What’s Really In Your Deodorant And Why It Matters With TIARA

0:04Hey guys, welcome back. I'm so excited about introducing you guys to this brand that we're hosting today because I feel like in the world of body care especially when it comes to deodorant.

0:30when I'm deciding between which deodorant I want to use, like for the long haul, right? Something that I can really count on. So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to the founder of the brand Tierra, Zuli Matayana. So welcome, Zuli. I'm excited to chat with you today. Thank you so much, Edka. I'm so excited to connect with you today and to speak to your audience. I have a huge mission in life, and I'm so proud that my deodorants are winning awards. And thank you for being that light for others, because people are looking for something they can trust. Yeah, no, I really love that you're so grounded in this idea of like, you don't want any BS in your products, like you've really tried to create something that's not only, you know, a great product, but it's going to be a long term solution for consumers, you know, that when they want something that they can reach for without worrying about all of these ingredients that I feel like that list keeps growing every day, you know, of like what we should and should not have in our products.

1:30Let's first start with you. I would love to learn about you and like, you know, what led you to creating a brand? And like, did you know that you wanted to go into like the body care space when you first started? Thank you. So basically, I'm a journalist. I love, you know, I love researching and I love to create things. You know, I have been speaking to creators And I think that we all have the power to create new things and to make things better for others. So I started with my sustainable shower caps because I had a brain surgery and I almost died. So when I had my brain surgery, I was in a hospital for three months and I actually lost the ability to walk or to run.

2:14And it gave me a lot of perspective in life, right? It gave me a feeling of, you know, I'm very little, very, very little. I felt like a piece of, you know, like a piece of a very small, you know, particle of sand close to an ocean. And, you know, like I then like connected to a spiritual level that I cannot explain. But I understand that we are all connected. and what, you know, what we're creating and all this situation is allowing us to grow. So even the wars, even anything that is happening in the world is helping us to learn. So here it comes, you know, I actually start traveling the world after I recover from that surgery, I recover my ability to walk and to run and to smell and to taste.

3:09So, you know, little things that we don't value, right, in life. And I, you know, I value life and I value the importance of integrity and values. Again, I will never do anything just for money. Right. I change. It's a different perspective. So when I when I went into Puerto Rico, I was part of a campaign called Yo Limpio Puerto Rico. I clean Puerto Rico. So I learned so much about sustainability. I actually went to school and taught kids about recycling. and that helped me understand the importance of creating sustainable products. So I actually, you know, worked for another organization in Colombia that, you know, I find the joy of helping people.

3:53So it was really good connecting to social causes. So I worked with called Subsidy in Colombia, an organization that helps poor families. And I created programs for them, like education, you know, health, little things like how to teach kids to learn about art, learn about how to learn English, right? Like, because we Spanish in our country. So I was very successful, but unfortunately I was pushed to leave my country because I was target of, you know, I was a potential target of kidnapping. That changed my life completely. You know, sometimes challenges pushes you, you know, to go into another place.

4:34So I was pushed and I applied and I came to Canada. And when I came to Canada, I worked in different organizations and it was wonderful, but I didn't feel connected. So I, you know, I had an idea about a product a long time ago, and then I did extensive research and I found that a lot of people were looking for the perfect shower cap. So I started with that. But in the background, I had my grandma and my aunt who died from breast cancer. So I was in a different journey. While I was creating the shower caps, I was also in their journey of finding a natural deodorant that worked for me because I truly stink.

5:14You know, like my body is really, really stinky. So I couldn't find anything, right? Like, so I created the shower caps. The shower caps were a success, right like I met with a lot of women even my shower caps were featured at with Good Morning America to this day like we went on a promotion for Earth Day my shower caps are truly sustainable they last from four to seven years so I was you know I was very happy to create a product that is sustainable and that is very functional so that was awesome and in the background I was looking to find a lab where I can, you know, develop my natural deodorants.

5:52So I found the lab and we created, you know, like it took me two years of testing back and forth. And during that time, I was learning a lot about ingredients. So I asked the lab to help me, you know, also to work. So it was a joint venture working towards creating something really powerful and effective. So, So, and then, you know, again, as I mentioned it like a few minutes ago before starting the podcast, I put the hands of God into this. I believe in the power of the universe. I believe in the power of God, any kind of God that you call. I believe there is something on top of us. I truly believe that my dealers are the most powerful and most effective in the market right now.

