A Natural Deodorant That Actually Works!! (Really!)

Quite a while ago, someone had sent me a link via facebook, a recipe for a homemade natural deodorant that really works.  I was very, very skeptical about this since I had tried what felt like hundreds of natural deodorants with no luck.  They never worked for me and were sometimes messy or sticky (I hate sticky underarms!!)  I also know that I don't often do physical labor, so if the work I do around the house causes me to stink, then the natural deodorant is no good!

Well, I tried this one and lo and behold it actually WORKED!!!  I believe this recipe was given to me before the whole Mayan Calender/ end of the world hype, so as a preventative, I wrote the recipe down as well as pinned it to my pinterest board.  I am so glad I wrote it down because I went to share the recipe with someone and the original site I got it from is no longer up.  I don't even remember what the site was anymore since I have been making my recipe from my little book of homemade cleaners and personal care items that I have been collecting.

So in an effort to keep this recipe active, I decided I would share it here.  If you like this recipe and try it, please share it with your friends who might be interested in making their own Natural Deodorant that Actually Works!!  (Really!).

Here is what you need:
1 T cocoa butter
1 T coconut oil
1 T Shea Butter
1 T beeswax (you can get beeswax pearls on amazon or buy a block and shave it)
2 1/2 T arrowroot powder
1 T Baking soda
1/4 t vitamin E oil
15 drops of essential oil of your choice
2 capsules of shelf stable probiotic (make sure they are powdered inside and you can open them)

Instructions:
1. Melt cocoa butter, coconut oil, Shea butter, and beeswax over low heat
2.  Remove pan from heat, then add arrowroot and baking soda.  Stir until combined and powders are dissolved.  Add vitamin E oil and essential oil at this time.  Allow to cool in pan until it is the consistency of pudding.  Open capsules of probiotics and add powder to mixture.  Stir with spatula to quickly combine.
3.  Add mixture to a clean jar to use as a paste or a used clean deodorant container.  Place in refrigerator to harden.

To use:  Just a tiny amount is all you need under each armpit.  Maybe the size of a pea or your fingertip.  This recipe should last at least a month.

If you have sensitive skin, omit the baking soda.
I have never had luck putting it in a deodorant container, but if you can it would be so much easier.  I usually put it in a jar and use a little bit under each arm like a cream or a paste.

Disclaimer:  I am writing this from my own experience.  I have never given this to anyone else to use so I have no other input but my own.  If you are sensitive to any of the ingredients, do not use, or omit the ingredient, I am not sure of the effectiveness if you omit the ingredients, though.  I also remember reading from the original site, that his product might discolor your skin and/or clothing.  I, personally, haven't had this problem on my skin, but I have an olive skin tone.  I have noticed it has discolored some of my shirts.  If you are a model and can't risk discolored underarms or just do not want to risk it, or have an expensive shirt, do not use this product.

I'm going to take a quick break from a crafty post.  But then this might still fall into that category!  I'm not sure what it has been lately.  I don't know if my kids are just getting tired and bored of school, or if it because they have discover the Digimon TV series on Netflix from the 90's, or they are just becoming addicted to video games.  Probably it is all of the above.  Whatever it is, it is beginning to drive me nuts!  Either they rush through their homework to get to all these electronics or they whine and argue about having to do homework and especially their chores.  Now with daylight savigns time kicking in, I am anticipating it being worse! 

In my frustration, I am taking a cue from this and similar that I have seen a lot on facebbok.  The sign this mom made up says "Want today's wifi password? 1. Make your beds 2. Vacuum downstairs 3. Walk the dog"  Brilliant!  However in my house, the desk top uses wifi, the wii and the roku use wifi, the PS3 uses wifi all 4 tablets and all phones use wifi.  For whatever reason, I can never get the guest wifi to work on my tablet.  SO, changing the wifi password daily would be a huge inconvenience for me.  But I still LOVE the concept.  I decided to personalize it a bit. 

