How to Make Deodorant Quickly, Easily, and Inexpensively (Well… Almost)

A few weeks ago my wife decided that she wanted some new deodorant from a company called Penny Lane Organics. Now, it’s been my experience that anything with the word “organic” has a markup of at least 200%. And, after living with her for a good 15 years I’ve become accustomed to spending more money on organic products such as this, that was, until…

…until I found out how much this “special” deodorant costs. For a single stick the cost was $9, which is easily three or four times the cost of a “normal” stick of deodorant at Wally World. But that’s not the best part. The only place I could find to purchase Penny Lane products was… Canada. Yup, add another several dollars for shipping. And, trust me, I tried to find it cheaper, from Amazon to Google Shopping to eBay… nada. So, I figured if I was going to get hosed we might as well buy two and save a bit on shipping. 🙂

To be clear, I’m not saying Penny Lane deodorant is bad or anything like that, not at all. I’m sure their deodorant is great stuff. I’m just griping about the costs is all. Now, the story gets even better. You know what I found out when it finally arrived and I looked at the ingredients? They were nothing more than coconut oil, baking soda, cornstarch, and lavender oil. I thought, hey, I’ve got all of that stuff at home!

So, this past week I decided this is ridiculous; we’re not doing THAT again. I’m going to make my own deodorant. I searched briefly for “natural deodorant” recipes and found a few that included other ingredients, were powders or creams, or were recipes that seemed close but not quite what I wanted. Then I found this infographic on How to Make Natural Deodorant that was exactly what I wanted for the simple fact that it included ONLY the same ingredients found in the Penny Lane deodorant and nothing more. Granted, I can’t say the quantities are exactly the same but I figure it’s got to be close enough.

Here are the ingredients and quantities:

• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp baking soda
• 20-25 drops of lavender essential oil

I should note that I actually tripled the ingredients right from the start so that I could make something akin to a large bar of soap which is probably like two bars of deodorant but I’m just guessing here. As with my toothpaste experience, I first had to melt the coconut oil. Then, you just mix it all together until it seems well-blended. Last, let it sit out overnight to harden (I placed mine in the fridge to cool faster but still left it overnight) and that’s it.

Here’s what it looked like when first mixed together and the coconut oil is still melted (I placed it in an old plastic bar soap container as I figured that was close enough to a large stick of deodorant that I could later cut in half):

And here’s what it looked like after it cooled overnight (unfortunately I broke it taking the bar out of the plastic mold):

I then took the scraps and cup down the solid middle piece so that I had what felt like half the deodorant bar and melted the scraps again. But, what was I going to put it in? I figured, hey, why not use an actual deodorant container? And so I cleaned out one that was almost empty:

And poured the re-melted deodorant mixture in (good thing I used a bowl because I made a bit of a mess):

Then I let it harden overnight again and here’s what I came up with:

Yes, it looks an awful lot like deodorant. The real question is how well does it work? Well, pretty good, actually. I started using it myself and feel like it does a good job. Of course, I’m not running a marathon and I’ve only been using it for a few days now but, by and large, I’m saying this is a good idea.