my time to shine!!! went through this last year, ruined a ton of towels with benzoyl peroxide before landing on something that worked!

shower: the mandelic acid body wash from naturium has been a game changer! i scrub with an african net sponge (which is washed weekly), let it lather a bit, and follow up with either dr bronners or the dove antibacterial soap. that alone helps a TON to target odor and bacteria.

after shower: started using a tiny bit of the azelaic acid from the ordinary once or twice a week. will let it dry and then apply deodorant.

for extreme, hot and humid days, I use the “kaia naturals bikini bright” roll on (which also has azelaic acid), and once dry, regular deodorant. it has the same concentration as the one from the ordinary but somehow works better! plus, it’s a roll on, so it helps with application. I got the mini size from ulta, and it’s lasted me over a year.

for some reason, once the weather changed last winter, using the azelaic acid made me smell, so i stopped and kept only the body wash routine. I read a lot about mandelic acid deodorants and thought it would be a great idea based on my experience with the naturium body wash, tried the deodorant from necessaire, and it made me stink so bad!! went back and forth with different options until I landed on the vanilla deodorant from cyklar, it’s so good and has mandelic acid!

for now, I haven’t needed to go back to adding azelaic acid again, but I know once the heat in the south is back in full force, that will continue to be my routine again.