Review: Lush’s Aromaco

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” -Margaret Atwood

I want to talk about my pits. No really, that’s not a cute play on words. I mean my armpits.

Several years ago I made the decision to decrease my use of synthetic beauty products, with great success. Besides a few makeup products, the only real trouble I have had with ditching the nasties is concerning antiperspirant.

Let me be frank: I sweat. I am an active person who has the extra joy of having difficulty regulating my body temperature. Recently this problem has worsened. It’s embarrassing and uncomfortable. Increasing the strength of my antiperspirant seemed to only marginally help the problem. While perusing a few message boards on health websites, I read MANY anecdotal accounts that longterm and frequent use of underarm antiperspirant can actually worsen sweating in other areas of the body. That was worth investigating.

There are other more serious problems with most antiperspirants. Aluminum has been established as a neurotoxin. We trust our government health authorities and the market to release products that are safe, but you’ll find that unless there are acute dangers inherent within a product, you’ll still find it on the store shelves. With the amount of toxins I’m unwillingly exposed to in my environment, I’d like to limit applying them directly to my body. Aluminum is also responsible for the nasty yellow sweat stains on clothing due to chemical reaction.

I’ve tried a number of deodorant products sans aluminum and I’ve never had great success. Recently I purchased Lush’s Aromaco deodorant bar. I gave it a good three weeks of testing and… TA-DA! We have a winner.

It’s a solid bar that you simply rub on. I understand that if it gets overly dry you just need to shave off a bit of the exterior, but so far so good. I expected it would at least mask odour. Although I find the patchouli smell a bit masculine for my liking, it works. Lush has a second scent, Aromarant, which boasts a citrus aroma.

My happy underarm

I was amazed to discover the patchouli has the added benefit of skin smoothing even before I read that would be the guess. You may have noticed those terrible Dove commercials designed to make us feel bad about underarm dryness. Screw that. I have patchouli power.

I expected to experience increased wetness without aluminum. Turns out the baking soda and witch hazel combo are superior. I’m willing to bet there’s a placebo factor here, but my overall excessive sweating issue seems to have completely disappeared. For other areas of the body, I’m thinking about giving the Greench deodorant powder a shot (don’t use near the face! It has talc!).

I would suggest reapplication every 8 hours or after activity, but that’s no different than other products I’ve used.

The best part is of course that this product is vegan. You’ll find many other deodorant/antiperspirants are tested on animals or contain animal ingredients, but not this baby.

Word to the wise: read Lush’s ingredients. Some products *may* be vegan even if they aren’t labeled as such. I suspect their products that appear vegan are not labeled as such because of “perfume” or “fragrance”. Companies are not required to disclose the ingredients in their fragrances since this is considered a trade secret. This gives them carte blanche to include whatever they wish. There’s no guarantee as to what you’re getting, so it comes down to whether you mind that being the case. Lush also has a tendency to have ingredients like sulfates and parabens despite all their “natural” marketing.