Take rock. Rub rock under arms. No smell bad. This could be the ad campaign for crystal deodorant—the latest way to naturally smell nice. It’s made of 100 percent pure mineral salts, and that may seem kind of primitive, but it’s actually pretty revolutionary. Instead of preventing perspiration or masking body odors with synthetic chemicals—like traditional deodorants and anti-perspirants—this natural rock prevents bacteria from forming on your skin in the first place, and it’s really the bacteria, and not your sweat itself, that causes the smelliness.
Yep, the crystal brands claim you can go ahead and sweat (which, after all, is the body’s natural cooling mechanism) without fear of offending your neighbors or of contaminating your body with the nastiness that’s found in traditional brands—parabens, a chemical preservative, and aluminum chlorate, which has been linked to cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
 Rock out your pits, and skip the chemicals. |
You can get mineral salt deodorant as a spray or as a liquid roll-on, but it lasts the longest as a simple stick of rock—up to a year! Some brands offer versions that include essential oils and other natural fragrances, but we opted to try the stuff in its purest, fragrance-free form. The directions that came with our rock—Crystal Body Deodorant Stick—told us to moisten the stick and then rub it on, right after a shower (clean skin is a must, as the bacteria haven’t formed yet). We found that the rock left our pits feeling smooth, but not sticky, and our clothes free of that cakey, white residue. By the end of the day, we smelled, well, not bad—just more like a human and less like a powder puff. Of course, the real test will be a hot summer day, but for now we say, “Rock work good.”