6:40And people actually see it and feel it. And you told me your brother loves it. So I am, I'm blessed, you know, a lot of men love my deodorants and, you know, I'm talking about breast cancer, cancer prevention, because, you know, the, the amount of toxins that you put every day when you use deodorants, like normal deodorants is crazy. So, you know, let alone, I mean, it's just, it's just unbelievable, right? In the, in North America, only 9 % of families use natural deodorants. stressed, still use aluminum-based deodorants. And this situation not only happens in North America, it's global, right?

7:20A lot of people don't want to smell. They have fear of smelling and they gave natural deodorants a chance, but natural deodorants weren't powerful. So now here I come with a huge mission in life that now I realize, you know, I learned how to serve the community through my work before in my different positions that I was working on. But now I understand what was I meant to do in life. My mission is a mission of connection with families. My mission is a mission of explaining the importance of not using aluminum, but not only aluminum, right? And this is the discovery, you know, that families are getting into when they reach out to me, or when they hear my speeches or when they read my articles.

8:07It's a really good place to like talk about the ingredients that are in deodorant that we don't want to see there. You know, I think aluminum is a huge one. I am still confused as to why the FDA has not flagged this ingredient in the use of deodorants. I think that everybody is aware that, you know, aluminum-free is the way to go at this point. But like, what are some other ones that you noticed when you were researching this category and trying to figure out like truly what's non-toxic versus what is actually beneficial for deodorant. Yes. So basically, deodorants contain not only aluminum, correct?

8:40I mean, they contain many, many ingredients. So when you look at a deodorant, you have to look at, you know, like some of the deodorants contain BHT. This is, you know, like most of the deodorants in the market contain potential cancer-causing ingredients and endocrine disruptors. So it's not only one ingredient. It's a lot of ingredients and toxins that you put in your body every day. On top of that, they use synthetic fragrances, right? So it's not natural fragrance. So that is all the phthalates that actually are potential cancer-causing ingredients. So a list of ingredients, I can talk about some like the HD, the parabens, the phthalates, Potash Alum.

9:25Potash Alum is in all natural deodorants that claim to be natural. So brands like Crystal, they contain potassium. That's the main ingredient in those deodorants. Potassium is a form of aluminum. So people, you know, when they read natural, they don't really look at the actual, you know, list of ingredients. They believe in the brand. They, you know, it's like, it's wild. You know, there are certain categories in the beauty industry, and I've noticed this, Like we tend to hyper focus on ingredient lists for things like facial skin care, you know, makeup. Recently, Mac went through that whole thing where they reformulated, you know, without talc and that kind of thing.

10:07But we don't focus on a lot of body care when it comes to ingredient safety, you know, and that always confuses me. That's where the largest surface area is for, you know, potential harm to occur, like is our body. So when I think of something like deodorant, it's something we use every day. Most consumers utilize it literally daily, if not multiple times a day. We don't know what's in our products, right? So we know about aluminum, but then exactly what you said, there are others. Like, you know, for example, phthalates. I've never been as passionate about not having something like phthalates in products than I am about something similar to deodorant.

10:45Phthalates are huge. like there are huge huge things that I would love to see completely gone you know from the body care industry yes and then you know like uh you know there are other ingredients and and I'm going to be very like now you know like okay we have the propylene glycol we have the you know like all the the talk they try close and I mean they put anything in a deodorant to make it work and one of the facts I actually found doing the research is that the deodorants meant for women are more harmful to the deodorants made for men. Don't get me wrong. The deodorants made for men are still harmful, but not as harmful as the deodorant made for women because our microbiome is different.

11:31So my deodorants were tested on me. So it worked effectively on men, but it works amazing on women too, right? So it's kind of incredible, right? It's incredible that we are getting into this stage. And then let's go to the natural ingredients. So there is an ingredient called cornstarch. When I buy a product, I just don't want to have anything that is questionable, right? Like I just want to have something that gives me peace of mind. And that's what I'm trying to do, right? Like giving peace of mind with my products. So cornstarch has been used in the all technology natural deodorants, like brands like Humboldt, brands like Routine here in Canada contain that ingredient, right?

12:14So that is an ingredient that was modified. So corn was modified in 1996 and became a pesticide. So you don't want to put corn in your body, not any kind of corn, right? Like I think it was modified many years ago. Also, I created my deodorants being vegan, right? So some of the brands contain beeswax, beef tallow, that those are not vegan, right? So those are animal based ingredients that actually, you know, when, when in touch with your body, start operating in a different way that it could create different cells, right? So why, why do we play? I mean, I am, you know, I understand that a lot of people love beef tallow.

