More about Armpits!
I think I started this once before. Maybe this is a continuation. I want to talk about armpits. I like armpits. (NO, not that way, not as far as I know anyway!) My armpits and I have had quite a varied relationship over the years, and we're doing an experiment now. I really enjoy smelling like a human, but right now I'm living with my parents, and they don't like that. They don't like it at all. So. After enough complaints and wrinkled noses, even though I didn't really believe that I smelled bad. Is it just that my friends like me better and like the way I smell? Or is it only my family that will tell me when I really smell bad? Or is it that my family is just accustomed to people smelling like soap and perfume and not like people? How important is it to smell like soap and perfume while living in a suburb? These are questions that had been running through my head for a while now. Tired of my family's wrinkled noses, I set out on an adventure.
The afternoon of the day before christmas eve, I put on some of my sister's antiperspirant/deodorant. Lady Speed Stick, "Invisible Dry: Powder Fresh." It smelled... well... powder fresh. And was on my armpits. It comes in a pretty traditional-looking purple tube with the thing to roll it up on the bottom and a shiny/slightly sparkally plastic cap. The stuff itself was a sort of buttery-thickness but not sliminess, white, cake of stuff. I don't know about the invisible part, but they sure were right about the dry. My armpits didn't sweat at all, and none of my clothes smelled like me even after I'd worn them all day, even the next day, which was 9 hours of sitting in a car and knitting on my way to the family christmas celebration. (my motivations also had to do with this. The southern part of the family is probably *more* likely to take offense to human-odor, and less likely to tell me about it, and more likely to complain about it secretly when I wasn't around.) The shirt with the powder-fresh odor is a potential bonus, less laundry if I can manage not to spill on myself, assuming I have to keep doing laundry in an effort to keep the "BO" comments to a minimum. Christmas morning, I went on a brisk, hour-long walk. My legs were sweating inside the new polar stretch fleece pants from Santa, but nothing from the armpits at all. I took a shower after that and before celebrations. There was a funny frictiony feeling on my under arms, and they continued to smell "powder fresh" after the shower was over. Once during this period of time, my mother commented that I smelled bad, at which point I told her about my deodorant/antiperspirant use Friday night, after another 9 hour car ride, I rinsed my hair in an effort to look presentable in under five minutes, and I didn't shower again until last night, Monday. Sunday and Monday, I went with the family to the St. Francis river, the only whitewater river in Missouri, and my dad and sister kayaked (I don't have my own gear and it was too high for me!) and I hiked. I think I finally broke a sweat on Monday, a full six days after one application of antiperspirant deodorant, which included two showers. Monday night when we got home from the river, my hair was pretty gross and I finally smelled again and showered.
Overall, I'd give the Lady Speed Stick a 3 maybe. I only had one "odor complaint," I put it on once and it lasted almost a week. It was weird at first not smelling like me, but gave my intolerant family a break. The powder fresh smell was stupid, but it faded after a couple of days. The extreme downside of this is that aluminum stuff they put in it and the debate behind that. I'm not really afraid of cancer, for whatever reason, but I prefer smelling like me to using weird stuff that sticks to my skin and blocks my sweat pores. I'd never put it on every day, but I might consider using, not more than once a week, it for occasions when I have to deal with soap-tuned noses and don't want to constantly shower and wash clothes.
The afternoon of the day before christmas eve, I put on some of my sister's antiperspirant/deodorant. Lady Speed Stick, "Invisible Dry: Powder Fresh." It smelled... well... powder fresh. And was on my armpits. It comes in a pretty traditional-looking purple tube with the thing to roll it up on the bottom and a shiny/slightly sparkally plastic cap. The stuff itself was a sort of buttery-thickness but not sliminess, white, cake of stuff. I don't know about the invisible part, but they sure were right about the dry. My armpits didn't sweat at all, and none of my clothes smelled like me even after I'd worn them all day, even the next day, which was 9 hours of sitting in a car and knitting on my way to the family christmas celebration. (my motivations also had to do with this. The southern part of the family is probably *more* likely to take offense to human-odor, and less likely to tell me about it, and more likely to complain about it secretly when I wasn't around.) The shirt with the powder-fresh odor is a potential bonus, less laundry if I can manage not to spill on myself, assuming I have to keep doing laundry in an effort to keep the "BO" comments to a minimum. Christmas morning, I went on a brisk, hour-long walk. My legs were sweating inside the new polar stretch fleece pants from Santa, but nothing from the armpits at all. I took a shower after that and before celebrations. There was a funny frictiony feeling on my under arms, and they continued to smell "powder fresh" after the shower was over. Once during this period of time, my mother commented that I smelled bad, at which point I told her about my deodorant/antiperspirant use Friday night, after another 9 hour car ride, I rinsed my hair in an effort to look presentable in under five minutes, and I didn't shower again until last night, Monday. Sunday and Monday, I went with the family to the St. Francis river, the only whitewater river in Missouri, and my dad and sister kayaked (I don't have my own gear and it was too high for me!) and I hiked. I think I finally broke a sweat on Monday, a full six days after one application of antiperspirant deodorant, which included two showers. Monday night when we got home from the river, my hair was pretty gross and I finally smelled again and showered.
Overall, I'd give the Lady Speed Stick a 3 maybe. I only had one "odor complaint," I put it on once and it lasted almost a week. It was weird at first not smelling like me, but gave my intolerant family a break. The powder fresh smell was stupid, but it faded after a couple of days. The extreme downside of this is that aluminum stuff they put in it and the debate behind that. I'm not really afraid of cancer, for whatever reason, but I prefer smelling like me to using weird stuff that sticks to my skin and blocks my sweat pores. I'd never put it on every day, but I might consider using, not more than once a week, it for occasions when I have to deal with soap-tuned noses and don't want to constantly shower and wash clothes.