An Effective Alternative To Using Deodorant

Over a year ago I discovered how baking soda can be used as deodorant:

I went to the grocery store (I was in Copenhagen at the time), and paid $1.50 for a small container. That night I showered, dipped two wet fingers in the baking soda, and rubbed it into my pits. I figured that it would take a few days to see a noticeable effect, like was the case with the deodorant stone.

The next afternoon I stuck my nose under each arm and couldn’t pick out a smell.

A lot of other guys swear by baking soda, but some complain about skin irritation and burning, especially if you put it on your balls. Enter Lavilin, a deodorant cream.

Here’s the mysterious product description:

A unique herbal deodorant free of aluminum and other harsh chemicals, yet so effective, just one application can eliminate perspiration odor for days — without the need to re-apply even after showering.

I used it for one month and can tell you that it definitely works, even slightly better than baking soda. But there are two downsides:

1. It’s more expensive. A small jar will cost you over $10, though you need less than a pea size amount per application.

2. It’s harder to apply. The cream is super water resistant so it will be tough to wash off your fingers after dabbing onto your pits.

The water resistance is key to Lavilin’s success: even if you sweat a lot, the cream will stay on. Compare that to baking soda where sweat causes it to run down your body. The Lavilin cream also seems to kill the bacteria that causes odor, meaning you won’t smell much even if you stop using it for days.

What I would do is put Lavilin on two days a week and then give a slight baking soda dab for the remaining days. With Lavilin or baking soda, you really can’t go wrong if you want to eliminate body odor.

Learn More: Lavilin on Amazon

20 thoughts on “An Effective Alternative To Using Deodorant”

  1. If you get skin irritation or burning from baka soda, you’re using too much. I only dip my pinky finger into the box and then put that much into my arm pit. No burning, no irritation. Experiment with different doses of baka soda until you get something that works for you.

  2. I use lavilin once a week, if that, and it works like a charm. Apparently, the longer you use it the less often you have to.
    As far as getting it off your fingers, wiping them on a washcloth does the trick. Sometimes you don’t even need to do that if your package comes with the plastic applicator stick.

    1. Agreed! Actually i have noticed that overtime you have to use it less and less. Sometimes I even catch myself thinking that I stopped sweating/smelling all together.) The residue from cream is a bit annoying, but as you mentioned, there are ways to get around.
      cool product!

  3. I use a mixture of baking soda, coconut oil, and tea tree oil. It seems to have strong anti-bacterial effects.
    Another important change is to stop using soap; it wrecks your skin’s ability to protect itself. I can now shower rarely, putting on the deodorant mixture right after the shower, and I don’t start smelling for several days, even in Texas summers.

  4. Baking soda worked like a charm, but irritated my skin after a while, then when I made a cream by mixing it with water, it gave me mycosis. (That is, fungal infection.)
    Granted, it was either the water or the container, but note for later: boil everything.
    Also, Lavilin, duly noted.

  5. Pro tip: dry the fuck out of your pits before applying baking soda The burning seems to only happen when I apply it to moist pits.

  6. I drink about one half teaspoon of baking soda in water every night when I get up to piss. It drives the urinary pH up and thus comforts the prostate. If you measure your prostatic fluid with a litmus strip you will see that it is normally very alkaline, which is also what you get when you test your urine after drinking baking soda or green tea.
    This is probably some crazy sounding gradue for you young guys but try it out sometime, especially if you have a sensitive prostate.

