The Best Natural Deodorants in 2024

Deodorant is an essential part of your morning ritual. Wearing it every day can save you from a lot of embarrassment and makes it easier to get through the hottest days.

Most deodorants are made to make your underarms feel and smell better. But for some people, your typical deodorant is too heavy. The chemical composition may mask your odor but simultaneously cause other problems you don’t want to deal with.

So, it’s time to go natural and see what nature has left us with for fighting the worst of our smells. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of natural deodorants, then give you a thorough overview of the best natural deodorants in 2024.

What are “natural” deodorants?

Natural deodorants differ from “standard” deodorants in a few ways. The main defining feature of natural deodorants is that they are composed mainly of naturally-sourced ingredients. They use ingredients derived from plants, minerals, fruits, and other origins instead of common chemical/synthetic ingredients.

The most important thing to qualify a “natural” deodorant is an absence of strong and harmful synthetic ingredients. The most serious culprits are aluminum, parabens, phthalates, and some other harsh preservatives. These ingredients provide powerful preservative or antiperspirant effects. But they are not natural and can be very irritating to some people with sensitive skin.

Instead, natural deodorants use some mix of natural alternatives to fight body odor. For example, instead of an aluminum compound, a natural deodorant may use baking soda or mineral salts to fight odor-causing bacteria. Natural ingredients can provide the same odor-fighting, antiperspirant, refreshing, and good-smelling effects as unnatural alternatives.

So, the basic idea behind natural deodorants is to provide the high performance of other deodorants without harmful chemicals. Many people choose them due to sensitive skin or a general concern about their overall health.

Natural deodorants can come in about as many forms as deodorants overall. They can be roll-ons, sprays, sticks, or creams. They can also have scents, or they can go without them. What counts is the formulation, not the actual smell or the delivery method.

How effective are natural deodorants?

Deodorants can be as effective as any non-clinical alternative to a natural deodorant. If you don’t have a severe condition that causes more sweat than usual, then natural deodorants should do more than enough to fight BO.

If you’re used to strong chemical deodorants, it’s possible that a transition to a natural deodorant will require adjusting. Natural deodorants can be better in many ways, but they do feel different. The way they produce results is also different. They won’t block sweat glands in the same way that aluminum-based antiperspirant deodorants will.

For most people, that last point is the tradeoff. You lose some effectiveness at reducing sweat, but not so much at blocking and masking odor. But natural deodorants offer some benefits that others don’t. Namely, the active ingredients used in natural deodorants are simply better for your skin. Sometimes, even your underarm hair will thank you for choosing a natural option!

These kinds of results normally come from soothing, nourishing, and enriching natural ingredients. This is a very broad statement, but as we delve into the ingredients in these natural deodorants, you will quickly understand what we’re talking about.

With so many options to choose from, how do you decide? Don’t worry, we made a list to help make that decision easier. Now let’s take a closer look at the 10 best natural deodorants in 2023.

1. Blu Atlas Deodorant

First, we have an all-natural but powerful antiperspirant deodorant that will kill your odor and leave you feeling refreshed. Blu Atlas Deodorant doesn’t look fancy, but instead just goes with the science for a natural formulation that gets the job done.

Blu Atlas Deodorant is aluminum-free, paraben-free, phthalate-free, and sulfate-free. Despite that, it has strong and lasting deodorant and antiperspirant effects. Normally something has to give, but it doesn’t appear that way with Blu Atlas.

While there is no aluminum compound to clog your sweat glands, Blu Atlas Deodorant stops sweat abruptly and naturally. The very fine particles of volcanic ash inside are highly absorbent. They deodorize by absorbing excess oil in the skin, removing many impurities including odor-causing bacteria. It tightens your pores, too, making them sweat less and look better.

It’s not just volcanic ash that provides a strong natural alternative to the typical chemical solutions deodorants provide. Blu Atlas Deodorant contains 99% natural origin ingredients such as plants, fruits, and minerals. The result is a healthier option for those seeking a natural solution to odor from excess sweat.

The primary natural ingredients include bamboo extract and sage leaf. These two ingredients work together to neutralize any odor that has already started to hit the air, then offer all-day-long protection. The lack of harmful chemicals including preservatives makes it very gentle on the skin, too. If you have sensitive skin and react poorly to chemical and medicinal deodorants, Blu Atlas Deodorant might just save the day.

Even the ingredients that aren’t advertised secretly work magic on your underarms. Aloe barbadensis juice, especially alongside the other ingredients, provides anti-inflammatory effects. You not only stop sweating and stop smelling, but you start feeling better and the health of your underarms improves over time.

Another benefit that customers rave about is the pleasant natural scent. The scent has notes of sage, and you can pick up on the bergamot and patchouli. Best of all, there are no artificial fragrances to create that effect. It’s just the result of the natural formulation itself.

