Native Deodorant

It seems like the whole world is becoming more and more health conscience, not just about what they eat, but what kind of products we use on our bodies.

I don’t really buy into the whole organic stuff, in fact the section of the grocery store that has organic healthy types of foods I call the hippie section (it's my term of endearment for it). 

I think the reason I don’t care for organic all that much is because when I was younger and started seeing stuff labeled as organic I asked my mom what that meant, and I think she was trying to make a joke, but in my young mind it stuck. 

She told me organic means they don’t spray bug spray on the plants so there are still bugs on the food. 

Thinking about this explanation now just makes me laugh so hard, but at the time I decided I didn’t want to eat bits of bugs so no organic for me.

Well anyways, this post has literally nothing to do with organic foods. 

I have been on the search for a good deodorant. 

Now I don’t think I sweat or stink more than the average person, but I have always been kind of obsessed with smells.  I think I have a super sniffer nose and I can smell things most people never even pick up on.

So I’ve always been slightly paranoid about personally smelling bad. 

I have used all kinds of different types of deodorants you pick up in the stores, I even would go through phases of using men’s deodorant because I never seemed to be able to find a good deodorant that would last all day.

And let’s be honest while I worry about smelling bad I just don’t care enough to reapply my deodorant several times a day.

I started doing some research on best deodorants about a year or so ago and all I could find was reviews on all natural deodorants.  I just couldn’t believe that an all-natural deodorant would work all day.

However any way to cut out unnecessary chemicals in my life probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Earlier this year one of my friends had some kind of cyst cut out of her armpits and from what she told me it was incredibly painful.  I don’t know if she was told she needed to use only an all-natural deodorant or if she just came to that conclusion on her own.  Either way she reached out on Facebook and asked her friends if anyone had any suggestions.

There were 2-3 brands that were mentioned over and over again, however many of these natural deodorants don't come in a stick. They come in a paste, and I'm just not interested in slathering a paste on my armpits every morning... just the thought grosses me out. 

Another problem that was brought up was while it helps deodorize, natural deodorants aren’t antiperspirant.  While I want to smell good, I also don’t want to be sweating much either ha-ha.

Not long after my friend posted asking for natural deodorant suggestions my cousin posted that she had just ordered Native deodorant and was loving it.

With her link I could get a free travel sized, and finally I decided to just bite the bullet and try it.  If I hated it I could just go back to my search of finding the perfect deodorant.

I work from home so if it was a total fail, it wouldn’t be too bad because I don’t have to be around people that much.

I followed the link and ordered a sample pack that came with unscented, lavender rose, and coconut vanilla.

I have to say one of my favorite things about this company is their marketing.  When you place an order they send an email that is hilarious, to thank you for your order and to let you know it will be on its way soon.

Once it has been shipped out they send another hilarious email letting you know it’s been shipped. 

Seriously these emails are pure gold, and had me laughing and sharing with my friends.  I’m choosing not to share them here because they were a fun surprise and I wouldn’t want to ruin that for you.  Just go order and find out for yourself J .

My biggest complaint was the shipping did take quite a bit longer than I expected, I think it took about 2 weeks for me to receive my order, which I’m just not used to waiting that long unless something is on back order or something.  However on the other hand, my mom ordered some shortly after I did and her order came quickly and on time.

The packaging for the Native deodorant was clean and simple, and they had a card to tell you that you might not notice a difference for up to 2 weeks because often your body needs to detox from all the toxins the regular deodorant has.

I’ve heard of people doing armpit masks and things like that to try and detox, I didn’t have time for that kind of nonsense.  I have a body brush in my shower and so I would scrub my armpits during my shower and that’s as close to detoxing as I got ha-ha.

I decided I would give Native 2 weeks and if I didn’t love it by then I’d call it quits.

I didn't need 2 weeks, I was in love after the first day.

Now I’m no super athlete, fitness person, but I do work out for at least 30-60 minutes a day.  And I sweat a lot during my workouts… TMI… #sorrynotsorry.

I put on Native before my workout, and while it doesn’t stop me sweating, I don’t sweat any more or less than I did with any of the clinical strength or men’s deodorants I had been using in the past.

