The Pit Kit
for the switch that usually fails.
Most people quit natural deodorant on day four. This is the ritual that gets you past it. Skip to the three steps if you already know.
“For those with sensitive skin, and those who cannot wear deodorant. This is the soap for you!”
Three products and one order to use them in, for the two weeks that decide whether you ever get off antiperspirant.
Why a kit rather than one deodorant
Almost everybody who tries to switch does the same thing. They buy one natural deodorant, put it on over the same underarm they have been sealing shut for years, and give it four days. Then they go back to the drugstore and tell people natural deodorant does not work.
The deodorant was rarely the problem. The problem is that a switch is a change to the skin, not a change of product, and one step cannot carry a change on its own. So this is three jobs, split three ways.
The order below is Jaime’s, not ours. She wrote it up for her own readers, and her instruction was to “simply spread the underarms, let them sit for 10 minutes, then wash with our Charcoal Soap.” The deodorant goes on after that.
The three steps
Dead Sea Mud Mask, Black Gold Collection
One ingredient, which is Dead Sea mud, sourced from Israel and poured by hand into amber glass. Spread it on both underarms, give it ten minutes, then get in the shower.
Jaime’s own line for it: a precious raw material that works to accelerate the skin’s exfoliation process, minimize pores, wrinkles, and fine lines.
Potent, so start with less time than you think. This is the step you will use least often and the reason one jar lasts.
CHARCOAL 27 Detox Soap
Activated charcoal with bentonite and montmorillonite clay, oat flour, and infusions of calendula, marshmallow root, burdock and honey. Essential oils of lavender, hyssop, spearmint, peppermint and anise.
Twenty seconds of real lather on each underarm, every day through the switch. Cheapest step, most skipped step.
The NEW Deodorant, in Woods or Fresh
An enzyme based deodorant that breaks down odor causing bacteria, while supporting your body’s lymphatic and natural detoxification process. It does not shut off the sweat, so you will still sweat. That is the trade and it is the honest reason this works differently.
No toxins, no irritation, no epic body odor fails. Only good things, in Jaime’s words.
Woods is the darker of the two. Fresh is the lighter one, described by one buyer as delicate and by another as earthy. Same formula underneath, so pick on smell alone.
What the whole thing costs
As a kit, all three are $147, ten dollars under buying them one at a time. If you want to start with one thing, start with the soap at twenty nine dollars, because it is the step that makes the other two work and it is the one you will use every day regardless.
The Pit Kit
three together in one box
The honest part
Coming off antiperspirant can be rough at the beginning. A lot of people report smelling more than usual for a stretch before things settle down, and that stretch is where nearly everybody gives up. Usually around day four, usually after one bad afternoon.
We would rather you knew that going in than found out on your own and blamed the deodorant. Start on a quiet week. Wash properly every day. Use the mask when you need a reset. Reapply at midday during the first week without deciding it means the product failed.
And it will not work for everybody, because nothing in this category does. If it is wrong for you, there is a sixty day return promise and a real person on the other end of the email.
The three, in full
Step one of the three step underarm ritual
“Excellent product. A little goes a long way on your face. After using my face felt so refreshed and firm. Highly recommend this product.”
Cynthia L. ◆ verified buyer
Mud in a jar. One ingredient. Most people put it on their face, and in this kit it goes somewhere else entirely.
What is actually in the jar
Dead Sea mud. That is the ingredient list. Not mud plus thickener plus preservative plus a fragrance to cover the smell of the preservative.
Jaime is direct about why. Most Dead Sea products on the shelf, in her words, come watered down with fillers and preservatives and synthetic fragrances. When she started sourcing she was committed to keeping ours as simple as the mud alone. It comes straight from Israel and gets poured by hand into amber glass.
Why mud and not a clay stick
The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth and it holds ten times the minerals of ordinary seawater. Magnesium, calcium, potassium, bromides. That density is the entire argument for the ingredient, and it is why people have been walking into that water on purpose for two thousand years.
On skin it does something a wipe cannot. It sits, it dries down, and it draws while it does. Ten minutes of that is the point of this step.
Jaime met this mud a long time before the jar existed. She first worked with it almost fifteen years ago while she was building the CHARCOAL 27 formula, back at the farmers market, because so many mothers kept stopping at her table asking for something for breakouts. The standalone jar came later, once it was obvious the mud was doing the heavy lifting.
What the mud does
This is her own description of the material and we are giving it to you the way she wrote it. Loved by Ancient Queens, Dead Sea Mud is a precious raw material that works miraculously to accelerate the skin’s exfoliation process, minimize pores, wrinkles, and fine lines.
Because of its incredibly rich mineral content, Dead Sea Mud helps balance skin tone and reverse the signs of fine lines and wrinkles.
