By Natural Sweating Remedies Editor Daven Deloreon
(Editor's note: this is Part 2 in a three-part series of posts on Natural Sweating Remedies. Here's Part 1 and here's Part 3)
If you start the day or outing clean and extra-dry (tricks for achieving this follow) you not only won't have any bacteria on your skin that's just waiting for some sweat to help it spring into the air, but you'll actually delay and harness that sweat response with purely natural anti-sweat ingredients. What follows is the the prevention part in my series on natural sweating remedies.
By the way: If you can't bring yourself to fight a daily 'war on sweat' with big pharma funding chemical warfare, I recommend you also check out the 100s of pages of natural ways to make peace with your sweat response in this audio/ebook guide, by former sweat casualty Matt Stec. Although Stec lets you have it for free if salt water doesn't stop washing away your style of life, be prepared to change your lifestyle. As he points out, and akin to everything I discuss here: it's a "lifelong solution", not a "magical instant cure."
Prevention is all about keeping your sweat problem under control, and depending how bad it is, your state of being (stress, anxiety etc.) and your environment, the following measures may just allow you to reclaim a sense of normalcy while carrying out your day to day operations. At the very least, they'll enable you sweat less often and smell good more often.
Natural Perspiration Prevention Protocol (the good old 'Triple-P Plan')
This step's to prevent stinking and to make sure your skin is clean, so whatever you apply to it, in terms of natural deodorant/antiperspirant (this part is coming), is getting to it and having the maximum effect. Shave (if necessary and you aren't prone to irritation/infection) and scrub your armpits, feet, whatever it is you need to keep in check, with lemon or lime wedges. If you want some exfoliation make a paste out of baking soda or corn starch and citrus juice (or any acidic and natural antiseptic liquid). Rinse and dry well. I got the lemon/lime trick from Caribbean people and with the sun they get there, they ought to know!
If you prefer baths or if you say, have a foot sweat/odor problem and you think it would be easier to get your feet fresh/deodorized without standing up then I recommend you take your triple-p program to the tub. I don't want to sound like your mom, so I'll just say this one more time: make sure you do the scrubbing with citrus/natural antiseptic to get rid of any dead skin that can harbor bacteria. I don't care if you sleep in a bed of roses and have your own private fragrance parlor - if your cleaning goes afoul you're gonna prematurely smell foul.
If you're deodorizing in the tub, it's also a good idea to add pure aromatic oils to the water or other natural antiseptics. My favorite of late, eucalyptus is not only an extremely relaxing bath oil but it lays a serious bacteria beat-down!
Do this in the morning if you have time and always before bed because you don't want to transfer any bacteria to your pajamas/bed sheets while sleeping and you also don't want to go all day and all night with that bacteria on you.
Ok, now that you know you don't have any bacteria on you that'll cause you to stink prematurely, grab some more baking soda and dab this mixture under your arms or wherever. This'll not only prevent bacteria and odor (which is why people use it in the fridge when they're too lazy to clean it regularly) but it actually keeps things dry for a while.
For longer lasting freshness and some bonus aromatherapy, add a couple of drops of an herb oil - sage is an especially good one as it has drying properties. A little lemon or lime juice is good to, especially since it is a natural antiseptic and still the deodorant of choice in this modern age, in many countries ( partly because it's cheap but that doesn't mean it doesn't work best). Or how about some rose or lavender oil? If you're a guy you may want to offer the opportunity to smell like a post summer morning rain-fall garden to the girls in your life and go for something more traditionally manly and musky like pine oil.
Do this in the morning and before bed daily to keep things fresh around the clock.
Certain things in nature have antibacterial properties, smell good and even prevent sweating and/or promote dryness. By mixing and matching these you can make your own custom healthy deodorant/antiperspirant and save money in the long run too! I recommend you apply this deodorant on top of your baking soda, especially on extra hot days, on your underarms and any other problem areas. The base ingredient for this concoction that I've used with the greatest success is denatured alcohol which you can get in any paint store and some hardware stores (rubbing alcohol works too). Excellent toppings to build your deodorant bar with include (mix these with the base ingredient:
Citrus fruit juice
Tea tree oil
White vinegar
Turnip and radish juice ('Huh? - gardens always smell fresh)
Sage, rosemary, pine and eucalyptus oils (Especially sage for it's natural anti-perspiration properties)
Black, green or white tea
Anything that smells good to you and is natural!
Mix it all up with the alcohol (I do 1:1 ratio alcohol to other stuff) pour it into a spray bottle and voila...you've got custom Axe deodorant without smelling like you're going to a high school house party! Alternatively, you can dab it on with a cotton ball.
I guess you could forego the alcohol and jump straight to the goodies but the alcohol is a lot cheaper and it actually promotes dryness and kills bacteria too.
Natural Deo to Go: I have a bottle of Men's Stock from Aubrey Organics that I got at whole foods that is basically a premade (and obviously more expensive) version of this recipe for guys and it works as well as anything I've made at home.
Excess chemicals in the body that don't belong from smoking and drinking and less than natural or spicy foods = excess sweating. All of these things heat the blood up because of the work they require to process. When this hot blood travels to the a certain gland in the brain (the hypothalamus), it makes a 911 call to the sweat glands which produce sweat by vibrating nerves.
By kicking or curbing your stimulant habits (including sugar and coffee), eating a non-refined diet that doesn't have any oils or anything in it that doesn't come straight from nature, and avoiding toxic foods that cause you indigestion and sweating like spicy peppers, you can really keep yourself from sweating unnecessarily and put yourself at less risk in various other situations. Not only that, but unless you have an underlying condition that prevents it, you will lose weight (if you're overweight) as well and this alone will reduce the amount of water your body loses dramatically.
If you've got a meeting or date you're stressing about, then this is a way to make sure you're cool and on time. Have a soak in the tub making sure that your problem spots are immersed in cool water for 30 minutes. This should shrink your pores enough to allow you to be excessive sweat free for at least a couple of hours.
Find Your Sweat System's Rhythm
In the third and final installment of this natural sweating remedies series, we address the unmet needs of the systems in your body that are responsible for over-meeting your sweat needs, with natural and enduring remedies.
Learn to fine-tune your sweat response with:
Natural Sweating Remedies Pt. 3 - Retrain Your 'Sweat Damn Operator'
An Important Reminder: Everybody responds differently to different health treatments. The contents of this article are provided strictly for informational purposes, on an 'AS IS' basis, and are not a substitute for professional medical prevention, diagnosis or treatment. Consult a licensed medical professional before using any excessive sweating related plan of treatment or product product. Only a licensed medical professional is qualified to determine whether the primary cause of any sweating you deem excessive is hyperhidrosis or one of the following underlying conditions: any infection that causes a fever, Hodgkins' disease, tuberculosis, overactive thyroid, heart disease, cancer, pneumonia, malaria, liver and kidney disease, blood sugar irregularities and menopause. (Note: the preceding list may not be complete.)
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