12:54I'm not a fan right like I have to be strong enough to decide what goes in my deodorant so I decided not to put dictado when people find cheap ingredients and then they promote it to make money so I put expensive ingredients in my products you know so we are sure that what we're using is right so you know like I I just don't want to give anything anything you know like wrong to the families out there and to their kids. Because in the end, I'm doing this for the kids. You know, like a lot of people are developing breast cancer. I actually had a conversation with one of the bachelor ladies, Katie Thurston.

13:35She got breast cancer. She's in stage four. I'm completely torn. Like she's a wonderful woman who didn't know anything about deodorants, right? Like I actually connected with her and she said, yeah, my doctor, after she got the diagnosed, her doctor told her to be careful with the deodorants but how come this is happening after the fact this is just a hard truth that medicine doesn't catch up till something really bad happens at the end of the day you know everyone's known about deodorant safety i think for a long time subconsciously we've all heard about it it's somewhere in the back of our minds constantly that there are certain products i think not just certain products all of our products you have to be careful to some degree but then there's also this greenwashing thing going on right in the industry where it's like people are also lying about that so it's not just that we need clean products and we need non-toxic products of course we do but then we also have people just complete bullshitting us out here you know what i mean like beef tallow is not something that's a replacement for a proper like a proper ingredient that's made with thought behind it the consumerism that's in body care is very different than buying a$300 face cream.

14:50You know what I mean? Once a year, like these are products that you purchase time and time again. Like how many times do you go through a deodorant? I mean, think about it for everyone listening. And so my mission is not only selling products. My mission is also educating the market, right? Like, so I'm talking to the retailers that in the end are selling these products to the consumers. And I'm asking them, why are you selling this deodorant? This contains a potential cancer-causing ingredient. And they tell me because it sells, right? Like they are concerned about mine not selling. So I'm creating this movement of educating families, you know, creating awareness and educating families towards using a better product and stop buying the ones that are so popular by marketing.

15:34It's just marketing and marketing that actually is not going to pay the bill for your hospital when you get sick, right? so a lot of families getting sick a lot of women getting breast cancer and nobody is stopping this so because I lost the ability to walk or run now I'm running with purpose and I'm running with purpose with my deodorants in hand inviting families to learn about my deodorants inviting families about learning about ingredients and inviting families to support my cost you know of course, coming from a single mom, I'm a single mom right now, and, you know, like, I put all the money to create all this myself.

16:16I'm bootstrapping. I haven't received any grants, so I just actually won the Entrepanista 100 award, and that is really huge because this is a community of educated women, and actually, one of the top, the creators of Entrepanista, she really loves my deodorant, right? So I'm connecting with the, with the heads of the organization, just like you, right? Like you're using my dealer and you're supporting it. I'm, you know, and it happens that I applied to your, your, your awards and you learn about my brand, right? So, you know, I believe that that is the high level connection that I need in order to access the next level.

17:01I'm, I'm actually being connected to one of the top heads at Costco. Right now, Costco is selling other kind of deodorant, you know, dog, secret, even native. And those deodorants don't contain the right ingredients. So, you know, it's really hard, you know, for me to knock the doors of Costco because they're huge, right? And they expect me to be a millionaire. But I can, you know, if I get an order from Costco, I definitely will get a bank that is going to back me up and make them, you know, thousands of the deodorants they want. So it's possible. I see it as possible. So it's just a matter of connecting the dots.

17:41I hope that, you know, like my dreams of not only doing natural deodorants, but I want to do more products, you know, and products that care about sustainability, products that care about, you know, farms and the people behind that pay well, you know, like it's not going to be really cheap products, but they're not going to be also super expensive. So it has to be something in the middle that offers quality, that offers a platform for families to be, you know, pay well. And so fair trade and great ingredients. I mean, that's all we can ask for. Right. No, I agree. And I would love to talk about what makes, you know, what was the special ingredient for you when you were creating your formula?

18:30Like, what was something that you realized, like, this is the special combination? I mean, what was your goal? Let's start there, you know, with like in terms of performance of the product. So the performance of the product is really hydrating your skin. So it's not as hard. you know my deodorants are not hard like other natural deodorants that you actually put them and you have to really I was struggling with that and you know like I created my deodorants in recycled plastic containers because the paper containers actually paper absorbs the oil in the deodorants and that that's why the deodorants become hard right so I don't think it's a good idea to use paper for deodorants because deodorants are in the bathroom they're going to be getting wet and it's going to lose the, you know, I want the diodonus to last, might the diodonus last from four to six months in your bathroom?

