My mom says I stink.

Let's talk about smells. Personally, I think it's better to smell like a human being than a month-old bouquet that someone sprayed with starch, but this is A) my opinion and B) usually not socially acceptable. I will attempt to explain my preference. And you may be grossed out. There. You were warned.

I am a female person whose skin dries to bleeding in the winter, so B.O. is not something I've felt compelled to be extremely vigilant about. I take 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda, wet it into a paste, and use that for deodorant. Every day. Unless I forget. I've even been showering every day for weeks now. It's weird, but I'm getting used to it.

My inspiration is my mother. Mom is very sensitive to smells. She has smelled me from the opposite side of the couch, whereas my sister could not smell me while standing beside me. The problem now is not me being clean; it's my clothes. I'm not convinced that an article of clothing is dirty just because I've worn it before. It saves water and it means I don't have to do as much laundry. Unfortunately, I think Mom can smell me even if I've worn a T-shirt for just a few hours. She's that good.

So now I have to be all vigilant about that. Because by now, my parents think I can't smell. I had these pumpkins outside my garage for all of November, and by the time my dad found them in mid-December, they were very soggy. He bagged them up and put them in the garage for me. Sweet man. But they left a bit of a stain behind. I was instructed to scrub the garage, because apparently, it smells. I definitely was aware of the smell, but it smelled nice to me. It smells like butter to me, which is actually what pumpkin tastes like to me (with the right amount of salt).

Anyway, now they think I can't smell. Dad finally found out that I'm composting (in small contained buckets) and he ordered me to go home and smell them to make sure they didn't stink. Compost, when it's done right, doesn't stink and doesn't attract critters. The instruction came out of exasperation, I'm pretty sure.

Compost is a good thing. Compost means that my garbage never stinks. Compost means that I don't send useful gardening material to the landfill. Compost is the Earth's natural reclamation of its waste. (Humans, take note. Cradle to Cradle, anyone?)

Heck, San Fransisco decided to take some initiative and start up a citywide composting program. That's just plain awesome. So I guess even if my little home composting program were nixed, there are ways to get creative with this... I could go on Craigslist or Freecycle and see if there are any like-minded folks with a yard who already compost who might take my organic waste. That's how I do the recycling right now; why not with compost?

And my stance on B.O.? Well, I just gotta say two words: breast cancer. According to cancer.gov, there is no "conclusive evidence linking the use of underarm antiperspirants or deodorants and the subsequent development of breast cancer." Let's cut to the chase here. This is legalese for "we can't say anything because the deodorant industry will sue our butts if we do."

Here, read this paragraph from that cancer.gov link:

Findings from a different study examining the frequency of underarm shaving and antiperspirant/deodorant use among 437 breast cancer survivors were released in 2003 (7). This study found that the age of breast cancer diagnosis was significantly earlier in women who used these products and shaved their underarms more frequently. Furthermore, women who began both of these underarm hygiene habits before 16 years of age were diagnosed with breast cancer at an earlier age than those who began these habits later. While these results suggest that underarm shaving with the use of antiperspirants/deodorants may be related to breast cancer, it does not demonstrate a conclusive link between these underarm hygiene habits and breast cancer.

Sure, there were some later studies that said, well, maybe not. But you know what? I don't think I want to mess around with breast cancer. I don't need conclusive evidence to tell me that messing around with random chemicals is bad for my body. I don't want to get cancer and think that there was something I could have done. To think that I did not do everything I could have done. To know that something inside me said "hey, quit putting random chemicals in/around your body," and I didn't listen.

For example... do we know what aluminum does?

Aluminum-based compounds are used as the active ingredient in antiperspirants. These compounds form a temporary plug within the sweat duct that stops the flow of sweat to the skin's surface. Some research suggests that aluminum-based compounds, which are applied frequently and left on the skin near the breast, may be absorbed by the skin and cause estrogen-like (hormonal) effects (3). Because estrogen has the ability to promote the growth of breast cancer cells, some scientists have suggested that the aluminum-based compounds in antiperspirants may contribute to the development of breast cancer (3).

Did you get that? It says that aluminum plugs your sweat ducts. WHY in the world do you want to plug your sweat ducts? God put them there for a reason. If we know that much, how much is left that we still don't know, that we might never know?

So, yes, I am going to embrace my B.O. a little, and excuse me for doing so.

But I still hope I don't stink too bad.

Sorry.

I'll try to do my laundry more often.