I make no bones about the fact that I primarily wear men’s deodorant (still loving and repurchasing Old Spice Bearglove). I don’t care for antiperspirants (and generally don’t, “need,” them); surprisingly, there are few products marketed to women that aren’t. A few years ago, I purchased a stick of Lavanila The Healthy Deodorant to test the waters of so-called natural deodorants. I have since realized that, apart from alluding to it in this favorites post from May 2016, I never talked about it. Whoops.
Why You (Theoretically) Want It
If you’re looking to get away from traditional antiperspirant deodorant products, Lavanila The Healthy Deodorant is free of:
- Aluminum
- Parabens
- Propylene Glycol
- Animal Products
- Animal Testing
Lavanila also indicates that their product does not leave marks.
Other Need-to-Knows
When switching from an antiperspirant to a deodorant-only, particularly a natural-ish deodorant, you may experience an adjustment period as your body gets used to the absence of perspiration-inhibiting ingredients.
This is pretty normal, but a lot of people don’t realize this and therefore give products a prematurely poor rating based on this (admittedly ick) adjustment phase.
Since Lavanila is primarily a fragrance line, first, you can pair it with a variety of coordinating fragrance products if you’re into that.
My Experience
I had already gone through the, “getting used to not having antiperspirant,” phase when I started using Lavanila The Healthy Deodorant. To date, I’ve only tried their original formula which combines vanilla (stop the damn presses, I know) and freesia.
Admittedly, I had high expectations for a $14/tube product. The original fragrance was pleasant; it doesn’t blow me away, but I’ve yet to encounter a deodorant that does. Unfortunately, the claims that it does not cause any marks on clothing is not accurate; it definitely can and will leave (non-staining) white marks on dark colors.
The first month or two were actually great. I was enamored of the product and wouldn’t shut up about it to anyone that would suffer me prattling on about it.
After that, though, I found that it seemed to be less effective. It wasn’t a seasonal change (i.e., Spring into Summer, therefore dealing with more heat/sweat/etc), it just seemed that it stopped playing as nice with my body chemistry. Over time, I went back to using my usual products at the time (Old Spice or the Arm & Hammer I mentioned in that same post); occasionally, I’d sub this in and find it was back to working well again.
Eventually, I used up the tube and went on with life. It just didn’t wow me enough to stay in my life. For the price and consistency of performance with my body chemistry, I couldn’t justify having yet another product to store.
The Bottom Line
Ultimately, Lavanila The Healthy Deodorant is a good product, but for the price and performance, it didn’t earn my repurchase. I think its a good option if you’d:
- like a feminine-but-not-cloying natural deodorant
- don’t mind shelling out $14/tube
- want to be able to pair with coordinating fragrance (perfumes, colognes, etc)
Since then, I’ve tried a few other natural options that I’ll be reviewing in the coming months pending my longer-term assessment of their performance.