19:23I mean, it all depends how many, you know, how many times you use it, but normally it lasts longer. Then that's why it's sustainable. In terms of ingredients, I use sunflower sea wax. So sunflowers don't need a lot of water to grow and this ingredient is sustainable. So that's the part of sustainability. So instead of me using cornstarch, I decided to go with an ingredient that is sustainable and it glides really easily. So when you use the urine glides and it feels very natural, when you see it, it feels very natural and it's very natural, but it's very powerful. So it works. It's the combination of ingredients.

20:01I put a little amount of baking soda, although I'm allergic to baking soda, baking soda is the number one deodorizer of the world. So let's, let's be honest, right? Other brands are coming with magnesium, which I find magnesium having a lot of sulfates. So I decided not to go with magnesium. I decided to continue with baking soda. So it's working. Yeah, no, that's really good. And I think that, you know, I'm just, for me, I think with the deodorant world, I mean, it becomes very easy when you can find something that works for you. Because for me, when I shop for deodorant, it's, you know, I get what I get, you know, what I've been using for a very long time or something.

20:43I don't experiment too much in the category is my point. You know, it's because I think it's one of those products that we are always looking for the one that works. And when it works, that's what we stick to. And I think that's a big, big factor for when you are looking at this category, right? Because it really does come down to performance. And that's why I asked you, you know, my brother, I had mentioned this to you before we started chatting, like my brother loves your products and he's an athlete, you know, he's been an athlete his whole life. He, you know, has used products that were, I guess, you know, you could say maximum strength or whatever they label, right?

21:19In the marketing world, like they label deodorants with all these different, you know, I don't know, subcategories that they fall in. And even he said this, he was like, I don't want to keep putting something on my skin that I just have a feeling that it's not good for me. And I don't think they're good for me to be using every day of my life, you know? and so when I introduced him to your brand I was like try these you know try they're really good products for daily use and he was like he loves them you know he absolutely loves them because he can use them every day doesn't have to worry about anything and they're really great for just maintenance everyday use it's not something that you know you put it on and it's like okay every five minutes I have to like you know check on my deodorant and even last like I'm now trying to develop a roll-on based deodorant but it doesn't cover the whole time so you know i find that the the stick works really well you know while i'm trying to create something very powerful in the roll-on market i'm still like struggling and and working with another lab that knows how to create this now we're talking about regenerative products right so i want to create something that That comes from a very well-curated form and beautiful things.

22:36The same thing as the other deodorants, but in the roll-on version. So it's a whole challenge. I won't stop. But the mission is huge, converting families. So now I'm becoming a speaker and I'm talking about my life. I'm a brain surgery survivor. I lost my grandma and my aunt to breast cancer. And I'm here to tell you, please don't use aluminum-based deodorant. but also be careful about all these ingredients that could be harmful and, you know, potential endocrine disruptors and potential cancer-causing ingredients that you don't know. Yesterday, I was at an event at a women's summit, and after I finished talking, the line of people coming to buy my deodorant increase.

23:19So, I definitely think I have a winner. The thing is that, you know, how do I market? How do I get into this big, you know, Amazon wants a lot of money for me to promote it. And you will see their views on Amazon. People are saying this deodorant is amazing. I love it. But you know, like the question here is how do we connect with the big corporations who really want to help people? How, you know, I'm happy to talk to them. I'm happy to, you know, to interact with these companies who are really looking, I mean, how many deodorant brands are in the market. So it's time to actually create, you know, I can't wait to see quality deodorants in the market.

24:00So families have peace of mind, you know, and deodorants are, it's a product that we use every day, no matter what. I know cream, sometimes we forget to use cream and that's fine, right? Like we don't, we don't care. But if we stop using deodorant, that day is not the same because we smell so i think we're we're um we're set to use deodorants and the deodorants that we're using right now are really toxic so the time to switch to an uh you know uh free of aluminum and good ingredients deodorant is now i agree and i think um a big thing i want to also bring up just for our listeners is like this idea of fragrance i think i've seen a lot of uh deodorant brands take off because people loved the scent, you know, like I know a few of them were TikTok viral, I'm not going to name any names, but you know, there were a few that were very minimalistic packaging, but they were like known for the fragrance and there's nothing wrong with that.

