Last week I ran out of deodorant. As I was running late to class, scrambling to rinse the morning dew off of my body, I grabbed the blue cylindrical bottle from over my desk, and once I opened it, the plastic cup containing the precious scented stick flew out of its channel and fell on the ground. I was left with an empty deodorant container.
My deodorant was white and pasty, the kind that sticks to dark clothes. A thick, chalky texture that would leave crosswalk-like white streaks on every black tank top in my closet, but the only aluminum free formula that didn’t make me stink within 2 hours — a very rare find. Blue case, blue lid, I’ve bought it in all kinds of scents. Vanilla, Coconut, Cotton — whatever that means. The last one I bought, Rose, was my least favorite smell even before its brain popped out of its body in my rush to get to class. So after years of sticking with the same brand, I decided to swap it with something different. It might have been because of the boring scent, or because it ruined a very cute black blouse I wore on Christmas, but that evening I decided to hop on my bike and pedal to Kroger on a quest to find a new aluminum free deodorant.
The deodorant aisle is a fascinating place. Walls of bright colorful containers encasing a multitude of scents. The “feminine” section lives across from the “masculine” — to my eyes holding no meaning other than luxury vs affordability. I’ve ping-ponged from side to side through the years. Right Guard, Native, Oldspice, Secret and so on. Popping each cap, I meticulously started smelling each different scent, avoiding the price tags that were too far from my budget. As my eyes were scrolling through the rows of containers, they landed on a white case with a bright yellow top. The Rosemary-Lavender “Essentials” aluminum free deodorant from Arm and Hammer. I cracked it open, and as soon as I gave the first sniff, my mind sprinted back in time. I was catapulted through a vortex of memories, a pocket time machine that I was not expecting to encounter at the Kroger aisle 14.
2016, freshman year dorm room. Pulling all nighters with my classmates. Getting ready to go out after a week of classes. Entering strangers’ basements on the weekends. The smell of cigarettes, weed, sweat. The friendships that come and go. The nights on the phone with my now long-gone long-distance relationship. If I had to recall it from just my memory, I wouldn’t be able to name the deodorant I was using back then. But as soon as I smelled the lavender scent, I knew immediately that it was connected to that era. It’s incredible how much a single scent can trigger. As the most underrated sense, smell is a gateway to remembrance. The only sense that projects the “essence” of something or someone that is no longer with you and brings its presence back to life.
That visceral transportation through memory surprised me, but perhaps it shouldn’t have; the same thing happened to me a few years back, in 2023, when I was still living in Italy. I was riding in the back of my mum’s messy car one afternoon, and as she sprinted through the bumpy cobblestone roads with my dad backseat-driving next to her, a mysterious object rolled to my feet. I picked it up. It was the lime green tea deodorant spray I was using a couple of years prior. It had probably fallen from my pocketbook when I was moving out of my parents apartment in 2022. I picked up the bottle and took it with me. The next morning I made the brave decision to shake it, spray it, and sniff it.
There, I entered that same vortex, this time catapulting me to my parents’ guest bedroom a couple of years before, when I was struggling to readapt to living in Italy after my life in the US was abruptly put on pause. That fall I moved back into my parents house and started looking for a job. My toxic ex kept trying to contact me from overseas, while the brief summer fling that I had deeply fallen for had moved onto dating someone else. Because of the COVID bans, I hadn’t been able to go back to Italy for two years, and now that I was back, I was stuck there with no job and no close friends. I was in a limbo that I thought I couldn’t escape, broken up between two identities that felt so far from each other.
That fall I cried so much that I decided to record myself every time it happened. Tears would fall down, streaking my cheeks whenever I thought of the lost independence I had built through my years abroad. Like a house of cards that’s blown out by the wind, my structure had completely fallen apart. I was left moving back with my parents with no idea of what to do with my future. The weight of that loss was sinking in so heavily that I would struggle to get out of bed. And each time my days were marked by the soundtrack of my tears, I would meticulously press record on my phone, hoping to somehow utilize the sounds in the future.
I finally did^
As the months went by, I slowly made new friends, found new opportunities, got a full time job and moved away from my parents.The pain slowly faded away, becoming just a long lost memory hidden in the voice memos of my phone, or so I thought. Until I found it again, conveniently packaged up in a portable spray bottle. That sour scent of green tea and lime accompanied me through my journey of crying and getting back up as I picked up all the cards from the ground and built a new foundation, and it was still there to remind me of where I had been.
My life in the US started in 2016, with the sweet smell of the rosemary-lavender Arm & Hammer I was wearing as a freshman, and ended in 2021, stranded in my parents’ guest bedroom while spraying green tea lime Neutro Roberts. The only difference is that, in 2023, the day after riding in the back of my parents car, I took that green tea scent and threw it in the trash, hoping to never have to relive that painful time again; but last week, in the Kroger aisle 14, bike waiting for me in the parking lot, I decided to give the sweet deodorant another chance, a new beginning. But like the ephemerality of a spray scent, life is a series of whiffs that come and go. And by the end of the first day re-wearing my Rosemary-Lavender scent, I was definitely feeling stinky, so I think I’ll have to go back to Kroger aisle 14 and look for a new deodorant. Maybe this time I’ll find one that’s both Aluminum and emotional-baggage free.
This piece is dedicated to my parents, who were there to help me get back up and live with them when I was at my lowest.
They also taught me to only use aluminum-free deodorant, a blessing and a curse.
Irene Piazza is a Designer and Visual Storyteller with an obsession with pink, dogs, and dismantling the patriarchy.
