DIY Detoxifying Deodorant
These homemade bentonite clay deodorant bars are simple to make and super effective! They are free of baking soda and coconut oil, as some find those ingredients irritating, but still moisturizing with jojoba oil and cocoa/shea butter. Add essential oils for a unique scent! The bentonite clay helps to absorb toxins for overall wellness.
Homemade Bentonite Clay Deodorant Bars
Store-bought deodorants can contain toxins like aluminum, parabens, triclosan and SLS.* These toxins easily absorb into our skin and wreak havoc on our bodies.
Homemade deodorant is free from these toxins and therefore so much healthier for our overall wellness.
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If you have a nursling, I highly recommend making your own deodorant since the dangerous ingredients in store-bought may absorb into your breastmilk – and baby’s little hands also make their way into momma’s armpits.
Armpit Detox
This deodorant bar recipe calls for natural ingredients like arrowroot powder, jojoba oil, cocoa butter, and beeswax to prevent stinky armpits (and also moisturize your skin!)
The bentonite clay will help detox your armpits and absorb toxins that are leaving your body.
While you can use this deodorant at any time, it’s a good idea to use it when you are switching from a store-bought deodorant to get rid of all the toxins in the area.
You’ll find that this homemade deodorant is free from baking soda and coconut oil. For some people, these ingredients are irritating and drying. Count me as one of those people!
* (Read more about why store bought deodorant is horrible for us.)
Making Deodorant Bar Designs
When I used to make and sell soap bars, I loved creating designs on my bars using stamps and other items.
If you decide to gift these, your lucky recipient will be impressed anyways but even more impressed if they look pretty, too!
To make a design on your deodorant bar, remove a rubber stamp from the wood and place the stamp design-side up in your mold. Simply pour the mixture into the mold. When it solidifies, pop the bar out of the mold, and gently remove the stamp using your fingernails or a knife.
You can also find acrylic stamps at craft stores that are not attached to a wood piece to make this even easier.
How to Store:
- I choose to store mine in the fridge in a glass container to lessen the residue that I get on my fingers. However, this deodorant bar recipe makes for a fairly solid bar even sitting at room temperature. This will depend on how warm or humid your house gets.
- You can also pour the mixture while it’s warm into an old deodorant tube (great way to upcycle!)
Important note: Always use glass, plastic, or wooden utensils, bowls and storage while working with bentonite clay. Contact with metal may cause the bentonite clay to absorb those metal elements and less of the toxins found in your armpits/body.
This deodorant bar recipe was inspired by Simple Life Mom.
Are you looking for more ways to improve your holistic health? Check out 5 Simple Steps to Improve Your Holistic Health
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons bentonite clay powder
- 1/2 cup arrowroot powder
- 1/3 cup jojoba oil
- 1/2 cup cocoa butter - or shea butter
- 2/3 cup beeswax*
- Optional: 5-10 drops essential oil for scent
Instructions
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Mix together the bentonite clay and arrowroot powder in a bowl.
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In a small pot over low heat on the stove, melt together the jojoba oil, cocoa (or shea) butter, and beeswax. As soon as the beeswax is melted, pull from the heat.
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Pour the melted mixture into the bentonite clay and arrowroot powder. Add essential oils if desired.
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Stir, working quickly before the mixture hardens.
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Pour the deodorant bar mixture into molds. Muffin tins or soap molds work great.
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Set the molds aside to let them set until no longer liquid. Then, move to the fridge to completely solidify for 2-3 hours.
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Remove the bars from the molds and store in the fridge in a container.
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For use: Simply the deodorant bar on your armpit like you would a deodorant stick and place back into the fridge.
Recipe Notes
*I recommend purchasing beeswax pellets or grating a beeswax bar for easy melting.
hi, would love to try this, but I don’t have any bentonite clay, would it work without it? Or is it anything I can substitute it with?? Looks awesome
Hi, Mona! The bentonite clay is pretty essential. I order mine from Amazon.
I really wanted to try this recipe. I have every thing on my counter ready to go until I came to the part of measurements for the cocoa butter. I have no idea how to measure it. Might be my overwhelmed sleepy self, but I pulled my big ole block out and started cutting chunks off, then I thought well that’s alot of viod space. So I dumped it, pulled out my trusty cheese crater, half ended up on the plate the other half everywhere but my plate. Figured I had enough put it in the measure cup, then I wonder should I press it down? I did and my half cup is about a quarter cup. Normally I would wing it and just go for it but jojaba oil is so expensive! Any advice? Do you have a weight measurement by chance?
Hi, Angela! If you warm it up, the cocoa butter will soften and you can measure it out easily.
I have to say, I’ve literally tried SO many deodorant recipes I gave up. I saw this recipe and liked the fact it did NOT have Baking Soda nor Coconut Oil, so I thought, why not try it. I did and I cannot believe how great it works!!! Honestly it is absolutely amazing. It even works on my husband and adult son (who are always stinky in the middle of the day!) Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe! I’m going to make some for my niece in Florida who has a problem with deodorants. I think she will be pleasantly surprised!! You are awesome!!
I would give this 10 Stars if I could!
I thought this would be more complicated. This is so healthy. You could literally eat this too.
I have bentonite clay in clay form. Will that work?
Sure! You’d have to tinker with the amount of water though.
This looks like an awesome recipe! I like that it doesn’t have baking soda, and the rest of the ingredients look like they’d work much better for my (very) sensitive skin. I can’t wait to try it! 🙂
Hope it works for you!
I’ve been wanting an alternative deodoramt, thank you! I’m going to try cornstarch in place of arrowroot…also going to use my homegrown Lavender and Calendula infused Jojoba oil. Hoping it turns out ok!
Could I use vitamin d oil in substitute for jojoba?
