Maybe those European women have it right: no deoderant and no underarm shaving. I’m thinking I’m digging that low-maintenance approach. I mean, it’s not like my exposed legs, which I can now neglect because I’m not wearing shorts everyday. Another reason to enjoy fall weather.
See, my pressing under-arm dilemma started when my mother, probably getting one of those e-mail FEAR LETTERS that stated there was a link to aluminum in anti-persperants and breast cancer. “Makes sense,” I said when she related her concerns to me. I didn’t see anything on my trusty Snopes site and so I went out to the market and hit the organics section.
The organics section is a post for another day. Suffice it to say, I found an apricot deodorant stick claiming to be “pure, natural & organic.” It looked pretty and was for sensitive skin. It didn’t have that nasty toxic sounding ingredient list.
But when I got my new stick of dynamite odor-absorbing glory home, I did notice the secret weapon was Zinc Rincinoleate, which sounded Swiss-made or something like those cough drops in that commercial with the yodelers on Swiss Alps. But, no, Zinc Rincinoleate is derived from Castor Beans.
Yes, those beans that surface in the news every while when idiots try to poison people with ricin, which is MADE FROM CASTOR BEANS. I used the deorderant for barely a week, thought about calling the poison hotline to make sure I wouldn’t have any issues other than skin sensitivity, and then just plain went cold turkey on using deoderant at all. I don’t think my family noticed.
But I could tell I wasn’t at my freshest. There was no apricot smell when I’d lift my arms. So, I Googled again and discovered that the Cancer Society wasn’t quite ready to say there was a link to antiperspriants and breast cancer. That made me feel better. So better that on my next trip to the store, I went back to that deorderant aisle intent on getting a commerical deorderant sans antiperspirant. I’d be semi-cautious and I was fine with people seeing me sweat. Maybe it would come in handy for negotiations.
“She’s sweating! Get Out of Her Way!” or “My, Look How Hard She’s Working, She Must Have Mowed the Lawn For Her Husband Again.” (Which would have been sort of true until I put the WRONG, UNMARKED “old and last year’s BAD gasoline” in the mower.)
So, anyway, I scan all six shelves of women’s girly, frilly, feminine scented “anti-persperants/deorderants” and not a single one was deorderant alone. It’s like it’s a sin in our society to have puddles under our arms or heaven’s forbid, white patches from using a brand that is not “clear gel” or a ozone-killing aerosol.
In the end, I had to succumb to the wetness protection factor and get anti-perspirant. I wasn’t ready to go back to “organic” and it’s even distant connection to killing agents. Instead, while shopping with the girls, I had to buy the “Degree Girl fun spirit” because it had “Exclusive Ashley Tisdale cover song download inside!” on the package next to Ashley face’s, which the girls saw from more than 100 feet away.
“Mom, you have to get this,” both girls exclaimed in their typical giddy shopping mode.
I just nodded. I knew I couldn’t sweat the small stuff — like smelling like “fun spirit.”
