Reddit reviews Crystal Body Deodorant, Rock, 5 Ounce

I got the travel size of this. You wet it and also wet your clean armpits (can't be put on without cleaning your pits wth soap first) and rub it all around each pit for 30 seconds. It neutralizes the zone, making all the smelly bacteria not smelly anymore. People say you still sweat with it, I say I sweat even less than what I was with regular deodorant, and now I smell like literally nothing in there. Also, the rock lasts forever. That is, unless you drop it in your sink and it breaks, which is why I went with a travel size. I know someone who has the kind where it's a whole rock in a dish like this and she's on year 5 and the darn thing is not done yet.

Also, it was explained to me that one of the reasons aluminum in regular deodorant is bad for you is because since it's a large metal particle, it literally clogs your sweat glands. So in doing that, your telling your body it's basically not doing a good job of sweating (because you're blocking the sweat) so your body is like "omg we need to work harder!" so it produces more and more sweat. After a few years of that, your body is like on hyperdrive of making you sweat, rendering your deodorant useless. So when I switched to the crystal and quit blocking the sweat glands from doing its natural thing, my body was like "hell yeah we're doing a kickass job we don't need to work as hard to push this crap out anymore" and now I don't even sweat almost at all anymore.

I use the rock after every shower and have used it for about 5 years. You need a bit of moisture so I towel off and the little bit of moisture from the shower is enough. It doesn’t smell and it doesn’t show at all. I then use a regular antiperspirant after it cause I sweat a lot (don’t we all). I think it helps a huge amount. I don’t get b.o. smell that is noticeable at all anymore. I’ve even put my shirts pit right up to my face at the end of the day and take a huge whiff and I don’t smell b.o. just the smell of my antiperspirant. I think what it does (I’m not 100% or anything in this) is neutralize the bacteria that causes the smell. So since it’s neutralized it doesn’t make the smell. I love it and highly recommended it. The one I use is just a stone in a basket I got on amazon
Crystal Body Deodorant, Rock, 5 Ounce https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019G9OTYI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_HGeZBb468ANSA

I have been using this one for a year or so and the one I had before I used for around 3 years and it barely shrunk. Unfortunately I dropped it one day and it shattered into a million pieces so I had to get a new one. If you have any other questions about it I will happily answer them to the best of my knowledge. Rock on dude. Ha!

I use the crystal deodorant, and it's a little odd to get used to at first, but it works great! You have to reaaaaallllly get it all over your underarm area though, not just in the pit...I rub mine a little bit on the sides of my armpit and then a lot farther up and down (like a bit down onto my sideboob area and on my arm where it touches my side boob area). I definitely had a few days where my body was sort of getting used to not having traditional deodorant on, so I was a bit stinky, but it didn't last long. Now the only time I get stinky is if I'm doing really heavy physical activity in the heat, but that would have happened even when I wore normal deodorant. This is the kind that I buy because I hate the dispenser on the stick version, but the stick version works just the same. My favorite thing about it is that it's cheap and it lasts a super long time. The only time I've had to buy new deodorant since I've started using it wasn't because I ran out (I wasn't even close), but it was because I dropped the crystal chunk and it fell awkwardly and shattered.

I often bring a small alum crystal, dab it with a few drops of water and rub it around my armpits and crotch (and sometimes my feet) a few times a day depending on how much I'm sweating. It coats your skin with a fine layer of double sulfate salts that are completely harmless to humans but prevent the growth of bacteria. It's what I use for deodorant at home every day and it works great if you apply it correctly. (You shouldn't use it inside your vagina- just on the outside areas of your body where bacteria like to grow.)

If I use the alum crystal to freshen up occasionally on the trail, then I'm often smelling pretty fresh when I set up camp. But sometimes when I get to camp, I'll wash with a dab of peppermint Dr. Bronner's in my pits, crotch, and feet, and then wipe away the soap with a damp pack towel. Then re-apply the alum crystal.

Sorry if this is TMI but I also bring baby wipes for my butt crack. Sometimes if I've had coffee in the morning, I'll get a little anal leakage on the trail, so baby wipes are a quick way to clean up that area.

I don’t like the soapy/laundry detergent smell of white antiperspirant sticks.

I use a Crystal Deodorant Rock. It has no smell at all. You wet it and rub it on clean skin after you shower. You still sweat, but don’t smell bad. It doesn’t work if you already have even a little bit of body odor already when you use it.

https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Body-Deodorant-Rock-Ounce/dp/B019G9OTYI

Use the rock.

I had a bottle of olive oil that I mistakenly bought a year or two ago because I had forgotten I had just bought another (large) bottle. It was nearing its expiration date and I wasn't even done with the first bottle, so I figured I'd make soap out of it. I got lye and a simple soap mold off amazon for about $25. I already had the oil (which would have been around $10-15), utensils, bowls, and a scale.

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If you had to pay for all of that up front, it's probably $50-60, depending on what type of oil you used and whether you wanted to add scents to your soap. I got somewhere around 12 bars from that, so at the high end, you're paying $5/bar of soap, which is pretty high considering it isn't even fancy or professionally made. For your second batch though, you're really only paying for the oil (the bottle of lye will make a bunch of batches), so it goes down to around $1/bar depending on what type of oil you use. You can get Ivory soap off Amazon for around $0.75/bar, so small batch homemade is still more expensive than store-bought, and you need space to store the ingredients/equipment and the soap itself while it cures.

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Of your list, deodorant might be the easiest/cheapest thing to make yourself. A lot of the homemade recipes are mostly baking soda and coconut oil, which should be relatively inexpensive. I'd caution you to make a small batch first though, because baking soda can be irritating; my experiment with homemade deodorant was very short-lived. Alternatively, you could try crystal deodorant, which is inexpensive and lasts forever, although it does still have some packaging waste (which like, you'd think they could do better considering their primary audience is eco-people...)

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You didn't mention it, but a scrub or lotion bars might also be easier and relatively inexpensive to make yourself. If you want to really cut the costs, why not invite some friends over for a beauty-product-making party? If everyone pitched in a few bucks, that would help cover equipment and bulk ingredients (bulk ingredients that it would take you years to use up by yourself), it'd be fun, and maybe you could nudge some fresh minds towards zero-waste.