We also want to give some bonus points to Blu Atlas and other brands that employ ethical research and manufacturing practices. Blu Atlas is a vegan brand, and its signature deodorant is a vegan product. It follows the brand’s commitment to being cruelty-free. So, no animal products are involved in its manufacturing and no experiments are conducted on animals.

The final result of all of this can only be described as the best natural deodorant in 2023. Once you try it yourself, we’re sure you’ll agree.

2. Stank Stop Natural Deodorant

Stank Stop Natural Deodorant checks off all the important boxes for natural deodorants. Then it goes above and beyond with its scent and relief for your suffering underarms.

Stank Stop Natural Deodorant is free of all the usual suspects to look for when eliminating unnatural deodorants. It’s aluminum-free, paraben-free, phthalate-free, and doesn’t contain any artificial fragrances.

Instead, Stank Stop Natural Deodorant comes with a much better option for each of the above. Rather than another aluminum compound, it uses natural baking soda for its antiperspirant effects. This reduces the spread of sweat while other ingredients provide deodorant properties and replace the smell. Organic coconut oil serves as an antimicrobial agent. It helps remove any existing odor-causing bacteria from your underarms.

The result of this combination is a natural path to reducing sweat and BO on even the hottest summer days. What’s left in its place is a subtle scent of scotch pine and coriander. It’s a nice and neutral scent that is appropriate for men and women of all ages.

What’s important to note is that all the best natural deodorants will have a few key ingredients advertised for their prominence in the formula and their positive effects. But it’s normally the broader aspects that combine to provide the full effect, from the comfort of application to the long-term anti-inflammatory and deodorant properties. Stank Stop Natural Deodorant is made up of high-quality organic ingredients across the board. The brand only uses tallow from grass-fed pasture-raised cows. They also exclusively work with ethical farmers and ranchers.

Most customer reviews simply suggest that customers are happy to receive all these benefits. The product offers long-term but natural deodorant and antiperspirant effects. The scent that it leaves behind is well-regarded by most. Because it’s almost all-natural, most people won’t be irritated at all by any of the ingredients.

3. Milk + Honey Aluminum Free Cream Deodorant

Milk + Honey Aluminum Free Cream Deodorant is a heavier deodorant option meant primarily for women. It’s a cream-based deodorant that spreads easily and absorbs deep into the skin pores. It also happens to be great for drowning out any body odor and replacing it with a stronger and much more pleasant scent.

Milk + Honey Aluminum Free Cream Deodorant is made from a mix of natural, moisturizing, and anti-inflammatory ingredients. It uses organic shea fruit butter, beeswax, and coconut oil to moisturize the underarm area. The hydrating effect also smooths out any rough skin and reduces inflammation. This is good for people whose underarms are easily irritated by either sweat or the unnatural deodorants meant to deal with it.

While this deodorant is doing its job, it also replaces your BO with a scent of vanilla and coconut with a touch of lavender. Your skin is left moisturized and with a great scent that is best for summer. But it’s still effective for the colder months of the year.

Customer feedback generally praises the moisturizing effects and the pleasant scent of this product. But the main reason it has so many high reviews is simply that it stops the stank, the one and only promise the brand implicitly makes. The fact that it delivers so much more than it promises, like our first two entries, is always an excellent bonus.

Milk + Honey Aluminum Free Cream Deodorant effectively checks all the boxes for natural but effective deodorants. It’s also soothing, protective, anti-inflammatory, and moisturizing. This may not be great for some people with oily skin. But for most users, it’s one of the best possible options and it’s one you just naturally end up coming back to.

4. Schmidt’s Natural Deodorant – Bergamot and Lime

Schmidt’s Natural Deodorant is available in multiple scents, but our favorite is the Bergamot and Lime deodorant stick. Schmidt’s designed a strong but natural option in their natural deodorant, which offers 24-hour protection. Instead of aluminum compounds and artificial fragrances, they crafted their own natural mix to get the same clean-smelling results.

The main active ingredients are coconut oil, magnesium hydroxide, and essential oils. These provide a moisturizing and pleasant-smelling result. This deodorant uses natural baking soda in place of aluminum, as the main absorbing element. The rest of the ingredients are primarily plant-based but are all natural.

The namesake ingredients, bergamot and lime, are essential oils that provide a citrusy scent and refresh your underarm skin. This duo also offers some antibacterial properties on their own, further helping neutralize your body odor.

Schmidt’s Natural Deodorant is also an ethical brand. They are certifiably natural, vegan, and completely cruelty-free. It’s one of the most popular natural deodorant options available. This deodorant and all of their deodorant products follow the same principles so you can shop with that in mind.

