Milly and Sissy Deodorant Review

Introduction

Milly and Sissy (https://millyandsissy.co.uk/) are a fairly small company that I hadn’t heard of until my recent perusing for a more eco-friendly deodorant, and even then their offering is quite hard to find. There aren’t really any reviews that I could find, beyond their website, and there seem to be very few mentions of them.  

What sets them apart from other eco-deodorants is their refill system. Rather than a replaceable cartridge stick like most alternatives, Milly and Sissy, provide sachets of a powder which you mix with water at home to get a liquid deodorant, which goes into their roll-on bottle.

As far as I’m aware, Life Supplies is the only other company which makes refillable liquid roll-ons, with other refillable deodorants using stick cartridges, which I’m much less keen on. Meanwhile, Life Supplies ships cartoons of a pre-made deodorant formula, which uses far more packaging and is larger and heavier to ship compared to the tiny sachets provided by Milly and Sissy.

User Experience: Mixing the Deodorant

It’s a novel idea and I’m a big fan. Mixing the deodorant is quick, easy, and actually quite satisfying; like making a little potion (what can I say I’m easily entertained). Measuring 50ml of warm - but not boiling - water was a bit fiddly, as I had to let my kettle-boiled water cool, and then only had a large jug for measuring, but I managed alright, and the amount you make lasts long enough that you wouldn’t have to repeat the process too often.  

The instructions were a bit confused, with the refill sachet and the separate instruction slip that came with my set describing different volumes, but the instructions on the sachet seemed to make the most sense and were relatively easy to follow (I think the separate slip might’ve been for a different product). One problem I encountered was opening the bottle, with the plastic piece holding the roller being extremely difficult to remove. In the end, I managed to pry it off with a knife, but it would’ve been nice if it clipped or screwed into place somehow. Maybe a screw would’ve come loose and leaked, but I’m convinced there’s a better solution. Outside of this, the bottle itself is lovely. It feels high quality, made entirely of glass and wood, except for the smaller plastic piece I mentioned holding the glass roller, and it looks very aesthetic. If I’m being picky, the roller felt a biiiit small, but only because I’m used to more common roll-ons like Dove’s, and after a lot of use I’d probably find it perfect. The translucence of the glass also lets you easily see how much deodorant is left, with the lack of this being something I’ve always found frustrating about disposable roll-ons.  

Customer service too has been great. They were friendly and quick in responding with the ingredients list when I asked, and they have a nice points system to earn free refills from orders, birthdays, and following them on social media.

Environmental Impact

In terms of eco-friendliness Milly and Sissy are hard to fault. While there are some minor usability improvements to be had, the sachet system is the best I’ve seen, with the sachet itself being compostable and minimal other packaging (all of which is card). Prior to mixing it has a much longer shelf-life than its liquid counterparts, making it easy to store without wastage, and being in a tiny sachet its transport has far less environmental impact. You could argue needing to boil water for every sachet individually may be worse than mass-producing a liquid in bulk, but I don’t really know enough about deodorant production to say. Meanwhile, the only piece of plastic is that which holds the roller ball, but since the bottle is pretty much infinitely reusable I don’t see this as a major issue. The orders I’ve made have both been full starter sets, so I’m not sure precisely how refills alone are packaged, but it would be certainly possible to post them in envelopes rather than parcels. I’ll update this once I find out if they already are, but if not this could be a great opportunity for even more efficiency.

Effectiveness

Overall, my experience with Milly and Sissy’s refillable deodorant has been great, except for one crucial part, but I have been a bit disappointed by its performance. Admittedly I am coming from antiperspirants, while this is a deodorant (intended to kill or inhibit odour-causing bacteria and mask odours with fragrance, rather than prevent perspiration). But while that might seem an unfair comparison, I’m sure many others will be in the same position as me; looking for a more environmental alternative to the more mainstream options.  

