By Miwa Hiroe

What makes you select one product over another when you’re shopping? Is it effectiveness? Price? The ingredients? Habit and exposure?

Consumerism is a fascinating subject. It’s integral to the economy and often devastating to the environment. I’m sure there is an ideal balance although it would involve the cooperation of money makers, politicians, scientists, and consumers, to name a few. But there’s another aspect to consumerism, one that I’m drawn to because it involves human psychology, stories, and light pondering. Commercial products are a direct reflection of what people want, what they value, what they need, and this evolves due to all the change that only time can bring – technology, the results of trial and error, the developments of mass priority.

Without doing so much as googling the history of deodorants I can see how consumer needs have changed immensely in only a few generations. Three generations before me, my great grandfather spent whole winters in one pair of underwear, a pair that was probably waterproofed by his own oil and further insulated with grime. I’m sure he smelled like a polecat and deodorant wasn’t part of his vocabulary but it’s people like him that created a need for a product (at least in their company’s opinion) that would counter the more putrid aspects of perspiration and the like.

Angles on the matter.

At one time “de-odorizing” was dousing with horrendous amounts of perfume to cover a stench, but it’s developed to the point of being able to block perspiration, kill bacteria, AND improve scent. Certainly, these were effects that people wanted, valued, and had a need for. Time, however, exposed some objectionable outcomes of these otherwise marvelous qualities (including the rise in breast cancer, cutaneous reactions, and water pollution), which brings us to the ingredients.

In defense of the manufacturers, all ingredients have a purpose, one that is practical and desired for a specific result. What about the other results? Would an ingredient still be prioritized if the adverse impacts outweighed the benefits? Here are some common ingredients that make standard deodorants so effective:

Aluminum Compounds: these help block pores and prevent sweating (note: perspiring is one of the body’s ways of eliminating toxins)

Triclosan: used to kill bacteria that so happily flourishes in warm damp places. It is classified as a pesticide and on an interesting chemistry note can react with water to create chloroform.

Synthetic Fragrances: to cover the stench. Generally made of straight up chemicals, including ones that are classified as toxins and hazardous waste products.

Propylene Glycol: originally developed as an antifreeze, but conveniently helps to keep deodorant from drying out.

Parabens: act as a preservative and sometimes infiltrate the body’s hormonal co-op as a fraudulent estrogen.

Other common ingredients include Steareths, Talc, TEA and DEA, and FD&C colours, all which contribute to a great deodorant, despite being carcinogens.

I know it can be a bit much to worry about ingredients, especially when there are no immediate side effects and it all seems a bit theoretical and paranoid. Accumulation is hard to appreciate before it’s added up to much. I’m going to up the ante by mentioning two more things. One is skin permeability. Skin makes up the body’s largest organ. It is porous and the most absorbent areas are the face, underarms, and genitals. The other consideration I have is the environment. It’s hard to be individually responsible for the ozone layer but in Valemount, our greywater and sewage is treated locally and then discharged into Cranberry Marsh. The marsh is also a bird sanctuary and home to a plethora of other critters. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to consider the ramifications of what we consume, absorb, dispose of, excrete, and even wash from our bodies.

There are a few new items at Infinity that I’m excited to be putting on the shelf, namely because of the ingredients and manufacturer integrity. My favourite of these is Schmidt’s Deodorant. It works, is made of natural ingredients, and smells amazing. The one side note is that it doesn’t contain any bleaches which, while great for the skin, can cause a bit of greying on white shirts, although nothing that can’t be washed out.