All of those ethical benefits also happen to add up to a light touch on your skin. Schmidt’s Natural Deodorant, Bergamot and Lime eliminates odor for a relatively long-lasting effect. This makes it an ideal option to try for those with sensitivities to regular deodorant ingredients. With natural deodorants, trying different formulations can also help in cases where you are allergic to some common natural ingredients.

5. Native Charcoal Deodorant

Native Deodorant in Charcoal scent is a natural deodorant, 100% free of all plastics in its packaging. The formula itself is also aluminum-free and paraben free.

Native Deodorant uses a mix of naturally-derived ingredients for absorbing sweat and keeping your underarms dry. It uses coconut oil, shea butter, baking soda, and magnesium hydroxide. These provide a range of positive effects on your skin on one of its most sensitive surfaces.

Baking soda acts as an antiperspirant agent, absorbing sweat and its odor-causing bacteria. This powerhouse ingredient has been mentioned a few times on this list. What you need to know is that it’s a strong anti-odor agent. Leave an open box of baking soda in your refrigerator, and it will get rid of the odor of rotting food. Needless to say, when directly applied to your underarms, baking soda does more than enough to deodorize your body.

Coconut oil and shea butter have some anti-BO effects, but they are more well-known for their other benefits in skincare. In this case, they moisturize your skin, leaving it soft and smooth.

Native offers their deodorant in many scents, but their charcoal variety is the best by far. Charcoal powder is a great way to reduce toxins and remove other impurities from sweaty underarms. But the scent is also a feature in this product. The Charcoal Deodorant produces a fresh and clean scent that is suitable for men and women of all ages. The light fragrance is derived from its essential oils, so it’s also an herby kind of smell.

As a natural deodorant, there are no parabens, sulfates, or phthalates in this product. So, if general skin sensitivities are a concern, Native Charcoal Deodorant is less likely to trouble you.

The other main selling point put into the title itself is the plastic-free packaging. You get the deodorant in a cardboard tube that is fully biodegradable and compostable. For its mix of great natural ingredients, scents, and commitments to natural causes, Native Charcoal Deodorant earns its place on our list of the best natural deodorants on the market.

6. Ursa Major Hoppin’ Fresh Deodorant

Ursa Major Hoppin’ Fresh Deodorant is another natural choice, with its own unique formula a bit different than the ones we’ve already gone over. It features some of the familiar characters, and some new ones that add up to an excellent experience for most BO-afflicted customers.

Hoppin’ Fresh Deodorant uses baking soda in place of aluminum, and is completely aluminum-free. The other key ingredients are kaolin clay, hops, and aloe vera.

In total, this deodorant contains 25 naturally-derived ingredients with a mix of benefits. The hops included are odor-fighting antimicrobials. Aloe vera is a common skincare ingredient, albeit less common in deodorants. In this case, it’s added for some soothing properties, reducing redness and inflammation.

Overall, the formula is clean, vegan, and cruelty-free. It is non-toxic, as it’s derived from only non-toxic ingredients. Hoppin’ Fresh will give you a crisp and cool feeling as you glide the smooth stick across your skin. It’s not the most budget-friendly choice, but should last at least three months with daily use.

Customers generally leave great feedback for Ursa Major’s Hoppin Fresh Deodorant They mention the fresh smell and the deodorant’s efficiency at destroying summer underarm odor as two of its standout qualities.

7. Human Supernatural Deodorant

This version of Human Supernatural Deodorant has a tropical scent of guava, sea salt, and coconut. It’s about as natural as all the other deodorants on this list and takes some extra measures of its own to ensure a slightly greener future. It also happens to be a well-regarded hidden gem among its relatively small customer base.

Human Essentials offers Human Supernatural Deodorant only in zero-waste packaging. The container and its contents are entirely biodegradable. When you throw the emptied stick away, you can rest assured the remains will be gentle on the environment. The brand uses their own patented PEEL technology to ensure the entire packaging is compostable. That means you can just throw it in your compost pile without a second thought. It’s also cruelty-free, with no animal involvement in testing or manufacturing.

The natural packaging and formulation is good for your skin, too. It’s a vegan product made primarily with plant materials. There are no plastics present anywhere in the packaging. The formulation is free of sulfates and the other usual suspects for skincare products. So it has as light a touch on your underarms as it does on the planet.

The formula itself is quite interesting, too. It’s full of fatty oils and essential oils, including citrus oils. Orange and grapefruit peel oils offer relief and help naturally scent your underarms. Shea butter and castor butter help moisturize your skin and offer lasting protection. Jojoba esters and sunflower seed wax replace common synthetic waxes. Across the board, there is a lot to love, with a natural answer to every regular synthetic ingredient.

