After a year of handling the burning under my armpits, I gave up and looked for a new homemade deodorant without baking soda. This unique recipe doesn’t irritate my skin!
If you’ve tried to make deodorant and found that your pits couldn’t handle the baking soda, you’re not alone!
I spent a year trying to control the burning under my armpits from homemade deodorant and store-bought natural deodorant. They all gave me a rash! I gave up and looked for a new homemade deodorant without baking soda. This new formula works and doesn’t irritate my sensitive skin.
Why I don’t use commercial deodorant
Have you looked at the ingredients on your container of Deodorant? Talk about a long list of ingredients you can’t pronounce! I don’t put anything on my skin I wouldn’t eat, and there is no way I’m eating store-bought Deodorant. Also, recent research suggests that aluminum found in Deodorant may be linked to Alzheimer’s and breast cancer. No Bueno!
If you’re not sensitive to baking soda, my coconut oil deodorant recipe is amazing and works really well. However, if you have sensitive skin, try this recipe below!
Homemade deodorant ingredients and notes:
It’s really important to get good-quality ingredients here, because any extra chemicals or scents could further inflame sensitive skin.
- Coconut Oil – This favorite oil of mine has natural antibacterial properties that help kill bacteria that cause underarm odors. You can even make your own coconut oil at home!
- Shea Butter – Contains cinnamic acid, which reduces skin inflammation and helps to soothe skin.
- Beeswax – Used to help ingredients from melting and for effortless glide.
- Vitamin E – High in antioxidants and expands the shelf life of homemade products.
- Essential Oils – Lavender to help soothe and heal skin, melaleuca to help kill bacteria, and sage because it’s one of the most effective essential oils that can be used as a natural deodorant and because it’s an antihydrotic herb with the innate ability to decrease perspiration.
How to make natural homemade deodorant:
This is a pretty simple and straightforward recipe. In addition to the ingredients above, you’ll need a double boiler and a deodorant container.
- Use a double boiler to melt beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil.
- Once all three ingredients are completely melted, remove them from the heat to cool.
- Add vitamin E oil and essential oils to the melted oils and beeswax.
- Mix well and carefully pour the into deodorant container.
Homemade Deodorant Without Baking Soda
This recipe fills a 2 ounce deodorant container. You can reuse an old empty deodorant container or purchase them online
Ingredients
- .50 ounces/1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil
- .50 ounces/1 Tablespoon Shea Butter
- .75 ounces/1 1/2 Tablespoons Beeswax
- 5 Drops Vitamin E Oil
- 8 Drops Lavender Essential Oil
- 4 Drops Melaleuca Essential Oil
- 3 Drops Sage Essential Oil
Instructions
- Use a double boiler to melt beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil.
- Once all three ingredients are completely melted, remove them from the heat to cool.
- Add vitamin E oil and essential oils to the melted oils and beeswax.
- Mix well and carefully pour the into deodorant container.
Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20484832
http://www.naturalnews.com/033364_deodorants_chemical_ingredients.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16045991
Can you leave the essential oils out? I have severe eczema and so far the only deodorant that hasn’t caused a flair up is an unscented one without baking soda, BUT it’s sold out so I am looking into making my own.
Hi great recipe thank you ! Will this deodorant stay solid in hot temperature ?
Can i used any old empty deodorant tube like the Dove ones?
You sure can!
Will this recipe stain your clothes
I cannot thank you enough! I’ve been dealing with painful rashes since high school. Every deodorant I’ve tried just doesn’t work, even after re-aplying in the afternoon, I was so embarrassed because I stink. I started using this recipe 2 weeks ago with a gentle exfoliator and my skin finally feels normal. Baking soda is just too harsh, the lavender keeps mosquitoes away too! Thank you, I never thought a homemade deodorant would actually work!
Hello!
Susan commented she uses kokum butter recipe. I’d like to order Kokum and was wondering what was the amounts used in your recipe, if you don’t mind sharing 🙂
Lillian
Did you use refined or unrefined shea butter?
I use refined. I don’t like the strong smell of raw shea butter.
What can you use instead of the beeswax?
I was a bit skeptical about this working for me but I’m happy to say it worked great!
My wife convinced me of the evils of aluminum so I was using straight coconut oil for a while. It took care of odor for about half the day even though I did sweat a little more than usual.
Unfortunately I can’t always reapply midday so I looked online and I found a simple recipe (simple is good for me) which contained baking soda. I thought this would work well since my previous antiperspirant was arm and hammer.
Unfortunately the baking soda was VERY irritating to me so that was out. That is when I found this recipe. Just simple enough for me.
