Local Living, Global Awareness: Dove Deodorant

For my first 'Local Living, Global Awareness' post, I wanted to do something that really was close to home, so close in fact that it could be found smack in the center of my bathroom: deodorant.

The deodorant that I use right now is one of Dove's premium protection solid deodorants, and it smells awesome!  Fresh pomegranate and lemon verbena, what better way to start one's day, am I right?

Source: http://www.dove.us/

Actually, today I didn't want to just use this product, I wanted to know how it was made, where it came from, and how the making of this product affected the lives of those communities who worked on it.  So, the first thing I did was take this deodorant I bought in bulk at a nearby Costco, and flipped it over to read the ingredients below:

Cyclopentasiloxane

Stearyl Alcohol

C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate

PPG-M Butyl Ether - skin conditioner

Hydrogenated castor oil

Fragrance

Dimethicone

Polyethylene

Sunflower Seed Oil

Steareth-100

BHT

It read like any other list of deodorant ingredients, most of which were moisturizing agents, emulsifiers, and substances that allowed for a more even spread of the solid deodorant.  If you're interested, this video below also shows how the typical deodorant stick is made!

 

Of course, it wasn't enough to know where and how the deodorant was made; I also needed to know where it was made and by whom.  Another bit of searching and I found my first answer.  My particular stick of deodorant was made in one of the Unilever factories in the U.S., the parent company for Dove, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, St. Ives, Vaseline and many other popular brands of beauty and food products.

For those who don't know, Unilever is one of the BIG ones.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/consumer-brands-owned-ten-companies-graphic_n_1458812.html

The ingredient I wanted to focus on most in that list of hard-to-pronounce chemical compounds is Stearyl Alcohol, a fatty alcohol generally derived from Stearic Acid found in Shea nuts and coconut oil (though it can also be found in smaller amounts in other nuts, fruits, and some animal fats) which is one important ingredient in maintaining the deodorant stick's smooth finish, and is used frequently in beauty products for its skin-soothing properties.

From what I have found, the largest exporters (<-- careful, the link takes some time to load) of Stearyl Alcohol are Malaysia, Germany, the United States and India, so it would be a safe assumption that the United States is in large measure its own supplier of Stearyl Alcohol.  However, it is clear that the raw materials - generally tropical fruits and nuts - from which Stearyl Alcohol is derived are not also produced in the United States, so I felt I needed to dig a bit deeper.

If the United States makes Stearyl Alcohol, who produces the agricultural and refined products that it is made from? 

Let's focus on Shea products to find out.  Once again turning to Google, I found that as of March, 2010, it was found that the majority of refined Shea butter was produced in European countries, which then "export the refined product to manufacturers of food and cosmetics" like Unilever.

65% of West African countries export the initial, raw agricultural products - Shea nuts and unrefined Shea butter - to Asian and European countries to be processed.  As such, of the projected total market value of $500 million for Shea products, West African countries enjoy only a small percentage of the potential revenue.  Good news though!  The number of countries only exporting the raw products have been dropping steadily as international and domestic investment in the West African shea markets as led to more refining capabilities in countries otherwise dependent on agricultural exports.

Shea nuts (Source: http://www.cleopatraschoice.com/shea-butter.html)

Shea butter (Source: http://blackgirllonghair.com/)

 Now that I know a bit about how my Dove Deodorant is made, who makes it, how they make it, and where it has been in its various forms, I also want to know how the markets affect those at the very beginning of the products creation, those who export the raw materials.  For that information, I turned my eye again to West Africa.

In Ghana, communities are coming together around the markets for Shea butter, especially as it opens greater opportunities for African women who individually made very little money in selling foraged shea nuts but as a collective managed to create enterprises in markets such as soap and shea butter as well, increasing their respective incomes by a modest but supremely important amount.  In Ghana's northern region, this has become especially important as the country works to bridge its wide national poverty gap which sees around 52% of its population as living below the poverty line.

Not only Ghana, but other West African countries like Burkina Faso are benefiting from the Shea Nut and Butter markets as well.  In Burkina Faso, for example, Shea butter is often referred to as "women's gold," because of its historical use as a beauty product but more importantly for the opportunities for employment that the market brings for women, who in recent years have worked in collectives to produce large amounts of Shea butter, soaps, and other products in order to bring in greater income for themselves and for their families.

Source: www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/october-2008/closing-ghana%E2%80%99s-national-poverty-gap

It is, however, important to note that while these gains in the trade of increasingly valuable, "hot commodity" products is a great stride for West African countries, there are many who are critical of those corporations who take advantage of the cheaper markets in these agriculturally-dependent countries then market the products as resulting from fair trade and price agreements to their consumers in advanced industrial countries; there is controversy as to whether farmers and purveyors of these products in West Africa are actually getting paid their "fair" share.
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All the world is made up of local communities.  One small community now has the capability to affect or to be affected by those thousands of miles away.  This immense influence comes with this responsibility: to know those we affect and to do what we can to do right by them.