F.A.Q.
Mineralized Uses
We recently did a survey of our customers found that Mineralized is used in many different ways:
- Deodorant
- Body Powder (underboobs, or other areas that don't breathe well)
- Private areas
- Foot/shoe powder
- Face de-shiner (a light dabbing takes the sheen away from oily skin)
- Dry shampoo
How to apply Mineralized?
Please see our application instructions.
Do you test on animals?
No, we do not and we have checked with our suppliers and they also do not test on animals.
Why a powder?
We offered a powder to stay true to our values about choosing ingredients for their safety and effectiveness.
Synthetic chemicals are commonly used to create sticks, gels and creams, and we wanted to stay away from those.
The resulting formulation is a powder.
What are the descriptions of the different scents?
Worried you won't like the scents? Free exchanges, just contact us!
Sandalwood (woody, creamy, warm, inviting)
Cherry Blossom (light, sweet and refreshing with notes of pear, rose, and vanilla)
Blue Tansy (sweet, earthy, herbal, complex)
Lavender (floral, clean, notes of herbs, calming)
Pink Grapefruit + Bergamot (bright, fruity, fresh, invigorating)
Sage (fresh, herbaceous, hints of eucalyptus and mint, magical)
Wild Black Spruce (freshly-cut pine, woodsy, musky, hardy)
Vanilla (sweet, rich, nostalgic)
Rose (Graceful, exquisite and softly floral)
Jasmine (Ethereal, lush, and mystical)
Unscented (smell like yourself)
Ultra Sensitive Jojoba Unscented (unscented, our most sensitive offering, free of coconut oil).
Does Mineralized contain parabens, phthalates, or lilials?
No, Mineralized does not contain these.
How do you clean the applicator?
The applicator sponge is washable. We recommend using a mild soap and water, rinsing thoroughly, and then letting it air dry.
Depending on how dry the air is where you are, it could take up to a day to dry. We like leaving it somewhere with airflow, such as near a HVAC vent or by a fan.
When I have needed to dry the applicator faster, I have put the it in the clothes dryer (with dark colors, just in case!) for a cycle. That sped up the drying process.
What is the applicator made of?
The applicator is made from 70% biodegradable polyurethane foam (free of latex). This is similar to the foam found in furniture, mattresses, car seats, shoes, and yoga mats to name a few examples. It is inert and resilient and can be washed many times.
We consider this the largest shortcoming in terms of environmental impact at this time. But it is very durable, and can be washed many times before needing replacement. We have some that are going on 4 years old at this point.
But good news! We are currently testing a 100% biodegradable version, but want to be sure of quality and similar resilience before offering for sale.
Does the aluminum jar leach into the product?
Aluminum leaching into Mineralized is not a concern. The reason why is that aluminum after being formed reacts quickly with oxygen in the air and forms a very thin layer of aluminum oxide. This nanometer-thick layer acts as a protective coating to the underlying aluminum, and is inert to chemical reactions except in certain circumstances.
This is similar to the process of iron becoming rusty (becoming iron oxide) in the presence of salt water, but it happens more rapidly and without needing the water.
We did a little searching just to see if we could be wrong, and the conditions that are necessary for aluminum to corrode seem to require a strong alkaline liquid.
We also reached out to our manufacturers to double check, and they agreed that there isn't any reason to believe that the aluminum will leach into the powder.
Here are some resources talking about aluminum corrosion, if you want to read more yourself: https://www.sciencedirect.com/
High-level article: Here is an article that discusses some of the issues at a high level, if you are interested.
In reading your bio message in the ‘About’ section, it looks like this product has not gone through any formal testing or research or regulations. It appears to have just been tested on friends… and customers. How do we know it is truly safe?
Regulation
Firstly, personal care products like deodorants are basically unregulated in the USA (assuming you are also USA based).
You could ask that for virtually every product out there.
Here is the FDA page addressing some frequently asked questions on this topic:
The short summary of that page is:
- FDA Regulation vs. Approval:
- Cosmetics are not FDA-approved but are regulated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) and the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA).
- Color additives are the exception, requiring FDA approval before being used in cosmetics.
- Definition of Cosmetics:
- Defined by intended use, such as products for cleansing, beautifying, or altering appearance, excluding soaps.
- Safety and Labeling Laws:
- Prohibits adulterated or misbranded cosmetics in interstate commerce.
- Adulteration can involve harmful substances, unsanitary conditions, or harmful packaging.
- Misbranding involves false labeling or inadequate information about the product.
- Manufacturer Responsibilities:
- Manufacturers are responsible for ensuring the safety of their products.
- FDA does not require specific tests but expects manufacturers to perform necessary safety substantiations.
- FDA Enforcement:
- Can pursue legal action against non-compliant products or companies.
- Can inspect manufacturing facilities and test cosmetics.
- Does not have the authority to order cosmetic recalls but can request recalls of hazardous products.
Ingredient safety
The cosmetic ingredient review (CIR) maintains an extensive database of ingredients and summaries of the tests done. You can find that list here: https://www.cir-safety.org/ingredients
If you dig into these papers, and go one layer deeper to read the papers that these summaries reference, you will see that many (all that we looked at, anyway) of the safety studies involve a variant of a few tests:
- Take a very large dose of the tested chemical and administer it to mice, multiple times per day, for a few weeks. If there are any acute reactions, note them and assume they probably apply to humans as well.
- Administer doses of the chemicals to small patches of human skin and see if any reaction develops over the coming weeks.
- In some cases, they can test these chemicals “in vitro” (tested on living cells in a lab, outside the organism). These are also short-term studies.
Our conclusion from digging deeper into this world is that the science for acute exposure for many of these chemicals is solid enough.
However, and this is important, there are no long-term studies in humans on the safety of these chemicals. We do not know (and might never know, due to the complexity of the problem) the true long-term effects of dosing these chemicals daily on humans.
Our view on this: we, as a society, are not weighing the unknowns here strongly enough. What makes us think that many of the chemicals are safe??
Mineralized Deodorant
Our answer is to try to create an effective product out of simple mineral compounds, with constituent ingredients that are already in our bodies (magnesium and calcium compounds in our case). Our reasoning is more from first principles: our body has these minerals in us already, and has machinery to deal with those minerals. Contrast this with the cocktail of foreign chemicals many of us are putting on our bodies everyday.
Long term safety?
So to finally address your question, we do not know if Mineralized is truly safe in the long term. We know from those studies that acutely it is very likely to be safe. But for the long term, for all personal care products, we are in a sense running the experiment currently.
There have been a few of these “experiments” run already, with adverse outcomes. If you are not familiar, feel free to research talc/asbestos, parabens, BPAs, etc.
But for our bodies, we choose to bet on Mineralized, for the reasons stated above.
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