Also after my workout I don't smell… like at all.

I can wear Native all day long and it totally works.  I never feel the need to reapply, and when I get ready for bed at the end of the day I’ll do a smell check on my clothes and myself and guess what… no bad smells!!

I decided the ultimate test for this deodorant would be my family vacation to Orlando Florida, we went the first week of August, and if you know anything about Florida during the summer, it’s pretty hot humid and miserable that time of year.

I am happy to report that while it was hot, humid, and miserable my Native deodorant didn’t let me down and I felt confident and free to enjoy all the roller coasters and rides I wanted while throwing my hands in the air!!

So all in all I highly recommend giving this brand a try, you won’t regret it!

For the scents that I got coconut vanilla is my favorite, I wear that one basically every day.  I will wear the unscented usually when I exercise, and the lavender rose I’m not a huge fan of.  It’s very perfumed and it’s just too strong for me.

They have other limited edition and seasonal scents that maybe one day I’ll try but for now I’m happy with my coconut vanilla.

Order here and you might get a free trial size deodorant.  This link is about a month old so I'm not sure if it still works or not.

I Love Kickboxing

I have never enjoyed watching boxing, wrestling, any of those fighting sports.  I just don’t like watching people get punched, kicked and slammed, over and over again. 

Confession, I’ve never seen any of the Rocky movies… well except that newest one that came out… what is it called? 

Oh yeah… Creed. 

That one was good.

Maybe I should see the originals.

Anyways even with my dislike of actual boxing, I’ve still always been interested in taking a boxing class.  I’ve also always been terrified by the idea because even though I haven’t seen the Rocky movies, I’ve seen enough clips of his training routines to the music of Eye of the Tiger that I know a boxing class would be super intense.

I’ve been working out a lot more recently, and I have been wanting to do something different, because while I love my workout routine, I’m afraid I may get in a rut soon.

While scrolling through Facebook recently I found an ad for a new gym here in Louisville called ilovekickboxing.  They have a deal going, until supplies lasts, that you can get three classes and a pair of PINK gloves for $9.99!!

I had looked into getting boxing gloves at one point because the YMCA offers a contact boxing class that says gloves are recommended, and boxing gloves themselves can be up to a $50 value.

Also don’t worry, if you don’t like pink, they offered to let us get a different color if we’d like.  My friend Amanda choose to get black instead of the pink because she’s going to let her kids play with them, and figured her son would prefer black ha-ha.

After seeing this ad I decided to see if I could get anyone to join me on this adventure, because while I like trying new things, I’m also a big chicken. 

Luckily my friend Amanda Fox said she’d join me, so we signed up, and when it’s your first time going you have to call and schedule your first lesson to make sure they have room for you in the class.

Friday night was our first class, they asked us to get there 30 minutes early so they could give us a tour of the studio, go over paperwork and health goals.  As Amanda and I got out of the car we were hit with really loud music, Amanda turned to me and asked if we should have brought earplugs.  We are just not about that super loud music! 

While the music was loud during the class, and made listening to instruction difficult, if I were a veteran to the class I wouldn’t have minded so much, it’s easy to just get lost in the music and not realize you are in a class with 20 other people.

We walked in and were greeted by a very enthusiastic guy named Hunter who greeted us by our names… I guess that’s the benefit of a small gym and being the 2 new people. 

They even had our names up on a whiteboard at the front door welcoming us to our first class (along with the other people who had come for the first time that day). 

Hunter showed us around, it’s a small gym so there wasn’t much to see, they have some cute shirts and other merch up at the front of the studio, and they have some protein bars, drinks, and water for sale if you need anything like that during class. 

I had brought my favorite water bottle (see my post about ithere), and 2 extra water bottles, I’m glad I did because I drank all of that, plus they gave us a free water bottle since it was our first night, I took one of those on my way out.  This class works up a sweat so you need lots of water! 

I also brought my favorite energy protein bar with me, and I’m glad I did because I ended up getting a little light headed during the class so I was able to grab a few bites of the bar in between punches.

