Deodorant recipe baking soda-free| COCOÉCO blog

This homemade deodorant is gentle on your skin but tough on smells!

It happens to us all: at some point over the course of the day, you notice an unpleasant odour beginning to seep out from your armpits… That darn deodorant has let you down again! Now, you’ll have to spend the rest of the day with your upper arms glued to your body, like a human T-Rex. It’s cute for a moment, but it gets boring pretty quickly. So instead, why not opt for this homemade deodorant recipe? It’ll leave you smelling Pit Perfect! It will last all day, won’t irritate your skin, and will prevent you from turning into a fragrant T-Rex! Not bad, hey?

With its gentle, baking-soda-free formula and its purifying and antibacterial ingredients, this deodorant respects the fragile skin of your underarms while preventing bad odours from forming. We also took pains to find the perfect proportions of soft and solid ingredients so that the final product would have just the right firmness. It took us quite a lot of tests: first it was soft, then too hard, then WAY too hard, then it didn’t work. But in the end, we were able to come up with a highly effective deodorant that glides on perfectly. The final product hits all the right notes—which is why we called it Pit Perfect!

Keep your pits melodious and not malodorous with Pit Perfect, our new DIY deodorant!

How to make your own deodorant

Before you begin

This homemade deodorant won’t prevent you from sweating, which is a natural and important process that helps your body regulate its temperature. The powders in this recipe will slightly reduce your perspiration, but above all, the deodorant will act on odours. Indeed, sweating itself isn’t responsible for unpleasant underarm smells—the bacteria on your armpit skin are responsible for those. For a DIY deodorant to be effective, it must contain antibacterial or purifying ingredients.

Ingredients

15 g (15%) white beeswax beads
17 g (17%) mango butter
32 g (32%) extra virgin coconut oil
33 g (33%) white clay
3 g (3%) elderberry extract or essential oil scent blend

Tools

Good to know!

We advise against changing the proportions of the ingredients in this deodorant recipe, as this could affect its final texture. Striking the right balance between hardness and ease of application is no easy feat, believe us!
Coconut oil has antibacterial properties and imbues this homemade deodorant with a lovely sweet scent. The only ingredient it can be replaced with is deodorized coconut oil, which has the same properties but without the scent.
Beeswax is the hardening agent in this recipe. You can replace the white beeswax beads with any other beeswax (yellow or in block format).
Mango butter protects and nourishes your skin. You can replace it with an equal quantity of regular shea butter or deodorized shea butter.
White clay is absorbent. We chose it because it’s gentle on your skin. It can’t be replaced with another clay, as coloured clays may stain your clothing.
The chosen essential oils in this deodorant recipe provide it with excellent properties.
- Tea tree essential oil is purifying.
- Petitgrain essential oil is purifying and soothing.
- Rose geranium essential oil is deodorizing.
- Patchouli essential oil is restorative.
- Palmarosa essential oil is purifying and deodorizing.
If you’d rather not use essential oils, then you’ll have to use another antibacterial agent for your homemade deodorant to be effective. In the list of ingredients, we suggest using either one of our essential oil scent blends or elderberry extract. Elderberry extract has antibacterial and antifungal properties, making it perfect for this recipe.
As the deodorant sets in the tube, it may sag at the surface, creating a hole in the centre. This is because the beeswax will naturally contract as it cools and hardens. As outlined in the steps below, we recommend doing a double pour for a smoother and more aesthetically pleasing result!

Steps to follow

Prepare and disinfect your equipment and workspace.
Weigh the wax, butter, and oil in the first bowl. Place it on the double boiler to melt.
Weigh the clay in a second bowl.
Weigh your essential oil blend or elderberry extract in a ramekin.
When the wax, butter, and oil have melted, incorporate the clay and mix with the spatula. Take care to crush any lumps that may form in order to create a smooth, homogeneous mixture.
Remove the bowl from the double boiler. Before the mixture begins to set, add the elderberry extract or your chosen essential oil blend.
Mix until homogeneous. The mixture must remain liquid. If it starts to solidify, quickly place the bowl back on the double boiler to melt it again.
Pour the mixture into the deodorant tube. Some of the mixture will stick to the walls of the bowl. That’s fine, you want to save a little bit for the next step.
Gently re-melt the mixture remaining in the bowl on the double boiler.
Pour the remainder into the tube, on top of your previous pour, to fill in any depressions.
Wait for 24 to 72 hours before using your deodorant in order to give the beeswax enough time to fully harden.