its just Lush in my pits...

I have been trialling Aromaco Solid Deodorant from Lush since February 2012. It costs £4.40 for a 100g bar. And you can go and get it cut to size.

I sweat. I wish I perspired. I wish my body knew it was lady enough to "perspire" instead of sweat the buckets that I have been known to do. But I also have a Gran suffering from Alzheimers. What does this have to do with the fact that I sweat buckets? It is the correlation between an ingredient in anti-perspirants, and early onset Alzheimers. Aluminium. Or Ahloo-min-um.

After a particularly bad forgetful spell, I decided to stop with the Anti-P and find something else. I had already spied a natural alternative I wanted to try in the Lush store and after Beaut.ie did a post on it I took the plunge and parted with my hard saved pounds for the smallest possible block I could get. Which is a 100g.

The Lush website says it contains: Witch Hazel Infusion, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Stearate, Chamomile Vinegar, Sodium Bicarbonate, Patchouli Oil, Citral, Limonene, Perfume.

I think this is kind of geared to men, as its in the men's section in my local Lush store (shout out to Lush Newry store and the fantastic staff), but I figured that since I sweat like a man, it should work just fine for me.

It smells lightly spicy and, to me, distinctly male. Like something The Hubs would feel comfortable wearing if he used roll-on. But I like things that smell spicy and male (my first branded perfume/ EDT was CK One). And although many comments have said this smells very strong, I didn't think it was strong at all. In fact I thought the smell was a bit delicate.

It came with all hard sharp edges. It had just been cut from a massive block of the stuff, so I expected nothing less. What I did not expect was how tough it would be to smooth those edges, especially at the end of winter when everything is cold. And hard. So before using it I just rub it a bit against the packaging to warm it a bit and then smooth it onto my pits.

Something else that bothered me was when switching from one underarm to the next, little scratchy hard sharp bits would be revealed, which needed more rubbing against the packaging to smooth these out. Sigh.

What is impressive, is how well this works. I have put this through its paces, my body is more prone to  sweating like a pig perspiring more during the season change, and since Ireland has had a right auld time of it (going from 9degreesC to 20degreesC in less than 2 days), I can say that this has worked really well. It hasn't stopped the wetness completely, but it has lessened it, and I haven't had 'The Overpowering BO Pong' that normally accompanies this time of year (for me, anyway).

I am pretty happy with this. It still smells vaguely spicy at the end of the day (picture, if you will, me turning round in circles with my arm over my head, trying to get a good sniff of my own pits) with little to no odour. And it doesn't smell strongly enough to interfere with any other perfume that I am wearing.

I also like that it didn't stain my clothes. It didn't pass the black shirt test, but since you can only see it on the inside of the shirt, I think that's ok. It also didn't sting when I used it immediately after shaving.

I have started keeping it in a little plastic bag, to stop it from drying out, and it seems to make it go on easier, and it keeps the consistency a little more soft and creamy.

The only thing is that you get the product on your fingers as you are applying, but I suppose if I am clever (and now that I think about it) I can wrangle the plastic bag round it nicely to avoid that.

As I said, I have had this since Valentines day 2012, I have used it everyday and I am not even a third of the way through it. Well worth the £4.40, I recon.

Now we just wait and see if my memory improves and if I dodge the "Old Timers" bullet...