Today is the second last day of my Surf Feb challenge and I'm sitting here writing in a puddle of my own sweat and effort. It sounds rather gross, but I quite like being bone tire and covered in a layer of salt, left over from the ocean's administrations. It's been awesome not working - I know this won't last forever, but I'm taking advantage of these summer days where my time is my own.

And when I do go to work, being smelly (like I am now) is probably not an option. So, back to making my own deodorant as I'd run out of the huge pile I made in January last year, just before we left. We love this stuff. Jamie uses it as well. The big one is for our shared ensuite, and the little ones end up in handbags and surf buckets or left in the fridge for when we run out, or sometimes gifted to friends who are open minded about that.

Of course, I have mates who don't wear it at all, and they are happy to smell. But when you do a professional job around kids, that's just not an option. You don't want to be known as the smelly teacher. Besides, even I don't really like the stale smell of body odour!

Lucky I had most of the ingredients, as not working means we're super broke. The only thing I had to buy was shea butter - I bought this brand off Ebay. I think the costing per jar worked out at around $1.70 last year so it kinda pays for itself anyway - a jar of natural deodorant here costs around $10.

The beauty of this recipe is that you can substitue things in and out. Arrowroot and tapioca is interchangeable. Don't have shea butter? Mango butter is really nice. Vegan? Use candellia wax (about half to beeswax). Bicarb soda can be subbed with bentonite clay, though I'm told it stains white clothes. We don't have a sensitivity to bicarb - but we did for the first week of using it until our skin settled down. And it's so easy to make - the oily ingredients go in a small measuring jug, and I sit that in a pan of boiling water until it melts, then add the dry ingredients.

And here's yet another use for AI - I didn't have to do maths when I had 64 g of beeswax instead of the 50 in my recipe. Instead of that waste of time, I just asked AI. There - I've given away the recipe.

You can keep it fresh or add your own scent - I made my own blend and had just enough essential oils left, thank goodness. The shea butter lends a vanilla sweetness - so does mango butter, but I ran out of that sadly.

I've now run out of a lot of my essential oils - I put the empty bottles in my underwear drawer as they stll give off scent. It sure smells nice in my house right now. Probably even nicer once I put some deodorant on...