How Your Deodorant Could Be Damaging Your Body

For most people, part of their morning routine involves putting on deodorant. Whether you opt for the spraying or the rolling method, it's a must-do in the morning unless you fancy being followed round all day by a suspect smell emerging from your armpits. Because we've got between 2 and 5 million sweat glands​ around our body and they certainly like to work overtime.

But what is your deodorant actually doing to your body? The ​Discovery Channel's ​Youtube channel, D News looked into it recently, and it seems it might be doing some harm as well as good.

Most modern day deodorants are designed to tackle smelly armpits in two ways: plugging glands to reduce sweat production, and preventing bacteria from reaching the sweat under the arms, which is what causes the foul smell of body odour.

But as Jackie and Trace from DNews discover, messing with bacteria could actually cause you some issues.

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By interfering with bacteria on our body, it could apparently alter the number of 'microbium' - good bacteria - that live on us all and help us to remain healthy. Which means while we're going about trying to maintain our hygiene, we could be messing the balance elsewhere.

Having said that, scientists are still investigating whether the interference in bacteria that deodorant causes is significant enough to make us stop using it. We don't know whether the benefits outweigh the detriments currently. But in the meantime, why not give natural deodorants a whirl? We put seven different brands to the test, and you can find the results here.

So while we wait for more research into the subject, this isn't to say you should steer clear of antiperspirants - they still very much have their uses (as anyone who spends any great amount of time with you will most likely agree).

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