I’ve been using this recipe for about a week with great results. No odor all day. Not even after my workouts. No irritation. In fact the color of my underarm skin has improved as well. It used to be stained (yellowish like a bruis) from my store-bought antiperspirant. It was like this for so long I just thought it was my skin color. I’m happy to discover that was false and now my skin color is quickly improving. I’ve also starting sweating a lot less.
My only complaint is that it is very hard to apply. A previous comment mentioned it was too greasy. I have found that is absolutely not the case and I’d love to know exactly what they used. My bar is very solid and I have to use a fair bit of force when applying it or nothing happens. I also just started shaving my armpit as I’d read that hairy pits can trap bacteria and increase odor and sweating. I’m glad I did this as applying this deodorant would likely be ripping the hair out anyway.
Does anyone have any suggestions for improving the ease of application? I’m sure the bees wax is the culprit but I’m not sure what to adjust to fix the problem without loosing the solidarity of the bar.
I’m thinking of cutting the wax in half and increasing the coconut oil or the shea butter. Another thought was to add cacao butter instead of the wax entirely or by half. Cacao butter has lots of health benifits, is solid at room temperature and usually melts on contact with skin. I need to research its topical use so first though.
I hope people still watch this page as I’d love to hear how others have modified this recipe.
Thanks
I’ve had good results altering the amount of coconut oil based on the season, because the deodorant can be too melty in the summer and too hard in the winter.
Increasing the coconut oil and decreasing the beeswax should do the trick to make the solution softer. You could try subbing half the beeswax for coconut oil and see if the consistency is right for you, depending on your climate and the season.
Sounds great! I’ve used the simple recipe of baking soda, arrowroot powder, coconut oil and essential oils. This one sounds so dreamy!
I’ve done the same recipe, but the odor comes out earlier before I finish my work. so, it doesn’t block odor all day long.
Thank you for the recipe I can’t wait to try this one and will share on my fcebook page to my friends wanting a recipe without baking soda..
How long will this deodorant last?
First off thank you for this recipe,my son is allergic to most deoderant out there so have been making his deoderant for quite some time. Had to make a couple of changes as the coconut oil was difficult to remove from his clothing,so used kokum butter as it aborbs quicker into the skin and doesn’t leave a grease feel which he did not like,and added arrowroot and bentonite clay to help aborb better and detox his body as well. He really likes the results. Just wanted readers to know this is a tried and true base for his deoderant dilemma. Thank you again.
Are there any other essential oils that can be substituted? I’ve heard that both geranium & neroli are great for diy deodorant and I love the fragrance of both of them.
Have you ever added arrowroot to absorb wetness?
.05 ounce of Shea Butter? Is that a typo Should it be .50 ounce? .05 isn’t much of an ounce its like 1/20th of an ounce
Thanks for pointing that out! Yes, that was a typo. It’s 1/2 an ounce.
I am interested in your posts on coconut. Thanks
Didn’t work for odor at all. The search continues…
Kellie did you ever find a good deodorant that holds order but yet no baking soda?
Same here, it doesn’t work to combat odor, and it’s pretty greasy. But Have you tried a regular (coconut, shea butter, arrowroot,etc.) recipe but with magnesium hydroxide instead of baking soda? Apparently it works and does not irritate your skin!
When you say sage, would clary sage work and is that what you meant?
Love the idea but I’m allergic to tea tree oil (yes, Really allergic) and my daughter is allergic to coconut . Substitutions?
Those measurements in ounces are difficult, is there any way to use cups or tsps or TBS?
I have no way of measuring ounces.
Norma
Here is a site to convert weights to volume. I think it has one for shea butter if you search the same site, but I’m not for certain (but the weights might be ballpark if you use coconut oil conversion for the shea butter)
http://convert-to.com/568/organic-raw-coconut-oil-conversion-with-nutrition-facts.html
Norma, i just put everything in teaspoons
0.5 oz => 6 tsp Coconut oil
0.05 oz => about 1/3 tsp Shea butter
0.75 oz => 4.5 tsp Beeswax
I have all of the ingredients I need to make this, but I Don’t have a food scale so I’m not sure how to measure the ingredients. Any suggestions?
.5 oz of coconut oil is about 1 tablespoon (1.05)
.5 oz of shea butter is about 1 tablespoon (1.04)
.75 oz of beeswax is about 1.5 tablespoons.
Does adding baking soda make it less greasy?
i use straight up coconut oil, i rub a litle w my finger & done! 🙂
it works amazingly!
after trying so many natural deodorants & having to give up because of the foul odor, i even used milk of magnesia, but coconut oil has been working the best…
even after my exercises, no odor 😀
u do sweat but no odor
yayyy!