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Aspire Deodorant

Natural, Ecofriendly Deodorant - Not Antiperspirant

     What's the difference between deodorants and antiperspirants?  Deodorants are meant to keep us from stinking, while antiperspirants are intended to prevent perspiration, or sweating, with the misguided perception that if we don't sweat, we won't stink.  The problem with antiperspirants is that we are absolutely supposed to sweat.  This is our body's way of cooling off our skin and releasing toxins from our bodies.  The sweat from our armpits is extremely important, because we have lymph nodes under our skin in our armpits, and this is a key point where they release fluids through the skin.  The last thing we should do to our armpits is rub something in them that prevents these fluids from passing out of our bodies.  Aspire is proud to make a simple natural deodorant that works.  We do not make any kind of antiperspirant, and never will. 

About Aspire Deodorant - Your Best Choice for Organic Personal Care 

     Aspire deodorant is the simplest, cleanest possible way to deodorize.  Best of all, Aspire Deodorant is organic, non-gmo and biodegradable!  It’s all natural, a solution of ethyl alcohol, also known as ethanol, scented with essential oils and a little hemp oil included for an emollient on the skin.  Ethanol is made by fermentation of grains with yeast.  It is clean and effective, leaving no stain or residue on skin or clothing.  Basically, you spray your skin, and the alcohol kills the microbes that cause the stench, then it evaporates, leaving a light aroma of essential oils behind, along with the hemp oil, which soothes the skin.  What’s better at killing germs than good, old-fashioned alcohol?  And, since it’s so great at beating back those microbes, our customers find that it also has other uses, such as foot and shoe deodorizer, hand sanitizer or air freshener.  You can also sanitize wounds with it, in a pinch!  The best part is, since it’s a liquid spray, the bottle can easily be refilled, eliminating yet another single-use plastic container from the waste stream.

Ingredients in Aspire Deodorant for Natural Health and Beauty

  • Alcohol, Organic        

       Alcohol is the base ingredient in Aspire deodorant.  It temporarily sanitizes the skin, killing the microbes, and then evaporates, leaving the essential oils and hemp oil, described below, for a pleasant lingering scent.  There are thousands of different kinds of alcohols, and Aspire deodorant contains specially denatured alcohol, or SDA.  SDA is ethanol, the same natural alcohol in adult beverages, to which a small amount of denaturant has been added.  SDA is typically used in cosmetics to ensure that it will never be imbibed, to avoid the expensive alcohol tax that is applied to adult beverages.  There are many ways to denature alcohol, and the alcohol Aspire uses is denatured with a small amount of bitterant, known as Bitrix.  Bitrix prevents consumers from drinking the alcohol, because it causes a gag reflex at extremely low concentrations, and is impossible to drink.  Yet, it has a rather pleasant banana-like smell.  The SDA in Aspire Deodorant is made in the U.S.A. and is USDA organic certified.

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  • Water is used to take the edge off the alcohol.  The water in Aspire Deodorant comes from the top of the Rocky Mountains, via Clear Creek, which flows through Golden, and is the same water source as the famous "Rocky Mountain Spring Water" used at the Coors Brewery, just up the street from our shop.

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  • Hemp Seed Oil, Organic

        Hemp seed oil is added as an emollient that remains on the skin after the alcohol evaporates.  Currently it comes from Canada and is organic.  It is natural, rendered from hemp seeds.

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  • Essential Oils are used to scent Aspire Deodorants.  Essential oils are oils that are extracted from plants.  These oils are completely natural, since they are simply concentrated plant oils, and they are fully biodegradable.  Some of the essential oils are organic, if available, and others are not.  Aspire continues to increase the oils that are organic.  None of the oils are from the U.S.A., and Aspire will continue to look for sources from the U.S.A. 

Ingredients That We Avoid in Aspire Deodorant

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  • Aluminum in any form, such as aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex GLY, aluminum sulfate or aluminum chlorhydrate.  The aluminum compounds used in antiperspirants reduce wetness by blocking your underarm sweat ducts.  At Aspire, we make deodorant, not antiperspirant, so our deodorant does not contain gland and pore-blocking ingredients.  Our thinking is that those sweat glands are there for a reason, to allow excess moisture and salts out of our bodies, and to block them is to interfere with our natural body functions.  One way to say it is, we humans need to sweat, we just prefer not to stink while we’re doing it. 

