Once a novelty, aluminum-free deodorant brands are taking over mass retail

“When I first started working on our formula, aluminum-free deodorant was something that you would go to a farmer’s market or a natural food store to get. You would never go into a big-box retailer or a CVS and be able to get aluminum-free deodorant,” said founder Sarah Moret.

But as customers become more conscious of what ingredients they put on their skin, product preferences are changing. Though some studies around health concerns from aluminum-contained deodorant have been discredited or outdated, many customers are still looking for products that have more natural ingredients.

For online retailers, “aluminum-free” has become a common filter for deodorant products alongside options like cruelty-free or dye-free. And brick-and-mortar retailers are responding by changing up what’s on shelves.

This month, the U.K.-based refillable personal care company Wild will begin selling its aluminum-free deodorant in Target stores and online. Over at Ulta, DTC brand Each & Every is hitting 1,255 locations with its $22 natural fragrance deodorants. And Daise, a body care brand geared toward Gen Z and Gen Alpha, has an aluminum-free deodorant spray in its lineup that launched in Target this month and Ulta in December.

Legacy players have been paying attention to the shift, too. Proctor and Gamble back in 2017 acquired Native, which helped usher along the aluminum-free trend with its sleek, gender-free aesthetic and unique scents. P&G’s Secret and Old Spice also now offers aluminum-free alternatives — overall, P&G’s U.S. deodorant volume and value share are each up nearly a point over last year, according to the company’s second-quarter earnings. Unilever’s Dove and Church & Dwight’s Arm & Hammer sell aluminum-free alternatives, too.

Moret from Curie said that there’s increasing demand in part because the product is one that people re-buy every few months. Curie is also sold in Walmart as part of the natural set, where SKU counts doubled in its first twelve months. “There has been a huge growth in the aluminum-free category, specifically,” she said. “And it just goes to show how much demand there is and how much that demand has grown.”

Better formulations and more options

One of the biggest challenges natural deodorant brands have faced is the question of whether they actually “work.” Anti-perspirants that contain aluminum are effective because they block sweat from forming. But aluminum-free deodorants work differently; they don’t stop you from sweating but instead “mask” the scent. 

This means customers who are switching to an aluminum-free deodorant may go through a potentially rank adjustment phase. Bodies have to adapt to the change in chemistry, and that means the product may not work right away — or not at all, based on the person’s sweat pH and how it interacts with the product, Moret said.

“With deodorant,  people sometimes expect that if it works for someone, it should work for everybody,” she said. “And that’s just not how it works, like with all cosmetic products and all hair-care products. Everybody’s body chemistry is different.”

Moret said when Curie launched in 2018, it had to educate customers about this phase. But as more brands come to market, they’re more familiar with it, she said. “Most of our [new] customers are already using an aluminum-free deodorant, and it doesn’t work for them. Or they are still using antiperspirant,  but they’ve been wanting to make the switch,” she said.

Harry Symes-Thompson, co-founder and general manager at Wild, said part of the reason the natural deodorant space is booming is that natural formulations have come a long way in the past five years, thanks to more investment in product research and development. His company’s first minimum viable product “was actually very terrible. It didn’t work at all — it made you smell worse. The scent we launched with was lemon and thyme, and people thought you smelled like a roast chicken walking around.”

But the company still sold a couple thousand units, indicating a market for more natural products.

After a few million pounds of fundraising, a year of R&D and at least 25 product iterations, Wild launched a new refillable product right around the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This version came in five different scents and also eliminated all single-use plastic by using aluminum and recycled plastic for the refillable container. On the ingredient side, Wild added magnesium hydroxide that helps stop bacteria growth, and zinc ricinoleate to absorb and trap odor molecules. The DTC launch crashed the site and sold out in two hours.

“During Covid, people cared more about what they put on their bodies — they wanted ingredients they could understand, especially with increased health concerns,” Symes-Thompson said. “Natural and clean deodorant had a big moment.”

Additionally, Symes-Thompson said the lack of in-personal socialization allowed for the transition period of pores to unblock.

“People were willing to take that risk during Covid since they weren’t socializing as much,” Symes-Thompson said. “That worked in our favor.”

A new aesthetic

The new class of aluminum-free and natural deodorants is also changing the game from a marketing standpoint. Like Native’s all-white containers, some are using gender-free aesthetics and scent to appeal to a more modern shopper.

Caitlin Starke, head of strategy at brand design firm Pearlfisher, said deodorant brands are leaning into sophisticated and luxurious scents and packages to transform a daily hygiene habit into a “little treat” moment. Salt & Stone, a natural deodorant that hit Sephora a year ago, sells scents that sound like they belong in a perfume bottle: Santal & Vetiver, Neroli & Basil and Black Rose & Oud.

Others may emphasize luxury or sophistication with a special packaging format, like Glossier’s refillable system. And others can win by putting out products that lean into the skin-care or beauty angle, like Saltair’s AHA serum.

“There’s a desire to make it a little more lush and a nicer experience,” Starke said. “It’s something you have every day of your life. Why not enhance it a little bit?”

Carly Broderick, founder and CEO of Miles, launched her product as a gender-free DTC brand aimed at tweens and teens in 2021. It landed in Target for a short-term test in 2023, but didn’t go on from there.

“It taught us a lot about how early Miles was in defining a brand specifically for teens and an all-gender audience,” she said. “From that test, we learned that there’s room in the market for gender-inclusive products, especially for this generation.”

Since then, Amazon has become Miles’a biggest driver of sales, where conversion rates are three times as high as the category average. She credits that to parents scooping up essentials for their families. From there, the company has continued to grow by offering limited edition scenes and designs, like a Spring Break scent that debuted last March and will be hitting a retailer later this year.

“When it comes to brick-and-mortar retail, personal care is an essential product — but it can be more engaging with the right scents, formulations and brand story,” she said.