I have been on the hunt for a deodorant that doesn't contain anti-antiperspirant; no not due to being scared of breast cancer, but because I have a history of being really, really sweaty. To give you a little background on my armpits (lmao) and my sweating situation: ever since puberty I have been....an extremely sweaty and smelly person. I can honestly remember being in 5th grade after recess with soaked pits on my uniform shirts. I have tried so many "normal" deodorant/antiperspirant combinations and for years had been using Secret Clinical Strength. Honestly it didn't even seem to work as much as a "clinical strength" deodorant should, but it kept me smelling nice so I just stuck with it. Keep in mind this was not helping my sweating at all. I have general anxiety as well as social, so on top of already being a sweaty person, any interaction with another person causes me to sweat; as well as any.......moment of my life basically lmao. SO all that being said I AM EXTREMELY SWEATY. So you know I'm really truly putting this deodorant to the test. 

The reason I started looking for a new deodorant is because I have read that in the same way frequent washing makes your hair greasier, the use of antiperspirants can actually cause your body to produce more sweat. So I was thinking that since the clinical strength deodorant wasn't really helping with my sweating, why bother? Aluminum (the stuff thats the antiperspirant) also causes stains on the armpits of your shirts and lord knows I get those (tip: oxy clean takes the smell/stains out of armpits of shirts!!!!). So here I am using antiperspirants, while getting the negative affects (stains) but not the positive ones (less sweating). All of this led me to begin my voyage into deodorants without antiperspirant.

Without being too wordy, as this is already pretty word heavy with no pictures, I'll try to keep this bit short. After much research I decided to try Arm & Hammer Essentials deodorant for a lot of reasons, mostly because it was available at my local Walgreens. 

Now onto the test. I've used this deodorant since around September 17th, so like roughly three weeks. My routine for applying deodorant is shower at night, apply deodorant, then apply more when I wake up. No reapplication throughout the day. So I followed this pattern while testing this. 

First things first the smell is a very fresh smell, I'm not really sure how else to put it. Slightly manly but not extremely. Its a solid gel type, which I was never too fond of- you have to wait a minute or so for it to dry.

It retails for $2,89 at Walgreens which is a really good price in my opinion compared to other natural deodorants.

An average day for me while testing this was- go to work or school, or both and/or see my boyfriend. I usually sweat a normal amount (for me) at school, and quite a bit at work due to the anxiety of being a cashier as well as just doing physical work. On days when I see my boyfriend we usually just lay around so there's not much sweating going on. 

On a work/school/both day the deodorant would last me a good way though. At around 6-8 hours I could tell there was some smell, but it was nothing anyone around me would notice- only if you stuck your face in my pits. By the end of my shift (even if I had not been wearing it for 6-8 hours) there was always some stink. 

On a boyfriend day I smelled good throughout the whole day pretty much, but like I said, there wasn't much sweating going on at all since I don't have anxiety around him and we don't do much lmao. 

On the odd day that I was actually outside for extended periods of time (or if me and my boyfriend went somewhere, as he has no ac in his car) the Arm & Hammer didn't last at all. I live in Florida and the weather lately has been in the 80s-90s. After an hour of being outside and sweating I wasn't smelling too great. Oddly enough though, when my pits dried out, I didn't stink as bad as I had been stinking while out in the heat. 

Overall I'd give this deodorant a 6/10. I liked it enough to have continued use of it and not switched back to my old clinical strength, even if it doesn't work perfectly. I have found reapplying before my work shifts helps MINIMIZE NOT DIMINISH the smell at the end. As far as using this if you have an active/outside life, forget it, you might as well just go without anything since that's exactly how it works when dealing with outside sweat.

UPDATE: After continual use of this product, stopping use of this product, then applying it one time; I've realized this gives me a rash. it forms a red ring around the perimeter of my armpit and turns the inside kind of yellow. Doesn't hurt/itch/etc but is pretty unsightly. Sucks because I found a combo I liked that included this.