In this kit you are pointing that same jar at your underarms rather than your face. Same mud, same ten minutes, different address.
| Ingredients | Pure Dead Sea mud |
| Sourced | Israel |
| Packed | Poured by hand, amber glass |
| Price | $89 |
The pit version, in Jaime’s own words
She wrote this up for her own list. Her instruction for aromatic armpits, and aromatic is her word, was to “simply spread the underarms, let them sit for 10 minutes, then wash with our Charcoal Soap.” The deodorant goes on after that.
| 01 | Do this standing in the bathroom before you get in the shower, not after. It is mud. |
| 02 | Spread it over both underarms. Ten minutes is Jaime’s number and it is a ceiling, not a target. |
| 03 | Wash it off with CHARCOAL 27. Warm water, proper lather, no scrubbing at it. |
| 04 | Dry completely. Then the deodorant. This is the sequence the whole kit is built on. |
“Love it! Reminded me of being in Israel where I actually was in the Dead Sea and then had a spa mud treatment!”
Yvette D. ◆ verified buyer
The two fair objections
One. Eighty nine dollars is a lot of money for mud.
It is, and we are not going to talk you out of noticing. What the money buys is a single ingredient shipped from one specific place on earth, poured by hand, with nothing added to stretch it. The cheaper jars on the shelf are cheaper because they are partly something else.
The other half of the answer is at the top of this page, in Cynthia’s review. A little goes a long way. You are buying a jar you use ten minutes at a time, not something you pour out.
Two. Is it going to wreck my skin.
It is potent, and more is not better. We would rather you heard that from Evelyn, who used it more often than her skin wanted and said so in public on this product.
“due to how potent this mud is, it’s best to use only once per week, and wash off before fully drying”
Evelyn B.
That is good advice and we would rather you started there. Give it less time than you think the first go, rinse before it goes hard and chalky, and let your skin tell you whether to add time. Patch test if you know you react to things. It will not be right for everybody, and nothing on this page is a treatment for anything.
Eighty nine dollars for the jar. It is the deep step of the Pit Kit and the one you will reach for least often, which is exactly why one jar goes a long way.
Orders ship within 1 to 2 business days and US orders usually arrive in 2 to 5. There is a sixty day return promise.
Step two of the three step underarm ritual
“For those with sensitive skin, and those who cannot wear deodorant. This is the soap for you!”
Meliza F. ◆ verified buyer
CHARCOAL 27 is a bar of soap. Face, body, and in this kit, the small patch of skin you have been covering up every morning for years.
Why a soap is in a deodorant kit
Because most people do not wash their underarms. They let the water run past on the way down and call it clean. That works fine when a stick of antiperspirant is sealing the area anyway. It stops working the week you take the stick away.
Twenty seconds of actual lather is the whole ask. It is the cheapest step in the kit and it is the one people skip.
Why it behaves differently than the eight dollar bar
Cheap soap is built to rinse off fast. This one is built to hold on for the twenty seconds it is on your skin. Activated charcoal and two clays absorb oil and lift what is sitting on the surface, then the water takes it with it.
The infused oils are the counterweight. That is the part cheap charcoal bars leave out, and it is why they leave you squeaking and tight. Jaime has been building this formula since the farmers market days.
What is in it
- Activated charcoal. The reason the bar is black and the reason it draws.
- Oat flour, bentonite and montmorillonite clay. In Jaime’s words, they absorb excess oil and draw out impurities. Two clays, not one.
- Infusions of calendula, marshmallow root, burdock and honey. The soft side of the formula. They go into the oils before the bar is ever poured.
- Essential oils of lavender, hyssop, spearmint, peppermint and anise. This is the smell people write about. It is the reason the bar has a fan club.
No parabens, no sulfates, no artificial dyes, no synthetic fragrances, no drying alcohols. Handmade in small batches in the USA. That is the house standard, not a claim we invented for this page.
| What you get | One bar |
| Use | Face, body, underarms |
| Made | Small batches, USA |
| Price | $29 |
“Large size quality soap bar. Holds together so far. Clean ingredients a main draw.”
Tammy A.
How to use it on your underarms
| 01 | Work the lather up in your hands first. The bar goes further that way and lasts months longer. |
| 02 | Wash both underarms deliberately. Count to twenty. Most people give it two seconds. |
| 03 | Rinse until there is no film left. Keep the lather well below your eyebrows on the way past. |
| 04 | Dry the area completely before anything else goes on. Damp skin is why deodorant slides. |
Three things we would rather say out loud
One. The first couple of weeks off antiperspirant can be loud.
