Bamboo Straw Girl’s Crystal Deodorant Stone

I decided to feature and recommend one of the best products I discovered in the last couple of years: Bamboo Straw Girl’s Crystal Deodorant Stone since LSQ started this little random blog to write about things I’ll share with my own friends. Note: this post is not sponsored.

What is the Crystal Deodorant Stone?

Bamboo Straw Girl’s crystal deodorant stones are literally little blocks of salt. They are made of a natural mineral salt called Potassium Alum, which is NOT the same as Aluminium Chloride or Aluminium Chlorohydrate commonly found in conventional antiperspirants / deodorant.

How does the Crystal Deodorant Stone work?

When you wet the stone and rub it gently on your armpits (or feet or anywhere else you tend to sweat and smell unfresh), this forms an anti-bacterial salt coating on your skin. What this does is that you will continue to sweat, but no bacteria will form because of the anti-bacterial coating!

Does the Crystal Deo Stone really work? LSQ’s review~

Yes, yes, and yes! LSQ doesn’t have bad Body Odour (BO) but I do sweat under my armpits and will definitely smell sour after a long day or a few hours out and about in Singapore’s glorious heat if I don’t apply anything.

The Crystal Deo Stone absolutely works for me – I apply after my morning shower and go about my day’s business and at night, my armpits smell of nothing even after a sweaty workout. So yes, the stone lasts all day for me without the need to reapply!

The only thing I had to get used to was that because the stone isn’t an antiperspirant, my armpits would sweat quite a bit especially on hot days. But I’ve made peace with it because I feel it’s a small price to pay in exchange for not feeding ‘poison’ to my body via conventional deodorants!

I’ve recommended the stone to a few of my friends and the reviews have been equally positive.

What’s so bad about conventional deodorant and why switch to the Crystal Deo Stone?

LSQ used to apply conventional roll-on deodorant from drugstore brands such as Dove or Nivea for many years, but would always remember my dad warning me that such products cause cancer.

I always parked that ‘old wives’ tale’ warning at the back of my head until the end of 2019 when I started to really get into supporting local brands and stumbled upon Bamboo Straw Girl. It was not her straws but her Crystal Deodorant stone that really piqued my interest lmao.

That was when I took a serious look into the ingredients used to make conventional deodorants. In summary: although there are no direct research results linking conventional deodorant to cancer, the aluminium, parabens, fragrances, and other nasty chemicals used in them are known to disrupt hormone levels plus thyroid functions, and cause gene instabilities, allergies, plus skin irritation.

Even then, it took me several months of mulling over before I finally ordered my first Crystal Deo stone from BSG in May 2020, but I’ve never looked back since and plan to continue using the crystal deo stone forever.

Is it inconvenient to use and store the Crystal Deo stone?

Initially, I was skeptical as well since the thought of wetting the stone and then smearing it on my armpits was new to me. However, once I started and noticed the results instantly on Day 1, all doubts floated away.

It takes less than a minute from wetting the stone -> rubbing on my armpits -> armpits drying, which is really no different from applying a conventional roll-on deo if you ask me.

There were also worries that I’ll drop the stone and shatter it but I literally have just left it on my toilet countertop everyday after use and even after 1 year 3 months of use, the stone is still pretty much intact!

Bamboo Straw Girl also sells the stone with a pouch made of off-cut Batik on her site that you can store the stone in – LSQ thinks this set is a perfect gift idea!

Before I wipe clean………..

There are actually many natural / aluminium free / stone deodorant products in the market that you can buy from retailers such as Watsons or Sephora. But why I really like Bamboo Straw Girl and wish to support her is because not only is she local, her business (which started from bamboo straws – duh!) is eco-friendly and she is a strong proponent of the zero-waste movement.

Her products are all low-impact, with little to no by-products or discarded materials in the production process. The Crystal Deodorant stones are packed simply in recycled paper and are mailed in (clean) reused bubble wrap.

Do check out the rest of her zero-waste store, do your bit for the earth, and support an awesome Singapore business at the same time! Xoxo till my next shit!