Whats the Difference Between Antiperspirant and Deodorant?

What’s the difference between antiperspirants and deodorant? It’s a question that has been around since the two were invented and quite frankly, many are not even aware of. There are differences and not knowing could be a detriment to your health. Antiperspirants and deodorants are not the same thing as many people assume - they are not one in the same. This is important. Let’s look at the differences and help guide you to making the best choices for your health.

In short, the difference between antiperspirants and deodorant is that antiperspirants contain aluminum. As such, antiperspirants are considered to be a “drug” because of the aluminum and are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While this difference may seem minor and trivial, it is something everyone should be aware of.

The reason for the use of aluminum in antiperspirants is simple; aluminum clogs sweat pores. While this may seem like a good thing, it’s important to know that sweat in itself does not stink and is not the cause of body odor. Body odor is caused when some of the bacteria in our underarms feeds on the compounds in sweat and the waste produced by the bacteria is what stinks. 

Deodorant on the other hand does not contain aluminum and is not regulated as a drug by the FDA or any other governing agency - so long as it does not contain colorants. They do what they say, deodorize us from body odor by attacking the root of the problem, underarm bacteria. Now, there is a wide range of how deodorants do this. Some use chemicals, some use alcohol and some use natural ingredients to accomplish getting rid of body odor.

All Green Theory deodorants are deodorants; we do not use aluminum or any chemicals in our products. We are adamantly opposed to the use of chemicals in deodorant and believe that both natural physiological processes such as sweating and the presence of bacteria in our underarms is not a bad thing. Let’s take a deeper dive into this.

The first problem with the theory that stopping or reducing sweat in order to attack body odor is way off base as we’ve established above. What’s worse is that your body does not want its sweat pores clogged up and it does not want aluminum in it. Sweating is a natural process evolved over our entire existence and it benefits us in that it’s a natural method for detoxification and ridding the body of toxins.When you clog your sweat pores with aluminum, your body will respond by producing more sweat to flush itself out. As soon as the aluminum starts to get flushed out, you actually sweat more.

The next problem with aluminum in deodorant is that it reacts with sweat and guess what you get from that? Those unsightly, yellow pit stains in your clothes. It's not sweat that's yellow, it's the reaction between sweat and the aluminum in the antiperspirant! Yuck.

Lastly, aluminum in itself is not a good thing for human health; in fact, it's not good for the health of anything. Aluminum is the most prevalent metal in the Earth’s crust and yet not one single organism on Earth uses aluminum for a single biological process. Why? Well, it's a neurotoxin that wreaks havoc on our health (I am indeed a human writing this article). Aluminum in deodorant, because of its proximity to the axillary (armpit) lymph nodes, is associated with contributing to the cause of breast cancer in both men and women. Next, aluminum has also been associated with Alzheimer's disease again, because it's a neurotoxin and our brains are a massive collection of nerves. Lastly, if I haven't scared you enough, aluminum mimics estrogen in the body. Estrogen is the female sex hormone although healthy balances of it are necessary in men too. Unhealthy amounts can lead to fatigue, breast development, erectile dysfunction and a host of other issues in men. If it isn’t clear enough, men need to be conscious of the effects aluminum has on the body as well.

Now, because Green Theory only uses natural ingredients in all our deodorants, let's examine why you not only want aluminum free deodorant but also, a natural deodorant. Big industry deodorant and some of the green-washed “natural” deodorants on the market use chemicals or synthetic ingredients to suppress body odor. Ingredients such as alcohol that are included to kill off underarm bacteria will work in the short term but eventually the bad bacteria will develop a resistance to the deodorant’s alcohol and will become very difficult to manage without significant intervention to change the environment in the armpits.

At Green Theory, we believe in natural solutions. Our society has demonized bacteria in all forms and we do as many things as possible to keep them all at bay. The thing is, we are more bacteria cells than we are human cells and the balance of the different types of bacteria is critical to our health. We have seen this with the decades of bad bacteria-supporting diets and mental health issues causing the imbalances of bacteria in the gut. As such, probiotics and the use of them has blown up in the last decade. 

We’re leveraging those same abilities of probiotics to help combat body odor. Our all natural, aluminum free deodorants all contain 10 strains of bacteria that don't produce body odor. To learn more about this, check out our blog post, Probiotics and Body Odor. These probiotics compete for living space with the bad bacteria, offering a more stable and natural way to fight body odor (along with baking soda or magnesium hydroxide and zinc oxide in our sensitive skin version).

Rather than clogging up your sweat pores with aluminum, we’re completely aluminum free but we take it a step further because we want you to be at your best each day. Our deodorants include bentonite clay which reverses its electrical charge when it comes into contact with moisture. This reversal of charge attracts toxins and metals, pulling them out of the body, giving you a daily detox just by wearing deodorant each day. We are helping your body maximize its potential rather than poisoning it with chemicals and aluminum. Can your current deodorant say that? Didn't think so.

So, if you're ready to start taking care of your body with natural processes, natural ingredients and are sick of exposing yourself to chemicals, give us a try!

As a thank you for making it this far, you can get 15% off your order today on our website with code GTNOALUMINUM

Check out all our amazing scents by clicking in the menu above. We have men's deodorant, women's deodorant and deodorant scented like trees plus a deodorant for sensitive skin.