How we made a deodorant for life

Right from the start of our mission, we set out to produce a deodorant that had as little impact on the environment as possible that at the same time never compromised on user experience. In this blog, we take a look at the thought-process behind designing the last deodorant you’ll ever need to buy.

The Aluminium Case

Getting the material right for the case was one of the most important factors as this completely determined the look and feel of Wild. In the end, we went with aluminium. It’s got the strength to stand up to being chucked in washbags (or the toilet by toddlers) whilst also being lightweight and providing a premium feel when held. It's this user experience that elevates Wild from a single-use product to one that you can keep for life and proudly display in your bathroom.

Whilst your case is designed to last for life, aluminium can be recycled an infinite number of times. This means if you ever decided you wanted to part with your Wild, just post it back to us and we will recycle it with our TerraCycle scheme for it to be made into something new.

The fittings and trimmings of our cases are made from post-consumer recycled plastic. Where plastic needs to be used, we will always stand with the view that using recycled plastic is infinitely better than creating new plastic.

The Bamboo Pulp Refills

To maximise our sustainability commitment, we had to completely remove single-use plastic from our supply chain so enter our bamboo pulp refills - our plastic free alternative! Our bamboo pulp packaging is the first of its type in the world. It’s a natural fibre so your empty refills can be home composted or recycled leaving no trace of the refill. They're completely zero waste.

Just to toot bamboo’s trumpet a little bit more, it’s a grass so it grows much faster than wood pulps. It’s been known to grow over half a metre a day so it can be harvested quickly and will replenish itself just as fast. This avoids the problem of paper packaging, which is made from chopping down trees that have taken hundreds of years to grow. When grown and harvested sustainably, bamboo pulp doesn’t contribute to deforestation.

Postage and Packaging

We've taken sustainability beyond the product itself and into the packaging your deodorants are posted in. Our cardboard box suppliers have top-notch eco credentials. They operate a closed loop supply chain where they grow and replace their own forests, the paper mills are run on hydroelectric power and they also own all their packaging factories and recycling centres so have full traceability and can proudly say the whole supply chain is FSC certified. Our packaging is printed using water-based inks and any waste ink is then processed and returned back to the system as clean water. No foiling is used on our packaging which makes cardboard notoriously hard to compost or recycle!

The boxes are slim enough to fit through your letterbox and our refill packs are sent out with three refills in to reduce postage related packaging and delivery emissions. Refills can be stored for up to 12 months so don’t worry about receiving too many refills if you get through your deodorant at snail’s pace!

We know that we’re just getting started with reinventing sustainability in the bathroom and we are continually reviewing Wild to create the best product we can. At the moment we’re working on a project to reduce the amount of cardboard by 30% across all our packs, and you may have noticed our slimmer refill packs which have recently been rolled out. If you spot some other changes we can make to better re-Wild the bathroom let us know and you might even see your suggestion implemented!