8. Aesop Herbal Deodorant Roll-On

Aesop Herbal Deodorant Roll-On is another natural, cruelty-free, vegan roll-on deodorant. It was designed to be a light and natural alternative to typical spray-on deodorants.

Based on this information, it’s no surprise that this roll-on deodorant is alcohol-free and free of all the most common irritants, too. Instead, it offers anti-odor protection and replaces it with a natural scent. The scent is described by customers as herbal and refreshing. You’ll pick up a vetiver aroma provided by vetiver root, zinc ricinoleate, and wasabi extract. The result is a woody, earthy fragrance.

While it won’t nuke your sweat and odor-causing bacteria, Aesop Herbal Deodorant Roll-On covers it up quite well. The only possible issue is that it may not do the job in extreme cases. Instead, it’s a great light option that can work with mild BO, but is particularly good for those with sensitive skin. You pay a premium for the woody ingredients and the scents they create, making it a true natural deodorant.

One of the best things about Aesop Herbal Deodorant Roll-On is its universality as a natural deodorant. The scent it provides to mask BO is surprisingly flexible and works with any gender and on all kinds of skin and natural scents.

9. Necessaire The Deodorant - Eucalyptus

Next, we have an even lighter option formulated specifically for those of you with extreme allergies and sensitivities. Nécessaire The Deodorant is a dermatologist-tested, hypoallergenic deodorant. That means it was made with sensitive skin in mind, removing the most common allergens. It’s still a natural deodorant, and is formulated in a way that is gentle on generally sensitive skin without allergies, too.

Nécessaire’s The Deodorant is also a non-comedogenic product. That means it does not contain any ingredients that clog the pores in your skin. This is kind of a big deal, as you can imagine what this means for people who sweat profusely. It’s also a great option for people who are acne-prone or who have oily skin. If you have a dermatological condition, you may have to rule this one out. However, if you’re looking for the lightest touch possible that is still effective, this may be the deodorant for you.

Looking at customer feedback, The Deodorant by Nécessaire is meant for a different kind of person. It’s all about comfort—the overwhelming majority of customers reported feeling much more comfortable and fresh after switching to it. Many also said their underarm skin got smoother and/or more evened out.

We are covering the eucalyptus-scented version, which has a minty, herbal fragrance. If you really want to go as light as possible, this deodorant also comes in a fragrance-free option.

10. Hey Humans Natural Deodorant

Hey Humans Natural Deodorant is a natural, scented deodorant. It is aluminum-free, paraben-free, cruelty-free, and 99% recyclable.The basis of the formula is upcycled natural ingredients and a mix of essential oils. The packaging, too, is natural, made almost entirely of recyclable paper.

Overall, what you get in this product is a mix of absorbent and deodorizing elements. Arrowroot powder helps absorb moisture, alongside tapioca starch and sodium bicarbonate. But the natural ingredients list also includes several natural emollients including shea butter and coconut oil.

The deodorant’s formula is solid and Hey Humans’ production process is ethical through and through. But what customers most often comment on is the pleasant scent and the surprisingly long-lasting effects. Many say that this is the one product that they feel did not leave them somehow smelling worse. In all but the hottest weather, the results are reported to be fast and enduring.

It may not be at the top of our list. But Hey Humans Natural Deodorant has a premium formula and checks all the boxes we are looking for in a natural deodorant. Plus, it seems to have a small but loyal customer base that keeps coming back and refuses to try other brands.

Who should not use natural deodorants?

Because they lack mainstream aluminum compounds, natural deodorants won’t clog your sweat glands in the same way. So, if you deal with extreme, even clinical sweat issues, then natural deodorants may not work for you. They can deodorize your underarms, but they can’t halt sweat and eliminate the odor-causing bacteria as efficiently.

In general, those with sensitive skin should be a bit careful with natural deodorants. The presence of different kinds of naturally-derived ingredients may trigger allergic reactions. Patch testing or sampling small amounts should reveal any unknown allergic reactions.

Most allergies that are relevant to natural deodorants are related to fragrances or essential oils. So it’s important to know your allergies so you can know what to avoid.

Medical conditions would be the other more powerful reason to not use natural deodorants. If your issues are medical, then natural deodorants normally can’t do the job. Instead, clinical-strength deodorants may be offered by a dermatologist.

The bottom line

There are plenty of great, natural deodorants to choose from. While none of them are quite as strong as the clinical-grade medicated deodorants, some have quite thorough and long-lasting effects. Then again, other natural deodorants are meant to be softer options for those without the worst BO, but who also have sensitive skin.

Overall, Blu Atlas Deodorant is the best natural deodorant in 2023. Blu Atlas has been kicking up a storm in the men’s skincare space recently. Their signature deodorant is appropriate for people of all ages and genders. It has a nice scent but also offers long-term antiperspirant and deodorant effects.