I really don't require much from my kids by way of chores.  They are supposed to put their laundry away daily, make their beds (which they should do in the morning) make sure their rooms are picked up and alternate unloading the dishwasher and setting the table and of course concentrate on homework.  I decided that, instead of changing the wifi password daily (which, like I said, would be a huge inconvenience for me) I am just going to take away all electronics including all TV remote controls, all hand held video games and tablets and all game controllers until their chores and homework are finished.  I also decided to make up this little poem that I will post in my kitchen:

The missions I refer to are those that the Flylady system uses.  On the Flylady website there is a kids challenge (my kids prefer to call them missions since the kids in the show Lab Rats go on missions).  I'm trying to encourage them to do the missions to keep their rooms clean and free of CHAOS.  I also have this chalk board that I made using a thrift store platter and chalk paint, that is hanging on my pantry door in the kitchen.  (ha and here I didn't think this post would have anything DIY in it!!)  I will post how I made this in another post some day. 





As you can see it started out as a homework board, but I have since switched it to a Flylady mission board.  I write the mission dailyon the board and they can look at it and do the mission.

Today will be the first day that I use the poem along with the board.  I am wondering how many eye rolls and whines I will get when they can't find anything electronic to play with!  Haha!!!  Hopefully it goes smoothly!!

I really love my Silhouette Machine.  It is so much fun to play around with and it can do so many things!  I love making vinyl stickers.  Luckily, I’ve been able to control myself and my entire house is not covered in vinyl sticker!  I had seen various pins on pinterest on how to use your Silhouette Machine to stencil.  I thought this was so interesting and I couldn’t wait to try it.  The only drawback was that the Silhouette vinyl is so expensive!  So I did a little research and found that it was possible to use regular (cheap) contact paper in the silhouette machine!  I mean, HOW AWESOME IS THAT!  That stuff is like $2.99 a ROLL!  So I researched online how to use it and played around with the settings a bit and after thinking I ruined my machine (which I did not) I decided that the settings needed to be: (*Please see the disclaimer at the end of the post)

SPEED 8*

THICKNESS 3*

BLADE 1*

NO CUTTING MAT.*

These are what worked for me* do your own research and see what works for you.*

I wanted to try my hand at using the Silhouette to stencil since I had seen so many great projects using stencils made on the Silhouette. 

The first stencil project I did I tried using a wood plaque that I bought at Jo-Ann's Fabrics.  You can see it primed white in this picture all the way to the right:

 

I chose a quote and using the Silhouette machine and Contact Paper, I made this:

Again, I have no pictures of the process since it was before I decided to blog, but the contact paper worked great for this project.

But I became more inspired when I found these on sale during another trip Jo-Ann's:

I painted one yellow and one red.

 

I then chose 2 quotes from the Silhouette Studio Store and printed them out on vinyl.

Here's one.  I tried to use regular contact paper* at first, and it worked just as well as it did when I tried it on the wood... that is until I tried to transfer it to the canvas... then it wouldn't come off the transfer paper!  It was very frustrating.  I finally resorted to using the Silhouette vinyl.  So much for saving money on this project, but, as you will see, I think it was worth it.

Here is the vinyl design on the canvas
 

It looked good like this that I almost left it like this, I mean how easy would that be to paint canvas, print off vinyl and stick it on there!  But I was really going for a stencil look.

I had read the secret to making good stencils is to paint over the stencil with the base color, so I did that (sorry for the blurry image)  I also did that with the wood plaque that I made:

when that was fully dried, I painted the final color:



I let that dry and peeled the letters off:

At first I was really upset with the bleed trough that I got on this piece, especially since I thought I took precautions to prevent that,  but since the bleed through was pretty uniform throughout the whole design, I think it added to the overall design.

The second one I did came out with a lot cleaner lines.  I am very pleased with the way both canvases turned out. 

 

I ended up hanging all three quotes in my boys' bathroom.  Hopefully they will look at them often and be inspired by the quotes.

*Disclaimer: I’m pretty sure Silhouette recommends using only Silhouette brand vinyl in their machines.  Use contact paper at your own risk.