Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Lavilin

For chemical free March, I stopped using deodorant.  I didn't even bother with Tom's or any of the like because in the past they didn't work and a couple of them actually gave me underarm rashes.  Stinky and sore.  Totally not rad times.

My mom suggested that I try Lavilin.  It's an herbal cream.  


Snazzy box.



It's not cheap ($15.99 at Whole Foods and I haven't seen it anywhere else).  But, it claims to last up to seven days.  For best results, you're supposed to put it on before you go to bed.  Then, you shower to remove the excess.  I didn't want to wait, so I put it on after I bought it today.  

I found the excess to be pretty tough to wash of without scrubbing (I didn't want to scrub it all off).  The package recommends against using it after shaving, but I shaved before and it didn't irritate my skin.

It definitely lasted through today, so I'll just be keeping tabs throughout the week.  The real test will be a work day, as I tend to sweat from the stress during my 10 hour shifts.

We shall see.

4 comments:

  1. Uh, time for my disquisition on deodorants. Interrupt me if you've heard all this before.

    There are 2 types of deodorants: deodorants and anti-perspirants.

    Anti-perspirants actually prevent you from sweating. No sweat, no smell, no clothing stains. These rely on those weird aluminum compounds. I think some work by clogging sweat pores, others might work by affecting the innervation of the sweat glands, I'm not sure. Dunno about you, but I find these really irritating and rash-causing.

    Deodorants just prevent your sweat from smelling. Originally, this is what perfume was for, and many deodorants just have strong perfumes to mask the odor. (It has been said that the French invented perfume because they stink.) Allegedly, the odor is related to bacterial action which is enhanced by certain kinds of sweat. So, if you inhibit bacteria, you inhibit smell. This is what Lavilin apparently does, since arnica oil and maybe zinc oxide are anti-bacterial. Most of the other ingredients in Lavilin seem to be to prevent irritation. Me, I wouldn't be too keen on habitually using something on my skin that I leave on all the time. Maybe you're tougher than me.

    I think Tom's has cinnamon, which apparently also has anti-bacterial activity.
    It's a little hard to know all of Lavilin's ingredients, since their New Zealand web page shows ingredients that include an anti-fungal drug and BHT.

    Another thing I would point out is that synthetic fabrics vastly amplify body odor. I'm not entirely sure why this is. My theory is that because synthetics are essentially plastic, that the oils that are causing the body odor are very effective at wetting the synthetic fibers and thus spread out over a very large surface area, allowing them to volatilize much more efficiently. With natural fiber, such as cotton, the oils just soak into the fiber, and the surface area for evaporation is much smaller. Note that underarm hair probably has the function of providing larger surface area to increase the smell generation.

    Something else to consider is that if you are washing your clothing without detergent, it may be hard to remove all the oils that carry odor.

    Oh, you can get Lavilin on Amazon for around $11 with free shipping, apparently.
    Also, I wouldn't exactly call it chemical-free. At the least its base is petroleum jelly, made from, er, petroleum, probably by distillation. Same way gasoline is made.

    Meanwhile, there are lots of things in nature that are antibacterial. E.g., I think aloe vera is among them. Interestingly, among the best is spider webs. This suggests a novel deodorant...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lavilin has been the only thing that has ever made Bruce's stink go away. And you do wash it off with soap while showering so its not like the product stays on your skin the entire 7 days

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cari -- uh, please don't tell Lynn about this stuff... (And I won't tell Bruce you're telling the world that he stinks!)

    ReplyDelete