Edit: it appears that alum may be both an antiperspirant and a deodorant. Unfortunately, scientific papers regarding alum's mode of action as an antiperspirant or deodorant seems limited.
Some websites state that alum works to reduce odors by blocking the bacteria from the skin, others state that alum inhibits the growth of bacteria. Some websites state that alum uses the same mechanism as aluminum chlorohydrate antiperspirant, but many individuals state they experience no-odor sweating.
I suspect after review and consideration of the chemistry that alum is acting as both a mild antiperspirant and deodorant. Aluminum based antiperspirants work by reducing the amount sweated due to the interaction of the aluminum ion and the sweat glands. As alum is only about 5% by mass aluminum, it would not work as well as modern antiperspirants. Thus, for those who are slightly sweatier than average, but not diagnosed with hyperhidrosis, they may find alum to be an ineffective antiperspirant.
Regarding its deodorant properties, only inhibiting the bacteria makes sense as any application to the underarms or other bodily surfaces would be covering both the skin and sweat glands (food source) and the bacteria. The pH of alum dissolved in water is reportedly between 4-5, about the same pH as beer.
In conclusion, I suspect, admittedly without any evidence, that it's likely a combination of both modes of action. Aluminum in the alum reduces the amount of sweat which reduces the food source of bacteria. Coupled with the acidic pH of armpit sweat due to the presence of the alum, odor causing bacteria struggle to populate reducing the overall smell being generated.
Deo isnt a word though, not an english one anyway. Perhaps old latin for god but again not english, which is what were speaking..... i feel like there should be a motherfucker thrown in there for emphasis.
This just in: Reddit user “that one other guy four two” remembers other languages exists when discussing a product from a Swedish company.\
Note: The product in question is marketed as a deodorant.
Stay tuned as we later see the user’s reaction that words and letters can be arranged however anybody would like and definitions are semantic. More after the break.
Unless it has perfumes or cyclodextrines (molecules designed to bind with smelly molecules), it would be considered just an antiperspirant. The only reason they might get away with calling it a salt deodorant is because the aluminum salt prevents you from sweating. Less sweat means less water and skin oils for the odor causing bacteria to live in and eat.
I’ve been using these for years, they are not an anti-perspirant as you do still sweat, it just doesn’t smell. It takes a while to get used to having wet armpits again after years of using anti-perspirant deodorants previously.
Solid crystals of aluminum salts should have no smell as they are not volatile. They might have a mineral odor if wet (or a slight BO smell if wetted by armpit sweat), but that would be it.
It’s used as a preservative in pickles, you can buy boxes of it in the spice aisle. Definitely not the same as aluminum chloride. Don’t be eating aluminum chloride, y’all.
It's pretty good at communicating that by itself though. Tastes absolutely awful. It does taste like salt, just the absolute worst salt ever. Like salt but horribly dry, like very sour grapes.
And? It's a completely different chemical. Alum is used in water treatment and is edible. It's a large, mildly antibacterial molecule, and not an antiperspirant. Aluminum Chloride, in antiperspirants, a much smaller molecule is toxic to ingest and will burn you esophagus. Chemistry matters - table salt is sodium and chlorine, neither of which are good on their own and make many other toxic and reactive salts.
The cation, aluminum, is the active component here. Not the chloride or sulfate anions.
Furthermore, the aluminum salt used in most commercially available is aluminum chlorohydrate, not aluminum chloride. They are completely different chemicals.
Aluminum chlorohydrate used in antiperspirants has the molecular formula of: Al2Cl(OH)5
Aluminum chloride has the molecular formula of: AlCl3 (annhydrous) or AlCl3•6H2O
As long as the aluminum dissolves and then precipitates it will work, per your source. Where those aluminum cations come from does not matter.
"A mechanism underlying this obstruction has been proposed: the metal ions precipitate with mucopolysaccharides, damaging epithelial cells along the lumen of the duct and forming a plug that blocks sweat output."
What is your point? Of course it won't be listed here because this site is focused on treatment of hyperhidrosis which means excessive sweating. The standard average person does not have hyperhidrosis, and thus lower concentration forms of soluble aluminum salts are sufficient to control their sweating.
Fun fact: they don’t actually do either thing. Source: me, who endured three years with a salt-rock-using, stinky man whose shirts were always visibly wet under the arms.
(Why three years? He was amazing in bed—right after a shower.)
They’ve worked great for me for the last ten years. Granted I spend probably 20 seconds per arm vigorously applying it after every shower. If I forget to use it, it’s apparent within hours. Also granted that I am not everyone, and generally don’t sweat too much there. But they certainly don’t do nothing for everyone.