  • Silicones in any form, such as cyclopentasiloxane.  This is used in deodorant to give a slippery feeling on the skin.  Really?  Or how about some dimethicone, which is used to form a protective layer along skin and to improve water retention.  Since Aspire Deodorant is not an antiperspirant, we don’t need to improve water retention.  At Aspire, we avoid silicones.  Period.  See why under Colorado Gold Soap.

  • C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate is synthesized from fossil fuels and is used in deodorants and other cosmetics as an emollient, texture enhancer, and antimicrobial.  At Aspire, we prefer to keep our ingredients simple and we will not use anything derived from fossil fuels, which is how most synthetics are made.  Our deodorant has hemp oil in it for an emollient, and the alcohol base is an antimicrobial, so no need for scary petrochemicals.

  • PPG-14 Butyl Ether may be used in solid deodorants for emollience and smooth application properties.  It is manufactured by reacting butyl alcohol with an excess of propylene glycol. Propylene glycol is made from propylene, also called propene, a colorless, flammable, gaseous hydrocarbon, obtained from petroleum.

  • Polyethylene may be used to help keep an emulsion from separating into its oil and liquid components, and is yet another petroleum-derived chemical.  Since Aspire Deodorant is not an emulsion, there is no need for yet another toxin.

  • Preservatives.  Since Aspire Deodorant has an alcohol base, preservatives are completely unnecessary, because nothing can grow in alcohol.  Preservatives can be pretty nasty.  After all, their sole purpose is to kill microbes, which can be inherently tricky to kill.  The trouble with preservatives is that it’s pretty much impossible to control what they kill and what they don’t kill, so when they enter our body through skin or glands, they will continue to kill the microbes that make up our bodily functions until they are spent.  One example is BHT, or butylated hydroxytoluene, which may be linked to liver and kidney damage. It may also cause skin damage.  BHT is banned in Europe and is a suspect carcinogen.  Another example is triclosan, which is an endocrine disruptor.  We really don’t want to be applying this kind of stuff to our skin, especially under our arms, where are endocrine glands are, do we?

  • Propylene Glycol is used to help form a solid base for some deodorants that other ingredients can be suspended in.  The problem is, propylene glycol is made from petroleum, and at toxic levels, it has been found to cause severe neurological symptoms and seizures.  There have also been cases of nausea and vertigo.  Aspire deodorant is a liquid, so there is no need for a toxic solid base.

  • Petroleum Products in general will not be found in Aspire Deodorant.  Petrolatum, or petroleum jelly, can be found in some antiperspirants, and its purpose is to form a water-repellant film around the applied area, creating an effective barrier against the evaporation of the skin's natural moisture.  Again, we don’t want or need barriers to moisture, but even worse, petrolatum can be contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Studies suggest that prolonged exposure to PAHs on the skin is associated with cancer.  Another example, PPG-3 Myristyl Ether, is sometimes used as an emollient.  We choose to use hemp seed oil in Aspire Deodorant, a natural, plant-based ingredient.  Yet another is dipropylene glycol (petroleum based), which is used as a solvent in some deodorants.  Aspire deodorant uses natural ethanol as the solvent, not petroleum products.  A study in 2011 published in the Journal of Women's Health found that hydrocarbons are the largest contaminants in the human body.  A good portion of these can be absorbed through the skin, which is the largest organ in the human body.

  • Palm Oil Products.  We do not use palm oil either directly, or indirectly, through products that contain palm oil.  Examples of products that are made from palm oil are sodium stearate, a stabilizer and thickener that helps harden soaps and solid deodorants.  Another example is stearic acid which helps stick deodorant glide easily onto underarms and gives a non-greasy feel to the product.  Another example is stearyl alcohol.   While it’s true that all these additives are made from natural plant-based ingredients, thus they’re completely harmless, the problem is, they are made from palm oil.  Aspire does not use palm oil or ingredients made from palm oil in our products because of the massive habitat destruction from palm oil plantations.  Also, our deodorant is a spray, so we don’t need these anyway.

  • Tetrasodium EDTA is a chelating agent, used to sequester and decrease the reactivity of metal ions that may be present in a product.  The trouble is that it continues to sequester metals even after use, when it is flushed down the drain, through the waste treatment plants and into receiving water bodies, tying up metals so that they can’t be taken up by aquatic organisms that need them as micronutrients.  It does break down eventually, but who needs yet more complicated chemicals, especially in deodorant? 

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