Pure and Natural Homemade Deodorant for Carnivores

This is a simple homemade deodorant recipe for those who are on the carnivore diet and looking for toxin-free or low-toxin skincare options. This deodorant uses only three ingredients and is free of all nasty chemicals. Not only it works and but smells amazing too!

Why you should throw away your store-bought deodorants

When you eat something, your body has an (although not perfect) mechanism to filter out and get rid of toxins and pathogens. But when you put stuff like make-up, moisturizers, sunscreen, or deodorants, the chemicals in those skincare products can enter the bloodstream directly in a short amount of time and can negatively affect your health.

Some ingredients in store-bought deodorants like triclosan, parabens, aluminum, and phthalates have been found to interfere with hormones, impact thyroid functions, increase risks of breast cancers, and affect reproductive health. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Although they are used in extremely small quantities, these harmful chemicals can accumulate over time from daily use. It is estimated that over 90% of the US and 85% of the UK populations use deodorants and antiperspirants. [8]

Going carnivore or animal-based will have eliminated a lot of toxins from our diet but we can not ignore other toxin sources from our living environment.

Although some of the evidence linking health risks with the chemicals present in deodorants is observational in nature and we don’t have any solid evidence on causation, I think generally the less artificial stuff we put on or in our bodies, the better.

I have not used store-bought deodorant for many years and used to make it from coconut oil, baking soda, and essential oil but have recently replaced coconut oil with tallow. It works just as well in terms of controlling body odor and smells much better.

How to make your own deodorant from just three ingredients?

What will you need?

You will need the following:

1/2 cup tallow
2/3 cup baking soda
40 drops of essential oil of your choice.

If you haven’t got tallow in the panty, please follow the instructions in this post. The post includes instructions on how to purify the tallow to get rid of the beef odor.

With regard to baking soda, if in rare cases you can’t handle baking soda, you can replace it with corn flour or arrowroot flour.

As to essential oil, you can use any essential oil that you like. I have two small bottles of tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil (both of which have anti-bacterial properties) and have been using them to make this deodorant. However, many other essential oils have been found to be effective against a wide range of bacterial strains and can work just as well such as: [9, 10, 11]

Tea tree oil
Thyme oil
Lemon oil
Lemongrass oil
Cinnamon oil
Peppermint oil
Eucalyptus oil
Oregano oil
Cajuput oil
Sage oil
Clove oil
Aegle oil
Palmarosa oil
Patchouli oil
Ageratum oil.

If you are not sure which essential oil you can tolerate, try to make a small batch first using 1½ teaspoons of tallow, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, and 3 drops of essential oil.

How to make it?

You can make this deodorant in just a few minutes by following these steps:

Melt the tallow in the microwave or oven using a microwave/oven-safe container. You can also simply put the tallow in a jar and place the jar in a cup of hot water to melt it
Add the essential oil drops and stir to mix
Add the baking soda and mix well
Pour the mixture into a glass jar and store it in the fridge to set.

Once the deodorant is set, you can generally keep it at room temperature. However, during extremely hot summer days, the deodorant will melt and you will need to keep it in the fridge.

You can just keep your homemade deodorant in the fridge and not worry about the changes in temperature. Your deodorant will be a little solid but you can just use the back of your thumb to scrape a little bit off and rub it onto the armpits.

How much deodorant should you apply?

Generally, you just need to apply a pea size amount for each armpit and once a day in the morning should be enough. If you work out and sweat a lot, you can apply it a second time before your workout.

This homemade deodorant has never resulted in stains on my clothes. But it’s better safe than sorry. If this is the first time you make and use a homemade deodorant, wear an item that you won’t be upset about in case it leaves a small stain and ruins it.

While it has become customary for most of us to use deodorant on a daily basis, if your body doesn’t emit a strong odor, you really don’t need to use it (including this homemade one) or only use it when you genuinely need it (e.g. when working out and sweating a lot).

What about antiperspirants?

Antiperspirants and deodorants are often used interchangeably, but they are two different products serving two different purposes.

Deodorants are used to mask your body odor but do not prevent perspiration. Antiperspirants, on the other hand, aim to stop your body from perspiration by blocking the sweat pores.

Sweating is one of the ways that your body uses to get rid of toxins and blocking your body from doing so means the toxins will accumulate in your body. In addition, harmful chemicals from antiperspirants can enter the bloodstream and potentially affect your health negatively.

For example, aluminum salts, the main compound that works to block the sweat ducts, may cause skin irritation, interfere with estrogen, and have been suspected of involvement in cancerogenic processes. [12, 13, 14]