Whenever I walk through the aisles of CVS, my eyes are drawn to anything new or improved in the deodorant aisle. I recognize that my fascination is problematic, and fortunately my friends at The Dartmouth have been very supportive of me as I try to work through my issues. For the past two months, I have submitted to my own curiosity and have been splurging on $10 Old Spice Pro Strength Deodorant Pure Sport. Doesn't that roll off the tongue like poetry?
After seeing all the commercials, I could not help but wonder: How effective is this new "prescription strength" deodorant? Is there a tangible difference between Old Spice Pro Strength and the amateur stuff that I usually use? Moreover, would I find anything in this deodorant worth the $10 price tag besides the excessive hype and celebrity endorsements?
In the process of trying to answer these questions, I also learned a great deal about myself. Mostly, I learned that I am lazy and have trouble sticking to a daily routine. Let me explain: The label on Old Spice Pro Strength and other similar clinical-strength products instructs you to apply the product at night before you go to bed. Apparently, you sweat the least during the night, and the deodorant can really settle into your pores while you sleep. Understandably, this struck me as bizarre, and I struggled to remember to apply the deodorant at night. After all, I have enough trouble remembering to brush my teeth and shower every night.
I also could not help but worry about my personal health since I was clogging up my pores with a veritable cement of heavy metal chemicals. But that is a risk I was willing to take to benefit science and consumers.
Once I remembered to put on Old Spice Pro Strength, it seemed to perform admirably enough. For one month, I used Old Spice Pro Strength under one arm and my regular deodorant under the other. A daily coin toss determined which arm received which treatment, in a vain attempt at making this experiment more legitimate. From this scientific study, I deduced that both products seem to do a pretty admirable job stopping sweat and its consequential odor.
To combat flawed results due to my sessile [Editor's Note: Sessile, adjective: fixed in one place, immobile : the tech writer remained sessile at his computer as the Pro Strength settled into his pores] nature, I took it upon myself to do more physically demanding activities and really test the mettle of Old Spice Pro Strength. At the end of these tests, the Old Spice product did perform better than my stick of regular Gillette. How much mileage one gets out of one application of Old Spice may vary, but it prevented marginally more sweat than its competitor. The most noticeable difference was the Pure Sport scent of the Pro Strength, which lasted well into the next night and much longer than my regular deodorant.
So, the Old Spice Pro Strength deodorant does indeed work better than a lesser, and less expensive, competitor. But is it worth the $10 per stick? That is a harder question for me to answer. Some people may already be happy with their current deodorant, and there is no reason for them to switch to this pricier product. However, if you perspire heavily or are particularly self-conscious, then maybe Old Spice Pro Strength is worth a try. It is not very hard to find in CVS, packaged in its shiny red box, just begging you to try it.
As for me, I am left to battle my unnatural deodorant fascination.
Luofei is a staff writer for The Mirror. We don't discriminate according to race, gender or hygienic fetishes.
