Aluminum in Your Antiperspirant

#62 2025 The Rowen Report

Dear Subscriber,

It is summertime and we have a lot of sweat on our bodies. Release of moisture is how we humans cool ourselves. The moisture will evaporate cooing the evaporated area.

The problem with sweat is that it is not only moisture, but also contains fatty acids and proteins. Bacteria on our skin will feed on these and the breakdown products leads to odor, while the original sweat had none!

The market makes several typed of products to try to help us humans alter our natural “odor”. Interestingly, the ancient Hawaiians knew that bathing in the warm springs of the islands was cleansing and nurturing. They were repulsed by the body odor of Christian missionaries who refused to get undressed and bathe themselves in those pristine waters and wash away the sweat smells.

In the modern era, we have shelves lined with deodorants and antiperspirants. Deodorants are products with smells designed to mask the odor created by the action of your skin bacteria on your sweat.

Antiperspirants work differently. A key ingredient, aluminum, is used, and you know aluminum (Al) is controversial. Al works by being applied to your underarm apocrine sweat glands. The Al contained therein precipitates at the outlet of the gland plugging it up temporarily, reducing sweat. On a deep thought level, I don’l like the sound of that.

There is a lot of controversy about aluminm in health. Al is a toxin, pure and simple. But, it is ubiquitous in the earth’s crust and we are definitely exposed to a lot of it in food. I don’t have an issue with that either. Nature designed our bodies to be resistant to common toxins. Aluminum is poorly absorbed. Most of the aluminum ingested in the gut is simply passed out, and the little that is absorbed is excreted by the kidneys in a natural steady state equilibrium. I’ve covered injected Al (vaccine adjuvants here). Injected Al is a different animal.

But, what about topical Al? Here is an article interesting for its science but what I feel is a faulty conclusion. Scientists took radioactive labeled aluminum and added it to an aluminum-based antiperspirant to measure how much gets absorbed into the body when used underarm. Small sample size – two subjects.

They found that about 4 micrograms of aluminum is absorbed from a single use of ACH on both underarms.

Here is their conclusion. “This is about 2.5% of the aluminum typically absorbed by the gut from food over the same time period. Therefore, a one-time use of ACH applied to the skin is not a significant contribution to the body burden of aluminum.”

I don’t know about you but I don’t agree that it is “not significant”. This was a ONE TIME application. Over time, it adds up. The gut was made to handle a lot of “crap”, including aluminum, and on a daily basis. Absorption via the sweat glands may pose different and unknown challenges to your body, bypassing all the protective mechanisms in the gut. I’ve also not seen information on effects continuous blockade of apocrine sweat glands which are designed to excrete sweat, not have it blocked. We know what happens if your urinary or intestinal system is blocked. In the case of sweat glands, we are dealing with tiny pores in the skin, not a whole organ, but still, to me questions remain.

For years I have been mulling development of a safe product for underarm sweat and I believe I am fairly close to having it come to market with my product collaboration with PURO3.com, which markets ozone products, and its sister company, Promolife.com. Stay tuned here, as I hope to have some real good news for you soon.

[Regarding my products, I am getting more good reviews on the effectiveness of my cramp formula, and today from long time clients. I am still hoping for more feedback, either way!]

The mainstream will tell you that aluminum in antiperspirants is safe. I cannot agree. To me it is unknown. We have an uptick in breast cancer. The pundits have looked for a connection. So far, no definitive link to Al antiperspirants. Regardless, I would not want to be exposed to a neurotoxin and carcinogen any more than common background. Radiation is in the environment and part of our natural cycle. I want this background exposure. It is natural. But I don’t want more than background. Same with aluminum.

I will keep you posted on my collaboration progress with PURO3 for an aluminum free product that works and one that I would use. Please know that your body odor will be also reflected in what you eat and the otherwise degree of toxicity of your body. Since we know that bacteria on your skin plays a role, natural efforts to keep bacteria down will assist. There are aluminum free products on the. market. I’d go with them before aluminum, but I cannot make a recommendation here not having tried any. Perhaps some of you can share your experience.

Also know that how your own body odor es experienced by others is very variable and specific from person to person. You might be highly attracted to the skin smells of your mate while another might not be. Hopefully your sweaty body actually smells good (pheromones) to your mate.

In fact, my brother once said to me decades ago that the most powerful attractant or dis-attractant of a prospective mate is not how they look, but how they smell to the recipient. I have to agree (even based on my own experience). You can alter appearance to an extent. I heard crude jokes in college about putting a bag over your lover’s face if you did not like the looks. But you cannot bag the smell of your lover. (Or, in the case of the ancient Hawaiians, the missionaries who would not bathe could not hide their smell either.)

I am lucky. I don’t use any of the current products, and my wife actually likes what she senses after I come in from working hard outside or from a hike. Perhaps it is my diet of mostly living foods, or hygiene in general. Regardless, I say I am lucky in this regard. I don’t eat marine foods except seaweed. It is known that ingestion of marine oils will increase unwanted body odor, from the volatile oils in seafood.

My sense of smell, fortunately is still good, and I have noticed that heavy meat eaters will have stronger body odor than vegetarians. But that is only an observation of one and likely means little in the broader picture.

To Your Excellent Health!

Robert Jay Rowen, MD