Plenty of people report smelling more than usual for a stretch after they stop. That is the moment almost everybody quits and goes back to the drugstore aisle, usually on about day four. We are not going to promise you skip it. What we will say is that this is exactly the stretch where washing properly earns its keep, and it is the reason a bar of soap is in a deodorant kit at all.
Two. It is a strong bar near your eyes.
Jayma said it better than we would have.
“The soap feels light, fresh & hydrating on my skin. I do have to be careful around my eyes, it can feel a little strong. But overall I’m loving the bar.”
Jayma S.
Three. It will not suit everybody.
Nothing does. If you have a known sensitivity, patch test it first. If it is wrong for you, tell us and we will sort it out rather than let you quietly give up on the whole idea.
Twenty nine dollars for one bar. It is the entry point to the Pit Kit and the sensible place to start if you are only buying one thing today.
Orders ship within 1 to 2 business days and US orders usually arrive in 2 to 5. There is a sixty day return promise.
Step three of the three step underarm ritual
“I love it! It works great! I’ve tried dozens of other more natural deodorants, and this is my favorite by far!”
Jennifer J. ◆ verified buyer
Read that review again. Dozens. This is a category people fail their way through, and Woods is for the person who has already been let down twice.
What it is
A deodorant. It goes on after the shower, on dry skin, before you get dressed. That is the entire operating manual.
Why it behaves differently
An antiperspirant works by stopping the sweat. This one does not do that, and we want you to read that sentence before you buy rather than after. You will still sweat.
It goes after the smell instead. Sweat on its own is close to odorless. The smell arrives when bacteria get to it. The NEW Deodorant is an enzyme based deodorant that breaks down odor causing bacteria, while supporting your body’s lymphatic and natural detoxification process. Different target, different result.
That is the whole trade and it is worth being clear eyed about. If a bone dry underarm at any cost is the requirement, this is the wrong product and we would rather say so now than have you find out at two in the afternoon.
What it does, in Jaime’s words
Here is the real truth, the way she tells it. You can splash all the oils on your pitties all day every day, and it won’t work. Ask us how we know. It takes the perfect blend, in perfect balance, to overcome odors such as these.
Your traditional solid, powder or spray either masks body odor or, heaven forbid, stops perspiration all together. This is an innovative founder formulation with natural, farm crafted ingredients that do all the things you want a good deodorant to do without all the grossness. No toxins, no irritation, no epic body odor fails. Only good things.
About the Woods side of the pair
There are two scents and this is the darker one. Woods is the name and the name is doing honest work. It is the one to pick if you want the smell to read as low and dry rather than bright, and it is the one that tends to get borrowed by other people in the house.
We would rather show you what buyers actually wrote about it than hand you a list of poetic notes. Two of them opened with the smell before they mentioned anything else.
“Loved the smell and it worked really well for me. It’s a bit pricey but it lasts a decent amount of time.”
Arielle
| Scent | Woods |
| Type | Deodorant, enzyme based |
| Stops sweat | No |
| Made | Small batches, USA |
| Price | $39 |
The ritual
| 01 | Wash first, properly, with CHARCOAL 27. Putting this on over yesterday is asking it to do a job it cannot do. |
| 02 | Dry the underarm completely. Not nearly. This is the step that decides how the day goes. |
| 03 | Apply a thin even layer to each side. A little more is not a little better, it is just sticky. |
| 04 | Give it a moment before your shirt goes on. Then leave it alone and go about your day. |
The fear nobody says out loud
It is not really about ingredient lists. It is about lifting your arm in a meeting at three in the afternoon and finding out in public that you made a mistake in private that morning. Everybody switching has that thought. Almost nobody types it into a search bar.
So here is the honest version. The first stretch after you stop using antiperspirant can be rough, and a lot of people report smelling more than usual before it settles. That is when people quit, usually around day four, and go back to what they know. If you can, start on a Friday. Wash with the soap every single day through it. Reapply midday during the first week and stop apologizing to yourself for needing to.
We are not going to tell you this works for everybody, because no deodorant does. We will tell you that the people who make it through the first two weeks are almost never the ones writing to us afterwards.
Two more honest notes
It is small. Smaller than you are picturing.
Jonathan left us a five star review and used two thirds of it to complain about the size, which is the most useful review on the product.
“Great smell
Too dang small.
Thought it was lip gloss”Jonathan S.
He is right. It is a small format and it looks like less than thirty nine dollars of anything when it lands on your counter. What it is not is a padded stick of mostly filler, and it goes on thin, which is why Arielle got a decent amount of time out of hers. Judge it at week six, not on day one.
Thirty nine dollars is real money for a deodorant.
Our own reviewer said pricey in public and we left it up. Whether it is worth it comes down to one question, which is how many drugstore sticks and disappointing natural ones you have already thrown away this year. If the answer is more than two, the math is friendlier than it looks.
