Not a Writers Club is a newsletter written by Celeste M. Scott. Here you’ll find musings written by Celeste along with writing prompts that you can try out yourself. If you’ve been looking for a sign to keep writing, this is it.
Written in my Notes app on May 3rd, 2021 at 6:44pm
Deodorant
I have on more than one occasion been out with a friend on a day that was warmer than I expected it to be, and realized in the middle of our outing that I was in desperate need of deodorant.
I am a natural deodorant girlie, which means that I am constantly aware of how my armpits smell. I often keep that mf thing (deodorant) on me for this very reason. But sometimes you mess up. You switch between your tote bag and your purse and the deodorant gets left behind in the process. And then you’re out having lunch with a friend and you have to be like “This is awkward but can we stop at CVS so I can get some deodorant?”
I thought about this today as I was rummaging through my bathroom cabinet and found several different deodorants in various glossier bags— most of them Toms. If you are a part of the natural deodorant community you’re probably well aware that Toms is probably the bottom of the barrel when it comes to natural deodorants, but they usually always have it at the store and it’s usually the most inexpensive.
The best natural deodorant I’ve ever tried is made by a brand called byhumankind. (Not to be confused with Pharrells skincare brand “humanrace” which has oddly similar branding to the aforementioned company but I digress.) I love the byhumankind deodorant because it comes in this cute reusable canister, that you just buy refills for whenever you need more deodorant. Mine is lime green. It was always fun pulling it out whenever I had to reapply deodorant and drawing attention to how cute it was by saying, “This is my deodorant.” Eventually I stopped buying the refills because deodorant is one of those things you don’t think about replacing until you run out and by then you just got run to the store and get it.
You’re probably wondering, why not just use regular deodorant instead of needing to reapply deodorant throughout the day? The answer is because it’s not as fun. But also because when I was a kid someone told my mom that antiperspirant deodorant can cause toxins to get trapped in your body and cause breast cancer. That kind of thing doesn’t leave you. Even if it’s absolutely a lie.
I think another reason why I’m so hyper aware of my body odor is because one time during summer camp (I had to be in like third grade or something) I lifted my arms up to stretch and a camp supervisor walked by and made the loudest “EW” noise I’ve ever heard. It wasn’t directed at me, but I knew from his reaction that my pits reeked. Probably because my mom had me raw dogging a field trip to a Dodgers game in natural deodorant.
Prompt: Revisit something you’ve written. A thought you wrote in your notes app, a Google Doc that never saw the light of day, a journal entry from 6 months ago. If you feel so inclined, share it here.
I’m going to explain myself without explaining myself because that’s my least favorite thing to do. But basically, I had this master plan for my newsletter this summer. I was going to do this series called “Summer School” (hence the cute logo that Leah created) with monthly prompts and guest writers, etc. etc. But in all honesty, I have had a difficult time writing lately for reasons that I don’t feel like explaining. But I came across this note in my Notes App and I thought it was funny and I wanted to share it. So that’s why I’m sending this. Maybe I will get another burst of energy after sending this and decide to follow through with the Summer School series. Maybe not. Either way, that’s ok. My journey as a writer is still valid. (I’m saying this more so for myself than for you.) Anyway, here are some photos from my hiatus:
Until next time! 👋
Going through your newsletter, all your posts are very cute