Family Forum / Parenting / Twins / September 2004

Kathleen and Chris were both around 8 or so when the issue came up.  Chris
isn't so bad, if he remembers to wash under his arms it goes away, but
Kathleen who is very developed needed deodorant.  We started out the natural
deodorants, but she was allergic, so we switched to "teen" and that was ok
for a while, then that didn't work.  She uses mine now and usually doesn't
have to be reminded because she doesn't like the smell either.  It depends
upon the kids.  Our ped said that the very first sign of development is the
development of sweat gland activity - the need for deodorant.  That was true
for her, and the boobs, and body hair has rapidly followed.

Shirley

Really?  AFAIK there was only BertSherm's Fun 'n' Fresh (and its later
variant, Cool 'n' Fresh) by Philip Davis of Cleveland, and he went out
of business years ago.  I tried getting him to license my
non-irritating formula for bath foam --
http://users.bestweb.net/~robgood/lather.html , but he had his hands
full.  His product had interesting technology; the active ingredient
was triethyl citrate, which slowly hydrolyzed to release citric acid.
It was about as minimal an antimicrobial as would work.  I haven't
seen any adult product use it, maybe because it's not so strong.

Another interesting technology in that regard is chlorine dioxide
releasing formulas, as in Purogene's Oxyfresh, etc.  You can bathe in
dilute Springfresh shower gel, which appears to be unscented, and
nothing is necessary to be subsequently put on the skin.  ClO2 is a
very strong antimicrobial, killing so many microbes so quickly that
they take all day or longer to grow back, yet is extremely mild.  It's
a little expensive, though, and the Springfresh formula isn't as mild
a bath foam as mine, but if they can tolerate most bubble baths, you
can just slip some of this Springfresh into their bath water and
they'll never know the difference, but will be deodorized all day.
(It would tend to be inactivated by the alkalinity of bar soap,
however.)  Or you could make up your own ClO2 solution, but it's a
little tricky.

Robert

Really?  AFAIK there was only BertSherm's Fun 'n' Fresh (and its later
variant, Cool 'n' Fresh) by Philip Davis of Cleveland, and he went out
of business years ago.  I tried getting him to license my
non-irritating formula for bath foam --
http://users.bestweb.net/~robgood/lather.html , but he had his hands
full.  His product had interesting technology; the active ingredient
was triethyl citrate, which slowly hydrolyzed to release citric acid.
It was about as minimal an antimicrobial as would work.  I haven't
seen any adult product use it, maybe because it's not so strong.

Another interesting technology in that regard is chlorine dioxide
releasing formulas, as in Purogene's Oxyfresh, etc.  You can bathe in
dilute Springfresh shower gel, which appears to be unscented, and
nothing is necessary to be subsequently put on the skin.  ClO2 is a
very strong antimicrobial, killing so many microbes so quickly that
they take all day or longer to grow back, yet is extremely mild.  It's
a little expensive, though, and the Springfresh formula isn't as mild
a bath foam as mine, but if they can tolerate most bubble baths, you
can just slip some of this Springfresh into their bath water and
they'll never know the difference, but will be deodorized all day.
(It would tend to be inactivated by the alkalinity of bar soap,
however.)  Or you could make up your own ClO2 solution, but it's a
little tricky.

Robert