurred to me that deodorant is kind of a weird thing in a way... within weeks of discontinuing the use of deodorant we realized that we don't stink without deodorant... that's simply the way humans smell. I needed to fit in a professional environment when I returned to the US a couple years later and got back on the speed stick train, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we could put the deodorant companies out of business if we could make it through the first two weeks!
 
I use deodorants, mostly because I don't have a good answer to "Where does sweat go when it's blocked from coming out?"

I'd imagine there is a reason we sweat from where we sweat. And I don't like messing with a system's design too much. So if we clog such out-pipes up, where does th sweat go? Does it come out instead from behind our ears? between the eyes? feet? Or does the sweat/heat/pressure/alcohol/salts just get backed up in the body.

Anyhow know the answer to this?


Your skin sweats simply to lower body temperature. Your armpits will occasionally sweat due to increased sympathetic nerve activity, or when your adrenal gland kicks in, but it is still simply a cooling response. Clogging a few thousand of your sweat glands while the other 2 million work perfectly aren't going to harm you in anyway.
 
I tried using both Spray (Right Guard) and Stick (all kinds, Old Spice, Speed Stick, hell I don't remember them all..) deoderant when I was a teenager. Neither ever worked effectively for me. Around the age of 18 I switched to solid anti-perspirant and have been on solids ever since (I'm 37 now). Mostly unscented Arid XX, Sure or Suave, so it doesn't interfere with my aftershave or cologne. They all seem to work the same, I get whatever is on sale.

-Mason
 
Your skin sweats simply to lower body temperature. Your armpits will occasionally sweat due to increased sympathetic nerve activity, or when your adrenal gland kicks in, but it is still simply a cooling response. Clogging a few thousand of your sweat glands while the other 2 million work perfectly aren't going to harm you in anyway.

Not sure I totally agree. As stated above I had a rather severe reaction to anti-perspirant as a teen - I didn't save the doctor's notes but he said the swelling of my lymph nodes in the armpit region was specifically a reaction to using anti-perspirant vs a deodorant and to his credit I tossed the Right Guard and the quite painful problem went away never to return. Obviously it's probably not a super common problem.
 
Aren't teenage boys hormones raging right around that time period? Maybe your body has settled down somewhat since then...
 
Aren't teenage boys hormones raging right around that time period? Maybe your body has settled down somewhat since then...

I'm sure it's possible... as I remember, mine certainly were raging. Not sure that has much to do with this issue, but it could I suppose. At any rate, I've never looked back since switching. The occasion or two when I've used A.P. it just felt kind of overly sticky and just kind of wrong. That said, this is probably the epitome of a personal preference issue.
 
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