So what, I sweat!

Ok, so we all sweat and sometimes we stink! In order to prevent sticky pits and offensive odor people reach for antiperspirants or deodorant. Antiperspirant and deodorant are often assumed to be the same thing, they are not. Deodorant is the stuff that stops the smell and antiperspirant clogs the ducts and prevents the body from perspiring. 

The active ingredient used to stop the flow of sweat onto the skin  in antiperspirant is aluminum. Aluminum is believed to cause an increase in risk of Alzheimer's disease and some would argue cancer. The FDA allows this poisonous ingredient to be added to deodorant in regulated amounts. Regulated poison, really? I'll pass. 

The other ingredient  of concern in antiperspirants are parabens. This has in fact become quite a buzz word in the US. There are rising concerns that parabens can cause cancer by acting like estrogen in living tissue.  I am sure you have noticed more and more products with labels that say "paraben" free. There must be a reason for this right? Although there aren't any studies to prove that antiperspirant causes cancer, I'm not going to wait for those to come out.  

For me it comes down to this, I don't want to put a poison on my skin day after day and don't want to stop my body from doing something it does for a reason. I stopped using antiperspirant about 7 years ago and so far nobody has ran away to avoid my odor! I use organic deodorant, it keeps me from smelling and allows my body to do what it wants to do. I will say that I did sweat quite a bit when I first stopped using antiperspirant but over time that has changed. I rarely sweat any more and when I do I deal with it, I'll take a little sticky odorless pit over years of exposure to poisons. 

So my challenge to you is this, give it a try! Put your antiperspirant away from 30-days and give an organic deodorant a try.