Virginia Real : Dry As A Bone?

May 15, 2014

Remember my post regarding my trip to the Green Valley Book Fair? While I was at the book fair I purchased a book entitled, “Little House in the Suburbs” by Deanna Caswell and Daisy Siskin. The book contained recipes for all sorts of cleaning products, soaps, and personal skin care products. It also had information on raising chickens, bees, and dwarf goats in your back yard. It’s a great book for anyone who’s thinking about taking steps to become more self-sufficient. Although I think I’d most likely be run out of my town on a rail if I kept goats and bees in my back yard.

Anyhow, there was a recipe for underarm deodorant in the book so you know I had to try it. I gathered all the necessary ingredients (which I just so happened to have on hand already) and read over the recipe several times. The ingredients called for are: baking soda, corn starch, essential oil, and coconut oil. The coconut oil is the kind that is hardened (the way Crisco is hardened) at room temperature. I won’t give the actual amounts of each ingredient that you’re supposed to use because I don’t want to get in hot water over copyright infringement, but if you do buy the book and try this recipe you’ll probably end up using different amounts from what was listed in the book…like I did. The cost of the book is really a small price to pay for all of the good information you get from it. Your local library may even have a copy of it.

So, I mixed up the dry ingredients and added lavender oil. (I went a little heavy on the lavender because I love it so much. It’s kind of like cinnamon in an apple pie…you can never have too much.) Finally I add some coconut oil. Hmmmmm…not enough. Add another glop. Hmmmmm…still not enough. Add yet another glop. Too…gloppy. Add a little more corn starch. Add a little more baking soda to balance out the corn starch. TaDa!

Now it was time to pack it into the empty deodorant container that I had been saving. After all, who doesn’t save empty deodorant containers? (These are the kind that solid deodorant comes in…where you turn the dial at the bottom to move the deodorant up before you put it on.) So I used a small tea spoon to pack the gloppy white stuff into the container. I might add here that you should probably have the empty container dialed up so that the plastic platform that the deodorant sits on will be about an inch from the top. You will want to pack the deodorant in and then dial it down a little more so that you can pack more in. This should eliminate any air bubbles or “empty” spaces in your deodorant and give you a completely full container. With a little practice, you can use the tea spoon and “mound” up the top so that it closely resembles the store-bought item when it’s finished.

Since I added more ingredients than the recipe actually called for, I had two completely filled deodorant containers plus about a tablespoon left over.

I’m not sure if this will actually work. I did rub a little of the left over deodorant on one underarm after I made it and it seemed a little wet in the beginning. After about a half hour, I no longer noticed the wetness. I also thought it prudent to store it in the refrigerator until it hardens up a bit. (Upon opening the refrigerator door to get a glass of tea, this didn’t gross me out nearly as much as I anticipated.)

I will try using this deodorant for a few days and let you know how well (or not) it works.