Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Swampass Is Natural Too: Tom's of Maine Naturally Dry Antiperspirant Deodorant

 Dixie









Maybe it's my fault. I was working under the assumption that a deodorant was supposed to make your pits less smelly and that an antiperspirant was supposed to help you not sweat. That's what I expected of Tom's of Maine Naturally Dry Antiperspirant Deodorant. No, wait, that's what it's supposed to do. I expected the product to work. 

There are few beauty disasters that are more distressing than discovering midday that your armpits smell.  And not only do they smell, but you have white streaks all under your arms and your shirt is sticking to your armpits.  OH MY GOD, so gross. I get squicked out all over again just thinking about it. Such was my experience with the Tom's of Maine Naturally Dry Antiperspirant Deodorant

At first glance, this product looks okay. Smells nice when you put your nose to it, which is more than I can say for most powder-scented deodorants. Usually Powder Scent is code for Gagging, Cloying BO Magnifier, but the Tom's deodorant smells like it might be pleasant under your arms. It looks okay, too. It's a stick-style deodorant, which can leave white streaks on dark clothing, but nothing a slightly damp wet washcloth won't take care of. Not so bad. Looks promising, right?

WRONG. Wrongy wrong wrong wrong. I wore this deodorant exactly twice. The first time I wore it, I smelled sickly sweet BO the whole day. Being the forgiving consumer that I am, I attributed the sticky armpits and off-smell to a combination of the humidity and the shirt I was wearing. Sometimes that happens, you know? Well, the second day, when the deodorant scraped off my armpit and onto the armhole of my sleeveless black dress into a sticky white mass, I figured out that it was the fault of the deodorant.

I'm not even kidding you guys when I tell you that I thought my brand new dress was ruined. After smelling rancid deodorant and un-sticking my dress from my pits for two hours in the late morning, I had to go home over lunch, scrape the deodorant off of it, wash it and dry it before I could go back to work. (It was a cute black dress with red and white polka dots and I didn't want to change, okay?) And, I had to scrub that shit off my armpits with a soapy loofah and reapply a different product. At this point, I was so mad that I wanted to fling the damn tube of deodorant across the room just to have the satisfaction of smashing it into a thousand pieces. But, I remembered 1) I'd probably have to steam-clean my carpets to get the gunk out and 2) I needed to save it in order to give it a proper excoriation here. So, here we are.

And by "here" I mean, the rating. I did not like this product one little bit. In fact, for all the trouble it caused me - nearly ruining my dress, causing me to go home in the middle of the day after stinking up my accounts, and generally pissing me off - I'd like to fling this product into the Cracks of Doom and dance a victory jig as it melts into oblivion. Really, this deodorant is only good to use for the exotic dancer method of preventing bikini area shave bumps but I can't even recommend you buy it for that purpose. If I could give this product negative tentacles, I would. It would be immensely satisfying to walk up to the Tom's of Maine corporate office and demand a refund in the form of four octopus tentacles. BUT, I can't do that. So, I give it a 0/8 tentacles. If you're some sort of sadist that enjoys inflicting sickly sweet BO on others, you can buy this "antiperspirant deodorant" at your local health food store, the Tom's of Maine website, Target, and Amazon.

Rating: 0/8 tentacles






Dove Visibly Smooth Deodorant, Secret Smooth Effects, Degree Women Natureffects with Absorbing Sea Salt, and Lady Speed Stick Invisible Dry could be better than this.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, you had to wash your dress halfway through the day? You *should* go demand your money back (and a few tentacles too, hee!). This was a hilarious read!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tom's is NOT great. And I'm surprised that they would make anything that was an antiperspirant. My fave, for an overshare? Arm & Hammer's Essentials Natural Deodorant. Not an antiperspirant, so no nasty aluminum to block your pores, it TOTALLY works, and the "Fresh" scent actually smells good. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just saw your post after google-ing natural deo. I am getting ready to start a blog on natural products. My testing and reco is Crystal products. Tom's pretty much rarely works. You should find the Crystal products work extremely well. You can find them in most grocery stores and whole foods. Good luck.

    ReplyDelete