I’ve been using the Cotton Fresh fragrance for several days now, and while I love the scent, by around mid-afternoon I’ll feel like I need to reapply it. I’ve used it in a variety of environments, including working at my desk at home, commuting into London, rock climbing and going to the gym, and despite me normally sweating quite little, I’ve consistently felt it was a quite significant drop in performance from standard antiperspirant roll-ons, like from Sure and Dove.

I did definitely notice an improvement from not using anything though. If a deodorant is what you’re looking for, this could be suitable; particularly if you want a more natural option. There are definitely some concerns around antiperspirants, which I’ll discuss in a moment, and if you’re willing to carry it around for reapplications it could be just as good. With little personal experience with other deodorants without any antiperspirant ingredients, I can’t really say how it compares to other products in that vein, though.

Ingredients

Looking at the ingredients, it seems that although efficacy may have been compromised, it was all in the pursuit of keeping things natural.  

The main active ingredients are:

1. Maranta Arundinacea (Arrowroot): Absorbs moisture to keep your armpits dry.
2. Kaolin: A clay for absorbing sweat and oils, again keeping your armpits dry.
3. Triethyl Citrate: Prevents bacterial degradation of sweat (sweat itself is pretty odourless, with the smell coming from the products of bacterial decomposition).
4. Zinc Oxide: Has antimicrobial properties to kill odour-causing bacteria.  

See the end of this article for a full list of ingredients

While this may sound pretty comprehensive, no aluminium compounds is quite a notable omission, since these are pretty much the only ingredients known to actually reduce sweating. This is what makes this a deodorant, rather than an antiperspirant, and is likely behind the lack of efficacy I experienced.  

Such compounds are often avoided because of links between aluminium and health risks such as breast cancer and Alzheimer’s. However, aluminium absorbed into the body through cosmetics, including deodorants, has been established as far lower than that needed to significantly contribute to aluminium intake, when compared to the amount absorbed by food (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278691500001186). It is also far lower than the levels for which any cognitive decline was seen in aluminium workers in a study investigating the impact of their exposure (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651828/).

Having said that, an aversion to aluminium-containing cosmetics is not unfounded, and while studies have not yet proven any health risks, existing research is conflicting and often incomplete, and there is evidence of an association with conditions such as breast cancer. Potassium alum can be a nice middle ground, since the molecules are larger than in other compounds, and less readily absorbed.  

No parabens is a definitely positive though. These tend to be used as a cheap shelf-life extender, but can cause skin irritation and are similarly linked to a variety of health risks. Evidence is again inconclusive and replacing them with less studied alternatives certainly isn’t preferable, but in this case, there doesn’t seem to be any downside.

Price

While of course more expensive than cheap supermarket disposable deodorants and antiperspirants, I didn’t think Milly and Sissy’s offering was overly pricey. The starter pack costs £11.50, but for that you’re getting one refill and a much better quality, nicer looking, and long-lasting bottle than cheaper alternatives. Further refills come in packs of two for £11, making each refill £5.50. Percentage-wise, this is a step up from the £1.50-£2.50 less sustainable alternatives can be found for, but as a flat increase £4 isn’t loads for the amount you likely need to buy top-ups. Even if you replaced your deodorant every second month (which would definitely be more than usual), the extra cost would be just £24 over a year.

Conclusion

Overall, this formulation is very natural and skin-friendly, but unfortunately it just wasn’t very effective at actually preventing odours for me. While my girlfriend only used it twice, she reported the same. If you’re looking to avoid chemicals common in other deodorants and antiperspirants (like aluminium compounds) it could still be worth a try though. If evidence around the risks of aluminium becomes more conclusive I could definitely see myself giving it another go. I love so much about this product and I reeeally wanted to like it, and it’s very possible others would find it more effective, maybe with repeated applications throughout the day. Some people might want more than two scent options too, but personally I often find an excess of options a bit unnecessary, and I’m a big fan of the ones already available.

Full list of ingredients (cotton fresh scent): aqua, maranta arundinacea, kaolin, cetearyl alcohol, triethyl citrate, gluconolactone, sodium benzoate, zinc oxide, xanthan gum, parfum, citric acid, calcium gluconate.