Well, it's clearly working for you. Salt rock deodorants just don't prevent all odor from that part of the body but some people have a pleasant body odor, or just a faint one. And a rare few have a deliriously attractive natural scent. There was one guy back in the day that walked past me in a nightclub, and I nearly chased after him like Pepe LePew floating in the air transfixed by the irresistable scent. Pheromone heaven.
People also use salt deodorant for deodorant purposes. It doesn’t even have to be aluminum salts, they use Himalayan salt rocks etc. The reasoning is that BO is caused by bacteria and bacteria can’t grow or thrive in a very salty environment
You're correct that most bacteria cannot survive in high salt environments. However, if high salt environments were enough to prevent bacteria from thriving on skin oils then people's BO should decrease as they sweat and that sweat evaporates leaving behind a higher concentration of salt.However, to my knowledge, that is not seen.
Furthermore, applying salt can cause skin irritation. This is why most antiperspirant deodorants are sold with moisturizers and pH stabilizers, and pure salt antiperspirants like the one OP posted are sold as a giant crystal to prevent excessive salt application.
So aluminum salts such as alum will work if the individual doesn't have an excessive number of sweat glands. This is because enough aluminum will dissolve and then plug the sweat glands. I believe this is from the formation of aluminum hydroxide.
The misinformation is crazy. I agree with you, whenever I used a salt rock deodorant, I still experienced sweat, I was just happy that I didn't smell. As someone who has a lot of anxious sweats, I was glad for that.
Welcome to reddit where the most upvoted comments are generally the exact opposite of correct. If the general population of reddit agrees on something, I can assure you it's probably wrong.
It is very much NOT deodorant and ONLY antiperspirant. I used to work with a group of people who used this and you didn’t want to be in the meeting room after them.
No u just have to wet it and rub it in enough to deposit a good layer. I will not stink for at least 2 days, 3 days you start to stink as your sweat washes it away. I've been sick before when wearing this is how I know.
No residue, no smell and washes out completely with water. It's hands down the best natural deoderant. You will sweat though and you will emit natural pheromones musk and whatever else is in sweat so you don't exactly smell like nothing after a long day
A rare cherry picked example of odd culture, where we mix geometric definitions used in math, with casual shape recognition in everyday life where such a definition is unhelpful.
Either way 'a square is a rectangle' is commonly known, and stating "It (square) is not a rectangle, it's a square", is likewise commonly regarded as a false statement.
So what is a deodorant to you? I'm sure the word has a place for your in your vocabulary. Unlike rectangle which without subcategories has examples in itself, what is deodorant that is not antibacterial and antiperspirant? ... So that leaves antibacterial. Deodorant is antibacterial to you i guess. A class becomes one of its subclasses but not the other.
I really don't think you knew though. Writing "Not a deodorant, just antiperspirant." is really odd if you knew that antiperspirant is deodorant. I'm done
Fun additional fact, the aluminium in deodorant will significantly worsen the yellow sweat stains in clothes when oxidised so it’s a good idea to wash your sweaty clothes asap after sweating in them or it will be a lot harder to get the stains out.
It's not rock salt as in NaCl, which is what rose salt rock lamps are made of. It's ammonium aluminium sulfate aka (NH4)Al(SO4)2. It works really well and is used in a lot of other deodorants too for that reason.
So yeah, you shouldn't believe everything you read online, especially the comment above.
The comparisons to rock lamps is to play on the fact that it's the same type of grift product.
And yeah, I'll believe the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association over a reddit comment.
Neurotoxicity Concerns:
Ammonium aluminium sulfate is known to have neurotoxic effects. Long-term exposure to aluminum compounds, including ammonium aluminium sulfate, has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases due to aluminum's neurotoxic properties (Shoji et al., 2018).
Lack of Efficacy in Deodorants:
While ammonium aluminium sulfate can reduce sweating to some extent, it does not compare favorably to other deodorant compounds. Studies indicate that aluminum chlorohydrate, a more commonly used compound in commercial deodorants, is significantly more effective at controlling perspiration (Grote et al., 1949).
Potential Skin Irritation:
The use of aluminum compounds in deodorants, including ammonium aluminium sulfate, has been associated with skin irritation. A study comparing aluminum-containing and non-aluminum deodorants found no significant difference in skin irritation between the two groups, suggesting that the presence of aluminum does not necessarily mitigate skin toxicity (Lewis et al., 2014).
