I had an interesting, but familiar experience while doing the no-product day challenge. When I first heard about the challenge, I wasn’t too concerned about its difficulty due to the fact that I generally don’t use cosmetics and rarely do anything to my hair. On a typical day, I wash my face, put on deodorant, spray some perfume, and brush my teeth. For the challenge, I continued to wash my face and brush my teeth, mainly because I see these actions as a necessity, but I could see the influence of society in creating these habits that humans deem essential. With that said, my biggest challenge was not using deodorant or perfume to mask what my body odor was “destined” to be later in the day. When I got ready in the morning, it was almost instinctual to reach for my deodorant and perfume.

For the majority of the day, I didn’t think much about my armpit scent, but occasionally I would do a quick check to see if I was beginning to smell. No one seemed to notice that I wasn’t wearing deodorant or perfume (at least they didn’t mention it) except me. I was a little surprised at the result of no reactions from the no-product day challenge because, in the past, people pointed this out when I forgot to wear deodorant (maybe people are evolving? maybe I just didn’t smell?). It was the easiest for me to go without perfume because I generally use it because I like the scent but not using deodorant was challenging due to my insecurities about my armpit smell. Coincidentally, I have forgone using body and facial products in the past, ironically for dieting purposes. I found this forgoing beneficial to cleanse myself of the harmful chemicals in everyday products. It still surprises me that society would make products that knowingly contain harmful substances a pillar of everyday life. This challenge has reinforced that products do not define me and that I am probably overthinking the reality of wearing deodorant and perfume. In the end, these products don’t make a substantial difference and definitely don’t define worth.