Yes, I think that would work fine!
Have you ever made this and then repeated in order to add more essential oils? I have been using for 2 weeks and I am still super stinky! I have been using a Deodorant I make for a few years that uses coconut oil and baking soda. It works great for me but leave a nasty film on my clothes. I like this recipe and the texture it has, but need to play with it to make it work better for me. I just wasn’t sure how repeating it would work with the clay.
Yes, you can remelt it! You could try adding some lemon essential oil – it has more of that odor fighting power. Good luck!
Hello. Question; have you tried making it without the bee’s wax?
I’m vegan and wouldn’t want to use it
Thanks.
Juliane
Hi Juliane! I have not tried it without the beeswax – but the function of the beeswax is just to make it more solid. So, you may not be able to make bars out of the deodorant mixture, but you can put it in a container and scoop it out and rub it on instead. Or, you could substitute in candelilla wax. Hope this helps!
I use candililla wax. It’s vegan! And works the same as beeswax
I melted cocoa butter and mixed with the clay. Put it in a small jar. I just rub a little on. Works great. No Stink. No Stain. Cheap to make too!
I just totaled all the ingredients up and I have the clay already so it would cost me over $51 to buy everything to make this. Seems like a lot for deodorant. Just wondering how much I would get out of the ingredients.
It makes about three tubes of deodorant worth – you can store the extras in the fridge or give as gifts. Keep in mind that you’ll have plenty of extras of most of the ingredients which can be used for plenty of other things (jojoba as a carrier oil or moisturizer, I use arrowroot all the time in cooking or as a dry shampoo, etc. And I have a DIY Mustache Wax recipe on the blog that uses beeswax – perfect as a gift!) You can also check the bulk sections at your local stores to see if they have any of the ingredients so you can get the exact amounts.
Hi
Coconut oil leaves oil stains on my clothes, would jojoba oil do the same? can you leave out the oil/ any subs for it? Thanks for the recipe.
I haven’t had any issues at all with this recipe staining my clothes! I did a little research and jojoba is not suppose to stain clothes like coconut oil, because it’s closer to our natural skin oil. You could try subbing in more cocoa/shea butter instead of the oil though.
The cup mesure you use, is it american or metric cup?
American.
Thank you very much, I will try this recipe and brag about how it works afterwards. 😀
😀 Hope you love it!
(sorry for spamming you lol) I tweeked the recipe a bit, but would you mind if I mentionned the recipe on my blog, and linking to this post saying how it was inspired by your recipe? Mine is a tiny crappy blog nobody reads, but I would love to share, if you give me permission. 🙂
Go right ahead! Thanks for asking! Feel free to drop a link when you’re done, I’d love to check it out 😀
Hi there- I make my own deo currently with coconut oil and it feels a bit wet. I’m curious if the bentonite will help that? Also, any suggestions on where to get the ingredients in smaller quantities? Not really excited about buying tons of each thing in order to try this. Thanks for your thoughts!!!
Hi Karla! Yes, the bentonite clay would help dry it up a bit. Arrowroot powder also might. I took a look at the products I linked to and I’m not sure if they come in smaller quantities – those are the smallest I could find while browsing Amazon. You could try your local health food store!
Hello
I Went on Amazon to order bentonite and it said this ingredient does contain aluminum. I thought that was one of the issues with stor bought deodorant? One reason I stopped using store bought was because it turned white shirts yellow and I had read in several articles it was from the aluminum. What are your thoughts Sarah? Marnie
Hi Marnie,
Good question! The aluminum found in bentonite clay is different than the aluminum in store-bought deodorants as it is naturally formed, not man-made, and in trace amounts. I’ve never had an issue with this deodorant leaving yellow spots.
How much does this recipe make if I were filling up deo tubes? 🙂 Is there a substitute for arrow root, I can’t seem to find it in my local area!!
Hi Sarah! You could try corn starch, it’s about the same consistency as arrowroot – though I haven’t personally tried this substitution so I can’t vouch for how well it works.
I just tested this recipe using a deodorant tube, and it filled up a 2.6oz tube perfectly!
I just made this and love it! It filled up 4 deodorant tubes and I had some leftover to put in a small jar.
Awesome! Glad you love it!
Does it leave any residue on your clothes?
No, I haven’t experienced that issue at all (and I wear a lot of black!)
Can I substitute olive oil for jojoba oil?
Yes, that should be fine!
Could you put this in an old deodorant container and keep,in your bathroom, instead of the fridge? Seems inconvenient to have to go to fridge to get your deodorant.
I guess the convenience part depends on your routine (or perhaps how large your house is, haha) – I have to store my face moisturizer (hemp oil) in the fridge anyway! You can absolutely store it in an old deodorant tube though. But you can also leave it on your bathroom – It won’t get too soft sitting at room temp as long as your bathroom doesn’t get too steamy. It just leaves a little residue on your fingers.
Y do you have to keep it in frig?
I prefer to keep in the fridge so it lessens the residue I get on my fingers. As long as your bathroom is well-ventilated, it shouldn’t get too soft – so if you choose to keep it there, that should be fine!
Can you make this in deoderant tubes?
Yes, you definitely could!
Hello, love the recipe ingredients. My question is, does it solidify or stay on the mooshy side? I have found alot of recipes but they all turn out so mooshy.
Thnks Loafs Bakery
I keep mine in the fridge to keep it solid, otherwise it does get a little soft – but only to the point where it’ll leave some residue on your fingers. Not mushy. This will depend on your climate though, I’m sure!
I’ve not tried making my own deodorant in a few years. I love bentonite clay in my homemade face mask I use. Definitely saving this to give it a try later!
Awesome! I love bentonite clay in a face mask, too.
OOOO I want to try this. I”m still in search for a natural deodorant.