Deodorant’s got a hard life. It gets all your frustration and none of your love. You get to love a lipstick—cherish it, buy 17 of the same color and keep them in the freezer so you can still have one for your 80th birthday. But deodorant? Forward straight to the complaints department. “Umm, why does it smell like metallic cucumbers? Why are these little white crumblies all over my black silk tanks? Wait, is there cancer in this?!” All because it doesn’t prevent your body from performing an un-preventable function: sweating. Let’s let that go—when it's hot, you’re going to sweat. Instead of stopping it, let’s work on dealing with it.
The available deodorant scents in your drugstore deodorant aisle fall mostly into two categories: Powder Room Fresh (or more like Funeral Parlor Room Fresh) to Lavender Rainforest (some acrid attempt at citrusy floral). If you’ve gone through the research and expense of acquiring for yourself a “signature scent,” you’ll also probably not want your deodorant wreaking havoc on your perfume’s bouquet. I’ve been there, so I bought an unscented stick, leading to the very disappointing (but ultimately inevitable) discovery: “unscented' just means no fragrance was added. It still has a smell, which happens to be not unlike like the aroma of a plastic spatula left too near the burner—maybe mixed with baby powder.
There is a solution: Dr. Hauschka's Rose Deodorant. It’s the natural deodorant for people who don’t care about the “natural” label, because it’s actually easy to like on its own terms. No aluminum salts, so there’s no metallic linger for those of you who don’t want your Light Blue or Oud Wood cut with Rainforest Pennies. Yes, it’s fragranced. It’s rosy—but like, earthy, herby rosy...not stuffy-attic rosy. It's a smell you can only detect right when you put it on. After that, it sort of absorbs into your skin and becomes one with your armpit. There’s a few natural oils in there to be nurturing and kind, not stringent and masking. It’s not a tough-love approach that regular deodorants usually take on—it’s more like you’re coaxing your armpit into being good. You're killing it with kindness—and, strangely enough, it works.
It’s not going to rewire your integumentary system or cooling mechanism; you will sweat when you get hot, but your sweat won’t smell bad. And there won’t be streaks on your clothes or that aluminum dankness that can stay even after washing. And since the rose fragrance really sort of dissolves into your personal fragrance, there’s no interaction. Even when I wear pretty masculine colognes, there’s no interference from the good Dr. Hauschka. Just quiet, kind, nurturing support to what I’ve got going on that day. No complaints here.
—Trace Barnhill
Photographed by Tom Newton. Next up: A Moment For Deodorant.