  7. 7 Ways To Combat The Dreaded Funk
    [NB: Borne of a long struggle hacking what works.]
    (1) Preserve your skin’s acid mantle at all costs. Don’t (sc)rub your skin in the bath/shower — just soak/let the water stream all over. Stop using soaps, gels, shampoos, deodorants and antiperspirants entirely. Clean out your bath cabinet and toss all of them into the bin. Unplug from the metrosexual Matrix and return to your primal roots. Dial down your skin’s sebum and sweat secretions by not constantly chemical- and mechanical-stripping it and/or constricting its pores. Chemicals are best used for cleaning/disinfecting your tub/shower cube and bath tools after a soapless bath/shower. And for your hands post-toilet, pre-food and post- grit-in-fingernails grease monkey/outdoorsman work or play. Plus a chemical-free skin will look much younger, healthier and more natural out on the sarge and turn you into a panty-wetting pheromone beast.
    (2) A soapless hot bath or cold shower (if you aim your telephone shower nozzle properly at all your pits and bits for several minutes), without toweling dry (dry out naturally by evaporation), will usually be sufficient to clean up and smell ok. You may even sweat slightly as you dry out — don’t sweat it. This will work even after the most intense, sweat-waterfall iron-pumping session. If you’re in a hurry to get out on a date and can’t wait to dry out, pat down very lightly with your towel at most (or use your hair dryer if you must), but leave your pits and bits to dry out by body heat. Remember, you don’t want to not smell at all. You want to smell ok (i.e., natural whiff). Again, it’s all about your acid mantle.
    (3) Don’t clean up everyday either – every 48 – 72 hours is plenty good. Unless you work pouring roofing tar daily in 120 degree mid-Western summer heat. I’ll admit this takes getting used to if you’ve been conditioned into a blue-pill antiseptic mindset all your life, but once you’re unplugged, you’re unplugged forever. Over time, you should withstand a 5 – 7 day panic-free bathless streak before you start to kick up any funk. Plus you’ll cope better when the grid shuts down and municipal water dries up during the Book of Eli Apocalypse. Don’t worry if that happens — the chicks will be smelly too just like in the movie (probably worse than you as the cosmetic crust most of them wear grows thicker and grimier with each application — you’ll still have an SMV edge).
    (4) Use a soft horse hair or boar’s hair cleaning brush to flake your skin all over (including your pits and bits and scalp) and get your lymph flowing before you enter the water. No flannel or loofah is required while in the tub/shower. Gently comb through the hair on your pits and bits and on your head while submerged underwater to distribute natural oils from your follicles through the strands and remove grime, dandruff and funk. A few months of this and you’ll have full-bodied, tangle-free hair. Coconut oil applied before a hot bath prevents your skin from dehydrating and will loosen grime into the bath water while submerged as well as kill odorific microbes. Bath salts can also help, in addition to delivering other health benefits.
    (5) Sweat is your friend, princess — learn to love it. It keeps you cool and rinses off funk-generating microbes from your pits and bits. Underarm antiperspirants block this natural process, and your smart homeostatic body compensates by looking for other outlets and goes into AC radiator overdrive (hence looking like someone splashed a bucket load of rain on to your back and head). Plus they create the lethal milieu known as the alum sludge — notorious for yellow, industrial solvent-resistant shirt pit stains, fierce microbial funk and serious lymphatic disorders. Therefore, my dear pupil, don’t panic when the AC in your office or car breaks. Don’t cower from the midday summer sun in your custom suit. Be unflustered in a hot and humid nightclub. Ride the heat baby.
    (6) Boxers and undershirts can help in temperature and perspiration regulation. Some colors hide a sweat patch on shirt better than others and some fabrics breathe/sponge better than others (bamboo anyone?), so figure out your wardrobe options according to your natural thermal and perspiration index.
    (7) Povidone iodine (trade name Betadine) in a spray bottle is all the deodorant you’ll ever need for the rest of your life. It’s incredibly effective in very small amounts and instantly microbicidal. Squirt a few times directly on potentially offending areas after your bath or ablutions before dressing up. It’s not sticky like deodorant stone, not greasy like coconut oil, not smelly like vinegar and not irritating like baking soda, hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol (rubbing alcohol can be ball-scorchingly painful). Betadine keeps your shirts odor-free (some funk can cling on even after several boiling-point laundry cycles) when it is sprayed directly on the inside or outside of your shirt pits before wearing, and — incredibly! — DOES NOT STAIN them despite its intimidating yellow-brown hue. Plus iodine is best supplemented through skin absorption than orally. Plus, did I mention cheap?
    P.S. If you want to add some flair to your natural pheromones while out on the sarge, apply your fragrances on to the outside surface of your undershirt and underwear at the warm zones — and NOT directly on your skin. Then put your shirt and pants on. Sweat on skin + fragrance on skin + bacteria on skin = the dreaded funk. A little rubbing alcohol sprayed inside your woollen suits (around the sweaty armpit, waistband, crotch and butt zones) can refresh them and diminish odor in the interim before your next dryclean. As always, eating clean and working out goes a long way too.

