I couldn’t believe that it happened. Like out all of people, why me?!?! I always thought of myself as a good girl. I was always focused on school, work, and recently living a healthier lifestyle…..and then this happened. Smh. The doctors never lied when they said these issues could be asymptomatic for a while before noticing. I must’ve been damaged for at least a week before I really paid attention to my body. Normally, I was wet. Like realllly wet, and all the time. It’s kind of embarrassing, and my fiance always talks about it. But this time I was dry, and red, and very tender. I always washed there but I didn’t think I needed to examine it in the mirror on the daily. But once the pain became unbearable i just had to look!
OH….MY....GOD…...I burnt the skin off of my underarms lol. Here I am trying to use more “natural” products and my poor arm pits suffered from my experiment. See, here’s a random fact about me. I have this sweating problem and I can’t control it lol. It’s really bad. Either it’s my pits, my face, my back or my damn thighs…..and sometimes the back of my knees! (weird right lol) Something is always sweating…..even if it’s cold. I guess you can say I’m extremely warm blooded.
Since hitting puberty I’ve tried a ton of different solid deodorants and although many have worked, my fiance hates when he sees those white lines under my armpits. It doesn’t bother me much. I’d rather have proof that I’m wearing deodorant than to walk around smelling like funk. I’ve used Lady Speed Stick, Secret and for him I even tried Almay which is a clear hypoallergenic gel deodorant. I was NOT fan of Almay because I would always feel sticky and sometimes the gel would leave an “ashy” looking residue. And then there was TOMS OF MAINE.
“Ohhh it’s natural..ohhh it’s aluminum free.” *Spare me* I wore this deodorant for about a week before I realized that it was burning the skin off of my armpits. At times it would feel like my underarms were burning, but I thought that maybe my sleeves were too tight and that’s what was irritating me. But one day after my underarms were really sore I hopped in the shower, put some soap on my washcloth and began to rub my pits and low and behold….what I saw on my washcloth wasn’t deodorant, nor was it dirt, it was my own darn skin! I hopped out of that shower so fast and ran to the mirror. When I lifted my arms all you could see was an outline of where the skin had been peeled off as well as about 5 inches of redness. I was furious!.....but honestly crazy stuff like this happens to me all of the time so I wasn’t too shocked. For the next few days I wore coconut oil and baby powder under my arms and hoped that I wouldn’t become the girl with the B.O. at work.
So I contacted one of my soror’s who is in the process of developing her own organic body care line and told her about my problem. She told me that the Toms deodorant, was just that, deodorant and not a combination of that with an anti perspirant. I had no clue that they were two different things. So I began to do some research. According to http://www.healthynomics.com/2010/06/deodorant-vs-antiperspirant-whats-the-difference/ deodarant blocks out odor and anti perspriants prevent our bodies from sweating. Since Tom’s doesn’t have aluminum (which is the active ingredient which causes this block) I’m assuming that the sweat...my sweat is what caused the skin irritation.
From now on, I’m going to do a lot more research before testing out new products. Although I’m on a new journey of becoming more self sufficient and learning to rely less on manufactured food and products, I don’t want to jump the gun and have an irritation somewhere else lol.
Until time next……
xoxoTheRegalLady