Thirty nine dollars, in Woods. It is step three of the Pit Kit and it is the step everything else on this page exists to protect.
Orders ship within 1 to 2 business days and US orders usually arrive in 2 to 5. There is a sixty day return promise, so if the switch does not take, write to us.
Step three of the three step underarm ritual
“This is hands down THE best natural deodorant I have ever used! I smell as fresh at the end of the day as I do at the start!”
Keri O. ◆ verified buyer
The end of the day is the only test that counts. Anything smells fine at eight in the morning.
The thing almost nobody explains
Sweat is close to odorless. It is the bacteria that arrive afterwards that make the smell you are worried about. So there are two ways to build the product. Shut the sweat off, or deal with the bacteria.
Antiperspirant takes the first road. The NEW Deodorant takes the second. It is an enzyme based deodorant that breaks down odor causing bacteria, while supporting your body’s lymphatic and natural detoxification process. Which means the honest headline is this: you will still sweat, and that is on purpose.
Read that twice before you order. Half the disappointment in this category comes from people expecting a deodorant to behave like an antiperspirant and then blaming the deodorant.
What it does, in Jaime’s words
She is blunt about why the homemade versions fail. You can splash all the oils on your pitties all day every day, and it won’t work. Ask us how we know. It takes the perfect blend, in perfect balance, to overcome odors such as these.
Your traditional solid, powder or spray either masks body odor or, heaven forbid, stops perspiration all together. This is an innovative founder formulation with natural, farm crafted ingredients that do all the things you want a good deodorant to do without all the grossness. No toxins, no irritation, no epic body odor fails. Only good things.
The two quiet failures of natural deodorant
People talk about whether it works. They talk much less about the other two ways these things go wrong. It breaks you out, so you end up with a rash where the problem used to be. Or it quietly destroys the underarms of every shirt you own.
Sarah wrote the review that covers all three at once, which is why it is on this page rather than a line we made up.
“This deodorant is the only natural deodorant I have tried that does not make me break out and actually LASTS! I don’t feel the need to reapply constantly. It does not stain my clothes or leave a bad smell behind like I’ve experienced with other deodorants.”
Sarah S.
That is her skin and her wardrobe, not a promise about yours. It is still the most useful sentence anybody has written about this product.
About the smell, including the disagreement
Fresh is the lighter of the two scents. We could write you a paragraph of invented notes here. Instead, two buyers described it in their own words and they did not entirely agree, which tells you more than we could.
“Smells super earthy !”
Kala T.
“The fragrance is delicate and pleasing. Works for me all day long.”
Julia P. ◆ verified
Earthy and delicate, from two people describing the same jar. Take both seriously. If scent is the deciding factor for you, Fresh is the softer pick and Woods is the darker one.
“Effective deodorant with an amazing fragrance, couldn’t ask for better”
Sharon C. ◆ verified buyer
| Scent | Fresh |
| Type | Deodorant, enzyme based |
| Stops sweat | No |
| Made | Small batches, USA |
| Price | $39 |
A day with it
| Morning | Wash with CHARCOAL 27. Dry the underarm completely, then a thin even layer on each side. Wait a beat before your shirt. |
| Midday | During your first week, top it up. Sarah stopped needing to. Give yourself the same runway. |
| Evening | This is the honest checkpoint. Not the mirror, the end of the day. That is what Keri was talking about. |
| Weekly | The Dead Sea Mud Mask, ten minutes on the underarms before you shower. That is the reset step. |
The part you are actually worried about
Failing in front of people. A hug you go stiff during. Sitting in a car with someone and wondering. That is the real reason most people never switch, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a cheerful one.
Here it is. Coming off antiperspirant can be rough at the start, and a lot of people report smelling more than usual for a stretch before things settle. It is the reason the drugstore aisle keeps winning on about day four. Pick a quiet week to start. Wash every day with the soap, because that step is doing more work than it gets credit for. Reapply at lunchtime for the first week without treating it as a failure.
And no, it does not work for everybody. We are not going to pretend otherwise to close a thirty nine dollar sale. If it is wrong for you there is a sixty day return promise and a person on the other end of the email.
Thirty nine dollars, in Fresh. It is small when it arrives and it goes on thin, so judge it at week six rather than on the day it lands.
Orders ship within 1 to 2 business days and US orders usually arrive in 2 to 5.
Three products, about twelve minutes on the day you use all three, and about thirty seconds on every other day. That is the entire commitment.
Orders ship within 1 to 2 business days and US orders usually arrive in 2 to 5. Everything is handmade in small batches in the USA, with no parabens, sulfates, artificial dyes, synthetic fragrances or drying alcohols.
Shop the Pit Kit→
handcrafted in small batches
