5 Hazardous Ingredients in Your Deodorant
By Dr. Mercola
Using antiperspirant and deodorant has become second nature to most people. Advertisers have been making arguments against your natural balanced scent to convince you to purchase their fragrant antiperspirants and deodorants, promising everything from matchmaking to self-confidence to result from their use.
No personal care product can follow through on these promises. We are only beginning to tap into the power of your relationship with bacteria living on and in your body. While not all of those relationships are healthy, science is still determining all the ways your body uses the bacteria living on your skin.
Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and advertisers want you to believe your deodorants and antiperspirants are completely safe, you only have to look at the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the ingredients listed in each product to understand this likely is not the case.
Why Do You Smell?
Why Ingredients in Deodorants and Antiperspirants Pose Risks to Health
Unfortunately, altering the microbiome in your armpit isn’t the worst thing that can happen when you regularly use antiperspirants or deodorants. The ingredients in these products are the real cause for alarm. While deodorants are designed to work outside the body, they contain chemicals that can pass through the skin barrier. Your skin may appear to be impermeable, but it is not.
Drug companies commonly use transdermal patches to deliver medications through your skin.14 For just this reason, smearing chemicals on your skin may be more dangerous than swallowing them. Associate professor of biology at North Carolina State University, Heather Patisaul, Ph.D., is quoted in Time Magazine, saying:15
“When you eat something, it’s broken down by your liver and digestive system. But when you put something on your skin, there are times when it can enter your bloodstream without being metabolized.”
5 Hazardous Deodorant and Antiperspirant Ingredients
Rubbing chemicals on your skin doesn’t mean they will make it to your bloodstream. However, blood testing shows many of the chemicals used in deodorants are able to permeate your skin and are found in your blood.16 Here are five common antiperspirant/deodorant ingredients that may pose a health risk.
Giving Up Deodorant and Antiperspirant
Giving up your chemical wash every morning is not as difficult as you might think. There are several natural options you may experiment with to find the combination that works for your unique bacterial colonization.32
Sources and References
- 1 Meet The Bacteria That Make A Stink In Your Pits. (2015). NPR.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 2 Excessive sweating Causes – Mayo Clinic. (2016). Mayoclinic.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 3 7 Surprising Reasons You Stink. (2013). The Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 4 10 Sneaky Sources of Body Odor. (2012). Shape Magazine. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 5 Body odor can be eliminated through a change in diet. (2016). NaturalNews. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 6 What medicines cause body odor?. (2010). HowStuffWorks. Retrieved 10 July 2016,
- 7 Listicle List View | Berkeley Wellness. (2016). @berkeleywellness. Retrieved 10 July 2016,
- 8 Antiperspirants may actually make you smell worse. (2014). Washington Post. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 9, 17 Antiperspirants Alter Your Armpit Bacteria and Could Actually Make You Smell Worse | RealClearScience. (2014).
- 10 Science, L. & Nature, H. (2012). Men’s Shaved Armpits Smell Better to Women, by a Hair. Live Science. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 11 The effect of habitual and experimental antiperspirant and deodorant product use on the armpit microbiome.
- 12 Real Clear Science August 11, 2014
- 13 Arch Dermatol Res. 2014 Jul 31
- 14 Prausnitz, M. & Langer, R. (2008). Transdermal drug delivery. Nat Biotechnol, 26(11), 1261-1268.
- 15, 16, 28, 31 Heid, M. (2016). 5 Things Wrong With Your Deodorant. TIME.com.
- 18 Aluminium and breast cancer: Sources of exposure, tissue measurements, and mechanisms of toxicological actions on breast biology. (2013). Sciencedirect
- 19 An earlier age of breast cancer diagnosis related to more fr… : European Journal of Cancer Prevention. (2016).
- 20 Exposure to Chemicals in Cosmetics. (2016). Breastcancer.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 21 Antiperspirants/Deodorants and Breast Cancer. (2016). National Cancer Institute. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 22 Antiperspirants and Breast Cancer Risk. (2016). Cancer.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 23 Heid, M. (2015). You Asked: Can Deodorant Give You Cancer?. TIME.com. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 24 Science & Environmental Health Network – Ecological Medicine: Essays. (2016). Sehn.org. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 25 Oaklander, M. (2014). Phthalates Are Linked to a Drop in IQ. TIME.com. Retrieved 10 July 2016
- 26 Oaklander, M. (2014). Plastic Chemicals During Pregnancy Linked to 70% Increased Asthma Risk. TIME.com
- 27 The Journal Of Immunology, 196(1 Supplement), 191.21-191.21.
- 29 The bactericidal agent triclosan modulates thyroid hormone-associated gene expression and disrupts postembryonic anuran development. (2016).
- 30 The Journal Of Immunology, 196(1 Supplement), 191.21-191.21.
- 32 16 Tips and Remedies to Kill Underarm Body Odor Even The Smelliest BO. (2016). Umpah.com
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