Hi, y'all!
It's getting hot in here… for sure, 'cause it's summer in our part of the world. With two fans and a pool in combination with working from home I'm doing pretty well, but I have to be extra careful with my furbabies. Dogs do have a few sweat glands below their paws, but they manage their body temperature mostly over their tongue by panting. They can't sweat like humans and cool themselves like us. In addition, our two guys are brachycephalic (which means they have a shorter nose and head).
Due to anatomic reasons these breeds tend to overheat, therefore walkies only very early or late in the evening, when it's cooled off, food is served more often, but in smaller portions, so it's easier to digest, more water bowls in the house, and the water is changed more often, we have a cooling mat to lie on, and they get frozen yoghurt treats! Just put a teaspoon of plain yogurt into each cube of your ice cube tray (we Germans have to make our ice cubes manually, you know, and we are a bit jealous for the American cooling devices where the ice cubes magically drop out of the freezer door…). You might go over the top and mix the yoghurt with mashed bananas, liver sausage, apple sauce, cooked veggies, ham or cheese - but as Hein and Else like their yoghurt plain, I leave it as is.
But as we speak about sweating… A few years ago we were warned to avoid aluminium hydroxychloride in antitranspirants because it may be harmful, and so I changed to soda-based deodorants (sodium hydrogen carbonate to be exact) which I ordered from a small manufacturer in Heidelberg (nowadays, there are a lot more small locals who make things like this). And I was glad to find out that they really worked. Surely, you have to be aware of the different ways how antitranspirants and deodorants work - the latter doesn't stop sweating but it prevents that the sweat starts smelling. In that context I don't understand antitranspirants claiming to be effective for 72 hours - in that timeframe I take a shower more than once...
Anyway, in the meantime science found out that ACH isn't that harmful as assumed, thus I might use one of these antitranspirants again in situations when I don't want to get sweaty (for instance when wearing a light blue blouse or so). Nevertheless I'll stick to my soda-based deodorant for everyday, and yesterday I went into my witch kitchen to see if I can make a respective concoction myself...
I tried two different deo versions: one spray and one cream. As always, I try to stick to as little ingredients as possible and moreover, I wanted them to be very common in order to be able to get them in your regular supermarket.
The cream deodorant is done very easily: Just mix three teaspoons coconut oil with two teaspoons starch (corn or potato) and two teaspoons soda, and you're done! I used a coconut oil which was fragranced with lemongrass, and that was awesome. In case you use unscented coconut oil, you may want to add some lemon oil or so. I put it in the fridge to solidify, and it got pretty solid, I can tell you... But that should be no problem, because my bathroom drawer won't be as cool as my fridge:-) Further, I have to admit that the consistency is a bit grainy due to the soda, but with my store-bought deo it's just the same (only a bit more creamy).
The liquid deodorant is just as simple: Heat 80 ml water to 50 degrees Celsius (not above) and mix in one teaspoon of soda. Add the juice and the ground peel of one organic-grown lemon and let that sit for about an hour. Then sift it, fill in spray bottles et voilà. Yesterday I tested it during my work-out - and yay, I worked out and the deo worked, too! I guess, in store-bought deodorants there is alcohol so that it dries quickly after applying it. As my mixture doesn't contain alcohol, it takes a tad longer, but apart from that I'm super happy with it.
Right now I'm using one of the spray deodorants and the others are in the fridge for the time being. Let's see about the best before date, but I'm very optimistic.
Keep calm and keep cool!
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