DIY Deodorant... 6 Months In

I've been using DIY deodorants for a good long while now and 'natural' deodorants for even longer due to my allergy to aluminum- since high school. It's been a long and frustrating journey I have to say but I'm almost to the end of it in that my latest batch of deodorant was nearly exactly what I wanted. I'm pretty psyched about that fact actually and that means that I'll have a post upcoming on my finalized recipe in the next few weeks if things go as expected. 

On this journey to finding something that works for me I've learned a few things that would have been super helpful to know.

1. Natural deodorants don't have antiperspirant (so you still sweat) for really good reasons but I still miss them and the lack takes some getting used to. 
2. Eating properly changes the need for deodorant (and your natural scent... eww, I know, but true). 
3. There are million DIY deodorant recipes out there it seems... and not all of them will work for every person. That's why there are a million of them. We didn't all like Secret or Dove or what have you deodorant when we used store bought deo and we have ALL said that one brand worked better than another and had someone completely disagree with us. Why would DIY be any different?
4. Similar to the last one... this is a process and everyone is different. I've tried out a different recipe each and every time I made a new tube of deodorant. Some of those recipes were recipes I'd found online, some were based on recipes or combinations of recipes, some were completely mine. Many worked pretty well... some very much so did not. Reviews of recipes stating they were awesome didn't mean they worked for my body (see the next one... that was a painful week).
5. Baking soda can burn. The underarms are sensitive places, enough said right? Ouch. I ended up using a very tiny amount in my latest batch but for those who are even more sensitive than me you may want to sub arrowroot powder for baking soda completely in recipes you find for deodorant online. It doesn't seem to work quite as well as baking soda (for me) but its a close second. I've had to experiment with ratios over the past few months for each batch I created to see what worked best on my body.
6. Texture is very important for me. I wanted a deodorant that I could roll on from a normal deodorant tube but this was often far from the case. Most recipes I've tried have been not quite firm enough for what I am looking for... or too firm and the tube wouldn't rise. This has been the part I've spent the most time working on to be 100% honest. There have been recipes I've churned out that worked great but were simply too soft many times in this process.
7. Ingredient quality is important. This is pretty self-explanatory I think, if I bought the cheapest one of unknown quality then I was more likely to get variable consistency and quality. Do your research on brands you want to use basically.
8. Scent matters... oh so much. Some of the oils I've used to scent my deodorant just did not work well together, or worse, were not a good combo with sweat. This is likely the reason I have had several natural deodorants that didn't make the cut (sorry Tom's) before I tried my hand at DIY.

That's all for now. I'll be posting an update on what I've been working on lately  this week as well (I haven't been slacking, promise, just trying a lot of different things with mixed results). One of those things is my Instagram account... feel free to hop over and check out things I'm working on recipe wise, see some meal ideas and just keep in the loop on what's going on with me (my two pups pop up from time to time as well... love them!).
 
Instagram: @reallifewithheather