I'm not going to pretend it's easy to use deodorant in a jar. It's a pain in the ass. Fortunately, Schmidt's Deodorant, $9 makes the experience slightly better by providing a tiny spatula you use to scoop up the solid cream. Then, you warm it up between your fingers and rub it onto each armpit.
After I got past this 60 seconds of unpleasantness, I realized that Schmidt's is actually the best natural deodorant I've ever used -- by far. It's so good, that for the first time I can wear natural deodorant to work. In the summer. Even when I have a million important appointments. Now, if only they could figure out how to put it in a stick.
As a beauty editor I'm game to try just about anything -- but when someone asks me to test a natural deodorant, I break into a cold sweat.
It's not that I don't love natural products -- I do. But when it comes to deodorant, give me my Secret Clinical Strength any day -- because in my experience, even the best aluminum-free deodorants don't do what they're supposed to. Namely, keep us stink-free.
Recently, however, I noticed a slew of new natural deodorants hitting the shelves. With hopes that they would be better than their predecessors, I came up with a way to test the aluminum-free deodorants without having to be publicly smelly. I wore them on my morning runs during the two hottest weeks of the summer. I did a mid-way sniff test as well as a post-run smell test to see how the formulas held up. And the ones that scored the highest got an all-day tryout on weekends -- when I would be seeing my closest friends.
Not surprisingly, they didn't all make the cut. But these are the 12 best natural deodorants that made it through to round two. They're ranked in order from my least favorite to my favorite, and I spell out what makes each one special. I recommend taking a few for a test drive -- and then letting us know about your experience by writing a review on their product pages.
