Antiperspirant vs Natural Deodorant - Reducing Sweat or Odour?

Antiperspirant vs Natural Deodorant - Reducing Sweat or Odour?

If you’re still confused between these two, don’t worry you’re not the only one.

When it comes to improving your body odor, antiperspirant and natural deodorant work in very different ways.

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Antiperspirant

Antiperspirant works by blocking your sweat duct. Basically it just makes you sweat less by suffocating your pores. This is especially useful if you are looking to reduce underarm wetness and sweat stains on your t-shirt.

Antiperspirant is usually formulated with an active ingredient: aluminium chloride hexahydrate which helps to block our sweat pores and ultimately helps to reduce the amount of sweat we produce. Due to the active ingredient that enters our body to work, antiperspirant is actually regarded as a drug by the FDA because of how our body responds to them rather than just topically.

While sweating is important to help with regulating body temperature, a lot of people feel extremely uncomfortable when they are constantly battling to keep their underarm area dry - especially in our hot and humid weather.

Natural Deodorant

Deodorant, on the other hand, is for those of you looking to improve your body odour. It does not stop perspiration the way antiperspirant works, but it does help greatly in masking odour as most of the deodorant are scented.

Contrary to popular belief, sweat is actually odourless.The body odour that we are trying so hard to eliminate is actually a result of bacteria mixing with our sweat. That’s why it is important to choose the right natural deodorant to keep the BO at bay.

Natural deodorant does not block your pores, instead it allows our underarm to naturally breathe by not including aluminium in the ingredient list. It does its job by letting the perspiration contact our skin, as intended by our biology. The ingredients work in a way where they will absorb our body moisture and reduce odour before it even starts. Less moisture = less bacteria = less odour!

While it is common to confuse the two, they are actually very different from one another and are not interchangeable.

So Which One is For You?

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Well, if you’re looking to reduce sweating and underarm wetness, then antiperspirant is the one you’re looking for. But do keep in mind, antiperspirant works by suffocating your pores as aluminium is absorbed into your body. In fact, the FDA issued a warning acknowledging “a small amount of aluminium can be absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and through the skin” which acts as a risk to people with renal dysfunction as they may not be aware that the daily use of antiperspirant drug will put them at a higher risk due to the aluminium exposure.

However, if you would just like to smell great in general, natural deodorant is the way to go. Not only are the natural ingredients in natural deodorants less harmful to your body, they are also formulated to work with your body, not against it. The ingredients in natural deodorant help to get rid of the germs that cause body odour.

Which is why it is so important to look for deodorants that are aluminium-alcohol-paraben free like our Big Natural Deodorant which comes in 5 different scents! Not only do they make you smell amazing, they’re also incredibly gentle on your skin. 

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