25:00I'm all for it. You know, if you love a great fragrance and that brand really is, you know, giving you that, it's like a, it's a way to add to your fragrance profile for the day, that's fine, But we should understand, I think, there's a difference between utilizing those products for the use of, like, you know, scent and, like, you know, that kind of thing rather than health. You know, there's two different ways to look at this. And so I think for consumers, it's important to consider that component. it. You know, when you're utilizing something every single day, like I said earlier on your skin, we're exposing ourselves to greater, you know, probability of absorption of certain ingredients, certain chemicals, and that can go systemically.

25:42So, you know, it really does require more attention, I think, you know, just because of the sheer volume of consumers that are out there utilizing these products on a daily basis. So when we're using something for, say, a fragrance reason, you start to wonder like well what's that doing to your skin it's causing inflammation over time you know um eventually that inflammation becomes constant you know and then you get something called inflama aging and even though it's like you know your axillary area you know the armpit region it's still skin you know so skin health is skin health no matter where it is and we have to keep that in mind i mean yeah lymph nodes yeah and it's it's a big thing you know lymphatics and blood vessels run together that's another thing i think it's important you know when you look at the human body there are certain structures that are always together lymphatics follow the vessels so when wherever your blood vessels go that's where your lymphatics are going to be found the nodes and you know the whole uh you know piping for that system same with the nervous system you know a lot of products and we never talk about this but like aluminum for example can actually interfere with your nervous system, peripheral nerves.

26:52And it's a really scary thing to think about. And I don't, I'm not going to make any claims here because there's certain things we are not discussing, you know what I mean? In terms of concentration and deposition and all those components. But I will say that there is room to take caution in that way. You know, it's not fear mongering. It's just knowledge, right? We have to understand. So when you think about that, the deodorant categories then becomes very interesting all of a sudden, right? Because it's like, okay, now I really have to come from this health angle into this, you know, because you had mentioned this earlier, breast cancer.

27:27That's a really big, that's a really, really big topic, you know? And the big thing with breast cancer is it's a very sensitive cancer. So, you know, you hear about, for example, like estrogen positive breast cancer, or, you know, like certain markers, right, that are related to different kinds of breast cancers. And the big thing to know is that, you know, a lot of these ingredients, when we say things like endocrine disruption, we're talking about hormone regulation. So if your estrogen goes up and you're susceptible, or you have an ongoing cancer that's estrogen positive, that's going to make that worse.

28:03So these are really, you know, they're real health things. They're concepts that are very much rooted in science and we're not talking about them on a mass scale so it's very fascinating you know in that way and i would like to you know i would like to to say some some facts you know to to mention some facts in europe europe is far ahead when it comes to ingredient safety and transparency in the u.s the the eu has banned over a thousand and three hundred cosmetic ingredients So they're in Europe. While in the U.S., we only have less than 50. So it's quite, you know, it's quite interesting. You know, I have been trying, you know, I actually wrote to the Environmental Working Group about oxocharide, which is an ingredient that is in salt and stone, native and lumi.

28:58And that ingredient is a petrolatum and it's a mineral oil that contains a potential cancer you know, potential cancer-causing ingredients based on, you know, it has to be refined in order to be made. But, you know, why are we putting that ingredient? So that's what I'm asking. I'm asking companies to, you know, to reformulate if that is the case. You know, use safer ingredients. I mean, these ingredients are really a potential, you know, a potential cancer-causing ingredient. So why should we use that ingredient or, you know, like to be more vigilant? Like we don't need any kind of ingredient that is weird.

29:37In terms of the fragrance, my so I understand people like fragrance, right? Like they like to smell and they like something that smells really well. So when I chose the fragrances, we actually asked to follow the ISO 9235 standard. so that is a standard that actually secures that the fragrance is pure natural you know it's either from essential oils or natural extracts and in the future there is going to be more transparency about fragrances I mean there has to be yeah I agree I think there's just a lot to unpack with fragrance and there's a lot to really reconsider you know I think fragrances are not meant they were never meant to be put into products that are going to be constantly on your skin it's one thing to spritz a perfume on it's a whole different thing to be like applying that to your skin allowing your skin to like interact with it for prolonged periods of time you know that's a totally different thing and so yeah that's I have my own thoughts you know about the fragrance uh the use of fragrance yeah in the future yeah we have I mean it's easy I mean it's the formulation without fragrance imagine it's the easiest version of tiara right it should be like that It should be like that because the idea is that, you know, when it comes to and I'm going to come back to body care here, you know, and this for all of our listeners out there that are now starting to invest in body care.