Are you an ecosexual?

Our trendspotting friend Richard shared this article with us about an emerging new social group - ecosexuals. Ecosexuals are people who judge potential dates according to the greeness of anything from their eating habits to their deodorant and are likely to dump them when they realize their date shops at Safeway not Wholefoods.

I reckon I'm a definite ecosexual but the hubby I'd call more of an ecanderthal. It's lucky for him he met me before this green thing had really taken hold; if I'd known then what I know now (both about green stuff and his relative eco-unfriendliness) he'd never have got past first base.

Speaking of judging people according to their deodorant, I decided last week it was about time to eschew the Mitchum in favor of something a little more eco-friendly. I was hesitant for three reasons: firstly because on the sweat/perspire/gently glow continuum I rank closer to the horse end; secondly because I've heard they're a bit crap and they're deodorants not anti-perspirants (not a big fan of wet patches, me); and thirdly because one of the less-well publicized side-effects of becoming a mummy is that your pheromones ramp up so the baby can easily sniff you in a crowd, an inconvenient side-effect of which is that the rest of the crowd can easily sniff you too (I wake up every morning ponging like an old tramp which at least gives me a big incentive to jump into the freezing 3-minute shower). But, you know, in for a penny, so I bought myself a stick of Tom's of Maine long-lasting calendula deodorant last week and have been trying it out ever since.

It was actually going quite well. The Tom's smells really nice and to be honest it did as good a job as the Mitchum had been, so although by the morning I'm still a bit less than daisy-fresh, at least I'm not slathering chemicals all over an area it just occurred to me is a bit scarily close to the boobs Dot's drinking from several times a day.

Then yesterday, out of the blue, about 30 seconds after I'd applied it, my armpits started really stinging. In fact, it was more like burning. It died down, but then I reapplied after a shower last night (I'd been doing yoga with Dot) and I could barely sleep for the burning. Same again this morning, so bad I ended up washing it off and going barepit today - ouch! So I guess I'm going to have to swear off it.

Of course, just to torture myself, now I can no longer use it, I decided to look into whether conventional deodorants are in fact at all dangerous; I had a feeling I'd read they were linked to breast cancer and sure enough when I Googled it, that was the case. The evidence is far from conclusive - one study found a link, another did not, read about it here - and the link was found between Parabens (chemicals thought to cause an increase in oestrogen all sorts of probs that go with that) and breast cancer cells grown in test tubes rather than people, but really, is it worth the risk? I think not.

Guess I'll have to see if Tom's has a sensitive skin variant and try again, then.

I also found this recipe for homemade deodorant on a UK website:

Herb Deodorant

Grind: ½ tsp
cloves
1 tsp myrrh
1 TBS coriander seeds
1 tsp cassia
2 TBS lavender
flowers
1 tsp thyme with a pestle and mortar. Use under arms as a deodorant. Some skins are sensitive to dried herbs so test a little first.

Er, anyone know where I can get me some myrrh?

PS there's some prob uploading pics today - will try again in a sec. Sorry to disappoint!