Over the years, I’ve read much about the nasties found in our usual deodorants so I was intrigued when an email about No Pong landed in my inbox. No Pong is an extremely effective, all natural, anti odourant, made from delicious organic coconut oil, baking soda, cornflour, beeswax and essential oils. No Pong is guaranteed to be 100% paraben and aluminium free, which differs greatly from what you can find at supermarkets. I recently sat down with the creators of No Pong Chris Caley and Melanie McVean to learn a little more about all things sweating and deodorant, so if you want more information yourself – just keep reading!

What are the benefits of No Pong versus other supermarket deodorants?

Many traditional deodorants are designed to either mask body odour with strong fragrances (everyone knows what a teenage boy’s bedroom smells like!), or contain ingredients designed to block pores and stop you sweating.  In our view that’s kind of dodging the bullet, instead of tackling the problem square on!

At No Pong, we don’t do that.  No Pong’s light fragrance isn’t designed to cover up body odour at all.  Instead it prevents it altogether in the first place, while allowing your skin to sweat and breathe.  It’s water- resistant, which also means it won’t rinse off when you sweat.  This gives No Pong it’s all-day “pong” busting super powers.

What inspired both of you to start No Pong?

Our customers are the real inspiration behind No Pong.  We started No Pong with a small market test, and the response we got was completely humbling.  Our customers are the ones that inspired us to continue, and that inspire us to keep going every day.

What are some ingredients we should be mindful of in our deodorants?

here are lots of ingredients to be mindful of, and to be honest some conflicting research about some of them.  Aluminium is known to have potential to cause mutation to genetic code.  Parabens are known to mimic hormone functions, particularly oestrogen, and its well known effects on breast cancer.  Triclosan is a common anti-bacterial found in traditional deodorants, and actually banned for use in soaps by the US Food and Drug Administration, but not in Australia.

We’ll be honest, the scientific jury is out on the real-world, long term effect of many of these as used in deodorants.  That may sound counter-intuitive coming from a natural deodorant company, but we don’t believe in scare tactics.

The truth is, the research is still being done.  The scientists in us say that while there’s not unanimous scientific evidence either “for or against” these ingredients, why use them at all if you don’t have to?  Our customers find No Pong is even more effective than traditional deodorants, and doesn’t contain any of those ingredients.

Should we be mindful of any other harmful toxins in our beauty/grooming routine?

We’re outdoorsy people and sunscreen is something we use a lot of.  There are some questions about titanium compounds due to their nano-particle size and ability to enter the body via the skin.  We tend to use much larger, reflective ingredients like zinc on our bodies.

Another one to watch out for is products containing microbeads, or microplastics. These are often exfoliating, and found in face washes and shower gels.  These are an issue not for toxicity but because they get into our water system and are causing some real issues in our oceans.  A lot of these products are likely to be banned in the next few years, and they’re already banned in the US, Canada, and Ireland with the UK and NZ to follow shortly.

Many studies claim sweat is a positive humanly function. How does No Pong enable this and neutralise body odour?

Sweat is good.  It’s a natural way for our body to regulate it’s temperature, and many of the activities we do to produce sweat put a smile on our faces.  Unfortunately, the milky sweat we produce in hairy areas like our groin and armpits is also a superfood for Smelly Armpit Bacteria.

No Pong works by creating a water resistant environment that smelly armpit bacteria can’t survive, but still allows your skin to breathe and sweat.

How else can we avoid the scent of sweat in our daily lives?

Well, this may be a biased opinion but if you’re wearing No Pong you are already avoiding the smelly scents associated with sweat already!

You’re the first brand of your kind to offer a subscription service to Aussies. Tell me more about your monthly ‘smellsubscription’ service and how it benefits consumers?

We created our “Smellscription” or Monthly Club in response to customers that were looking for convenience, and they get a tin automatically sent to them every month with no lock in contracts or conditions.  They can cancel at any time, no questions asked.

We’re conscious as an online focused business, that we’re not in the supermarket aisles, so we need to work extra hard to make life easy for our customers.

What is next for No Pong?

At the moment we’re focused on doing one thing, really well.  We do have another product up our sleeve which is designed for people with more sensitive skin so that’s something to keep an eye out for!

What are your thoughts on switching up your deodorant, something you may consider? Share with me in the comments!