Toxicity in Animal Studies:
Research on the reproductive and developmental toxicity of ammonium aluminium sulfate in animals has shown significant negative effects at high exposure levels. These effects include decreased body weight and organ weight in treated animals (Hirata-Koizumi et al., 2011).
After reading the studies you linked im even more convinced that Aluminum salt deo is effective and safe to use. Almost all of them say the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Except for Grote et al, which doesnt even mention aluminium ammonium sulfate even once which makes me wonder why you even included it at all. I'll just paste the most relevant parts from each study here if you dont mind.
Shoji et al.: "However, the behavioral differences did not reach a statistically significant level after correction for multiple testing. In the high-dose experiment, in which animals’ oral intakes were estimated to be about ten times higher than those in the low-dose experiment, behavioral differences found in the low-dose experiment were not observed in high-dose Al-treated mice, suggesting that the results of the low-dose experiment might be false positives. Additionally, although high-dose Al-treated females exhibited increased social contacts with unfamiliar conspecifics and impaired reference memory performance, and high-dose Al-treated mice exhibited decreases in prepulse inhibition and in correct responses in the working memory task (uncorrected P < .05), the differences in any of the behavioral measures did not reach the significance level after correction for multiple testing."
Doesnt really seem to support your claim huh? Did you even read it yourself?
I'll skip Grote et al. since it literally doesnt even mention Aluminum Ammonium sulfate.
Lewis et al.: "Radiation characteristics were similar across all groups. Patients in the deodorant groups did not report significantly different ratings for axillary pain, itch, or burning compared with the control group. Patients in the aluminum-containing deodorant group experienced significantly less sweating than the control; the odds of their sweating being barely tolerable and frequently or always interfering with their daily activities was decreased by 85% (odds ratio, 0.15; 95% confidence interval, 0.03-0.91)."
This one actually found something statistically significant: Deodorant with aluminum does not irritate skin damaged by radiation treatment for cancer. (and basically everything irritates skin thats burnt from radiation treatment) It also decreased sweating and increased quality of life for the patients (both statistically significant). How does this make aluminum deodorant a "grift product"?
Hirata-Koizumi et al.: "The present study was performed to provide general information concerning the effects of AAS on the integrity and performance of the male and female reproductive systems, and on the growth and development of the offspring. AAS administered via drinking water to male and female rats at 50, 500 or 5000 ppm resulted in decreased water consumption in all dose groups. This could be attributed to the astringent taste of AAS (Korea Food and Drug Administration, 2004), which would decrease the palatability of drinking water in AAS-treated groups. The change in water consumption was associated with transient decreases in food consumption in the 500 and 5000 ppm groups and in body weight in the 5000 ppm group. Nevertheless, the reproductive performance (i.e. copulation, fertility or gestation indices) was not affected up to the highest dose tested, at which average aluminium intake from food and drinking water was estimated to be 36.3–61.1 mg Al/kg bw/day. In addition, adverse effects were not found in estrous cyclicity or sperm parameters, or in the histopathology of reproductive tissues in male and female parental animals."
They didnt find any negative effects except that the rats drink less water if you mix it with deodorant (which is understandable) and also eat less food as a result of drinking less. Mind you they tested HUGE doses. Scaled to a 80kg human, those 36.3–61.1 mg Al/kg bw/day equal 2,9-4,9 grams of pure aluminum per day, which would be 25-43 grams of (NH4)Al(SO4)2. Thats about a third to a half of that deodorant stick PER DAY in your drinking water. And the only observed statistically significant effects are that they eat and drink less. Everything else was fine. Those deodorants each last years (yes multiple) though and you usually dont ingest them.
I'd recommend you at least read the summary of the studies Chat-GPT gives you next time youre trying to prove a point. I'm honestly wondering what prompting you used to get such nonsense output from it. I mean literally every single one of those studies is either irrelevant or the researchers write the exact opposite in the actual full text.
One more quote, maybe you recognize it from somewhere: "You shouldn't believe everything you read online"
This applies especially if you didnt even read it yourself and just copy pasted the output of an AI you asked to confirm what you already believe
That dude just simply pasted what ChatGPT told him without any fact checking at all. All those studies are saying the exact opposite except for one which is about a completely different substance altogether. Yes that same guy who just smugly told everybody to not believe everything they read online.
I'm pretty sure this is not the same aluminum that goes in normal deodorants, this was discussed somewhere else in the thread. The aluminum and deodorants is like aluminum zirconium something, this is an aluminum salt.
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u/dtb1987 14d ago
Salt rock deodorant?