Stay tuned for my review on this bar… seriously you won’t want to miss it!

After we got the grand tour that consisted of the bathrooms, which don’t have showers, but they have all kinds of stuff for us to use to basically take a sponge bath if needed, and the locker rooms, we were given the paper work to fill out. 

Basically just signing that you understand you are taking an intense class and you are physically able to do it.  The second part of the paper work was asking about our health goals.  After filling it all out we talked to our coach about what kind of physical activity we are at, and what our goals are.   Once that was all over he got us our gloves and let us put our stuff behind the front desk, since we didn’t bring any locks for the lockers. 

This workout is bare feet, which is a bit gross to me, but it makes sense, and luckily they told me about that when I made the appointment for the class, so I had a week to prepare myself for it. 

They boast that they are a gym for all fitness levels, and honestly, they were very encouraging even when I couldn’t do some of the exercises, but for my personality I hate not being able to keep up, I’m incredibly competitive.  I’m glad I waited to take a class like this until I had been working out on my own for a few months because if I had tried this out as one of my first classes back to physical fitness I would have hated it. 

You start the class by running laps around the mat, maybe like 5 minutes.  That isn’t much to most people, but if they had asked me to do this even a month ago I would have just laughed in their faces.  But thanks to my training for the Down Syndrome of Louisville 5k race on September 29^th and using the C25K app I felt good about the jog, I was able to jog the whole time and not feel incredibly winded.

After the jog we did warm up exercises, which was honestly the hardest and worst part of the whole class.  There were a lot of exercises I had to modify because I’m just not able to do all that yet. 

We did a lot of burpees, and what’s funny is a couple weeks ago I read an article about how beneficial burpees are, so I started incorporating them into my exercise routines each day, modified burpees that is, I can’t do a real one… yet!

After the warm-up period was over we did some stretching, basically a kind of cool down to make sure you are ready to start throwing punches. 

Once we were told to put our gloves on I was excited, this is what I came for!  Amanda and I were with Hunter, our personal coach during the whole class, and we didn’t do what the rest of the class was doing for the boxing part of the class because we were getting one on one instruction about how to throw the punches, how to have good form and things like that. 

It was great and so much fun to jab, cross, upper cut, kick and feel like an over all warrior. 

When the boxing section was over they did a speed round that Hunter told us we wouldn’t be doing today, I think they didn’t want us to over extend ourselves on the first day.  Once the speed round was over we did partner drills which were fun, and even when we had to switch partners to get to know someone new it wasn’t too bad, everyone seemed so friendly at this gym.

After partner drills we did cool down stretches, ended with a clap cheer and that was it. 

When the class was over our coach took us back over to the benches to share with us how we could save over a $100 if we signed up for a membership that day. 

I had read some of the reviews about this gym and some people complained about how pushy they are about joining. 

Let me set the record straight…

They were NOT pushy…

AT ALL!!!! 

Yes they presented the different membership options, and did their best to sell the best option, but as soon as my friend Amanda said that she just couldn’t join right now he didn’t push her any more on the subject. 

I told him I couldn’t make a decision in that moment and he said he could give me a night to sleep on it. 

After a lot of thought and going back and forth I’ve decided right now isn’t the time for me to join this gym, I loved it and if I had the budget I would join in a heart beat, but I just don’t have the budget for it, and it isn’t conveniently located for me, if the gym was in Oldham County it’d be a no brainer to sign up right away.

I am however considering getting my own punching bag and just doing my own drills at home, I’m sure YouTube has some great instructional videos I can try out.

I already belong to the YMCA, and one of the branches in Louisville offers a contact boxing class I plan to check out now that I have my own gloves!

I encourage anyone, no matter your fitness level to try at least this promotional deal and give the gym a chance. 

The deal I signed up for can be found on their website ilovekickboxing.com or they have a deal on groupon. 

Again, if pink gloves aren’t your thing, they have black ones (and purple ones I think).  This gym is in all 50 states so even if you aren’t in Louisville, find one near you and check it out!

The class will leave you feeling fierce and unstoppable, well after you get over being sore!

I still have 2 classes left… who wants to join me??