Best Unscented Deodorant
They discontinued my brand!
The answer is Native's unscented deodorant. If you continue reading I'll tell you the tale of a man without a trusted brand.
I was a happy customer of MENSCIENCE Advanced Deodorant for almost fifteen years. Amazon's order history lists my first purchase in January 2011. For the last two years I ordered directly from MENSCIENCE's website. In August their e-commerce site stopped accepting orders and their products were removed from Amazon. I emailed all the addresses on the MENSCIENCE website. There was no reply. The men scientists had abandoned me.
My criteria for deodorant is simple. It should have no intrinsic odor. It should prevent me from developing an odor. It should not make a mess. And, most importantly, it should be a deodorant (not an antiperspirant)!
Some people believe that aluminum in antiperspirant causes cancer. There is no evidence to support that. I avoid antiperspirants because I sweat more when I use them. There is no evidence to support this except my anecdotal experience through my teens and twenties. And Reddit. There are plenty of posts on Reddit that corroborate my experience.
My first stop was Walgreens. Their selection of deodorants was slim, and their selection of unscented deodorants was nil. I would prefer not to smell like Old Spice, lavender, vanilla, nor Cool Rush™.
Amazon, The Wirecutter, Reddit, and the open web brought me to a short list of viable candidates: Vanicream, Lavanila, Tom's of Maine, Native, and Lavilin. I ordered one of each for testing. Vanicream and Tom's were ineffective. Lavanila was not unscented. Lavilin, not to be confused with Lavanila, was effective, but more expensive. Native won for being entirely unscented and effective, with bonus points for low price and plastic-free packaging.
I wrote this as a public service. I don't make any money of these links. I only hope this saves you the time I spent triangulating options between websites and ordering five options for testing.