From what I can tell…

So I was at the health food store to pick up a healthful version of cheetos. I was unsuccessful, thankfully.

It’s at health food stores that I find my favorite hygiene products. Some day I will post a review of brands of bar soap that I have known and loved. For the impatient, Skin Trip Coconut and Dr. Bronner’s Eucalyptus are my faves. But I’m still on the lookout for something scouringly grapefruitish.

Today, however, a washcloth caught my eye. Currently at home I’m using these blue or white microfiber washcloths that I found in the automotive section of Walmart. Except for the occasional friction burns on my face, they rock. Anyway, I saw something that looked like woven straw. They called it Ayate and promised it would get softer, more pliable, and more substantial shortly after exposure to water. And it included a deodorant stone for free.

Once I got the washcloth home and tried it out, I liked it more than a loufah. But I didn’t enjoy its facial interactions. It was a little too pokey in the eye for my taste. Or from my point of view, perhaps. And I couldn’t work it into my ear to get some traction on those auricular curvations.

So I’ll keep the microfiber for my face, and maybe work up some lather on the elbows and kneecaps with the Ayate . No big win, but no big loss.

Then I turned my attention to the deodorant stone.

My wife said she’d tried one once before, and it didn’t work for her. Still, I was curious, and moved to try it out.

I don’t want my deodorant to smell. Not like baby powder, musk, sandalwood, nor green eggs and ham. I want odorless deodorant. Although if it smells a little bit like aluminum, I don’t mind that very much. It’s all the perfumey smells that bother me. Once upon a time I tried some Old Spice gel deodorant. It mixed with my body chemisty and created something like mustard gas. Because of that, the Red Cross stills bars my admission to the Geneva Convention. There was talk of crimes against humanity. It was THAT bad.

So I prefer simple deodorants.

Mennen Speed Stick used to have this unscented bar that worked well for me. Then one day I saw this TV commercial complaining of “flaky white stuff”. I knew that they were talking to me. So I had to move to clear gels.

There’s a lot of bad smelling clear gel deodorants out there. Watch out for some of the baby powder ones. They’re especially insidious. The smell keeps wafting up for days, even after several showers of scrubbing till your pits are raw. That baby powder smell just won’t go away. Why do we torture baby’s with that awful odor anyway?

Finally I settled on Dry Idea. It’s labelled as “unscented”, but that’s not really true. There’s something in there that smells of something other than good ol’ American aluminum. But it’s pretty insipid, and quickly fades. If you’re standing there, facing the mirror in the morning, before any coffee, wondering: “Did I already put my deodorant on?” With Dry Idea there’s a brief window of opportunity to clearly discern, “Why yes, it smells like I already did.” So that’s OK.

But this post is about that deodorant stone.

It’s round and flat and milky white. Reminds me of a largish chunk of hail, but without the embedded sand dollar embellishment. Supposedly over time it wears down like a bar of soap. But this can take months. Maybe a year. It doesn’t feel soapy. You get it wet, then rub it around wherever you think smelly things might grow. Even your feet! I get the feeling it’s just some sort of salt that inhibits stinky bacteria growth. The instructions say you don’t have to wash your hands with soap afterwards (which I always do with the deodorant sticks), just rinse with plain water.

It doesn’t feel like anything is going onto your armpit except maybe some water. It doesn’t smell like anything, except maybe water. It doesn’t seem to leave any noticeable residue after the water dries. No flaky white stuff.

Best of all, two days later and I still don’t smell anything particularly bad. So it’s been working at least as well as my stick deodorant. This requires more testing. Thank goodness I’m patient. And I dont’ smell of baby powder. Will let you know as things develop.