  8. Thanks to the “Gruesome” comprehensive post, I decided to take the plunge exactly 3 weeks ago. I stopped using shampoo, soap and deodorant. I didn’t even have much of a transition period. Within several days my body seemed to have returned to its normal balance of natural skin oils.
    When I wore deodorant and used soap I felt like on any given day if I wore too tight/stuffy a shirt, it was hot or I sweat to much, I would fear getting a funk. In fact I found I often had to re-apply deodorant at some point during the day, and definitely would put a little extra on before going out at now. I was in regular fear of either noticeable BO, or overapplying deodorant and having people notice I was clearly wearing too much. Now, I don’t smell at all. No masking my bodies natural scent, and no bad odor at all.
    I take a hot shower each day, rinse my hair and armpits thoroughly. That’s it. No soap, no shampoo, no conditioner. Twice in the past 3 weeks I’ve cleaned my hair with some baking soda and water, but not sure how much that even helped, if at all. After my shower I air/towel dry then spray some Povidone iodine in my armpits. Stuff legit works by killing the actual odor causing bacteria. I’ve even gone to the gym a few times and sweat like crazy playing basketball and even without deodorant….still don’t smell, no BO at all. Armpit odor is something I no longer think or worry about anymore, which has helped my confidence and my game, especially because I like to think I’m just oozing pheromones now. My skin and hair both feel as clean and healthy as ever, possibly even better since there’s an equilibrium of my natural oils. I used to feel gross if I went a day without showering – I would smell, hair would be greasy etc. Now if I don’t shower all day I still look and feel clean. I haven’t even had to use the boars hair brush or coconut oil or anything else, just a hot shower with a thorough and long rinsing of hair + pits.
    I just purchased Lavilin and am going to start using that tonight, but whether it works or not, I’m telling you people – give up the soap, shampoo and deodorant and just go with hot showers and Povidine Iodine. Your skin will feel better, you’ll smell better and you won’t be lathering your body with unnecessary chemical each day.

  9. I guess it´s impossible to avoid sweating, but to avoid the odour is easy.
    First, train properly every day so you sweat extensively. Sit in the sauna for a while after your gym session (sauna at least twice a week) so you will sweat out all the stinking toxic waste that comes out. Your pores get really clean.
    Eat healthy, lots of veggies and fresh fruit.
    And the most important step to not smell; stop drinking milk. Drinking milk and consuming milk products will make you smell, especially your feet. Just ask the japanese people, who drink far less milk than us europeans and americans. They think we smell like milk. And thats not fresh. There are many good alternatives to regular milk. Rice milk, oat milk, almond milk, hemp milk. Most of them taste better (except hemp milk) and are equally if not more nutritious.
    Then again, I guess there are hopeless cases who do smell regardless of what they do. But these steps will at least not make it worse.
    I live like this and I dont even have to wear deodorant anymore. And should I smell a little bit of sweat one day, I dont care. I´ll just be a caveman that day.

  10. Roosh – great article man. I’m a big fan of Lavilin, have been using it for years. I’m training for the triathlon, and the product just keeps on working. Doesn’t matter if I train 4 hours in one day. I’ll still sweat like crazy but I don’t smell.

    1. I’m a fan of Lavilin as well! My girlfriend got me some a few years ago, and I’ve never switched back since. We both love the product. I use both the underarm cream and the foot deodorant cream. Once a week, works very, very well!

  11. try baking soda & corn starch, but keep the corn starch under 50% of the mix or it’ll tear up your skin
    corn starch is a desiccant, food companies put it in powder sugar to keep the sugar from clumping up

Comments are closed.