Our Sourcing
We craft safe, non-toxic deodorant made from organic, food-grade, simple ingredients purchased from local suppliers such as Busy Bee Lavender Farm and Bear Creek Distillery, among others. We're proud of our ingredients and their sources. The result is a functional work of art that kicks your stench to the curb.
Jason and I make our own soap, laundry detergent, wine, cider, kombucha, yogurt, etc. and we thought hand sanitizer was a boring solution to armpit stink, so we started tinkering with overproof whiskey. Jason began reading medical textbooks about deodorant and armpits, seeking to craft a zero-toxin deodorant with fun ingredients found in high-end kitchens and far-flung exotic locales. There was one unifying goal in all of our tinkering: Every ingredient has to be organic and safe to use while being geared toward maximum effectiveness.
To find our sources for our ingredients, we follow a decision matrix that leads us to the right answer. In order below is our list of priorities we use in selecting each ingredient in our products. These priorities are hard and fast and help us find our way to the things we're looking for.
- Is it a food-grade ingredient? If not, we don't consider it.
- Is it organic? Some ingredients are actually grown in remote locations where traditional farming is used and an organic certification is too expensive for those farmers. We consider these ingredients to be just as good as the ones that are certified organic. So not all of our ingredients are certified organic, but we do our very best to ensure that they are free from pesticides and herbicides.
- Is it of high quality? If we wouldn't enjoy using a product when we cook for friends or family, we consider it not good enough to be in our deodorant. We feel that our deodorant is a vibrant work of useful art, and it ought to be the best we can make it. We don't use anything that isn't free from artificial ingredients or preservatives.
- Is it local? Not everything can be sourced locally. We've worked hard to find each ingredient as close to us as possible. This means finding local tea vendors with a similar ethos in their companies. It means supporting local, small businesses whenever possible.
- Is it in line with our beliefs? We consume things that are produced ethically. That means no slavery (For example, chocolate is often not produced this way, and as a family, we are adamant about not consuming slave-made chocolate.), no cruelty (we have a very hard-line with animal-made products as a family, and we maintain that for our business), and we want the people who produce our ingredients to receive fair wages and compensation; fair trade.
- How does it impact our planet? We all can agree that doing our part to take care of the planet we have is wise and correct. So we are doing our best to find sources for packaging and production processes that promote a healthier planet.
Down the road, we hope to visit the farms where each ingredient is grown so we can form relationships with the families who grow the vanilla beans, teas, and so forth. For now, we're using vendors we trust to source things with excellence.