Three types of Power Stick deodorants were recalled, raising questions about the dangers that can be posed by personal care products.
People are used to seeing recalls for foods like bologna or carrots. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently recalled more than 67,000 cases of Power Stick deodorant, citing “deviations from Current Good Manufacturing Practice” regulations.
How did deodorants fall victim to recalls? It’s not clear exactly what happened, said Leila Deravi, an associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Northeastern University, but deodorants and antiperspirants are classified as non-prescription drug products and have to go through certain manufacturing processes.
Somewhere along the line, it’s likely the process fell through in the case of this recall.
“You can have a cosmetic, which just enhances appearances,” explained Deravi who runs her own skincare company and teaches a class on the chemistry of personal care products. “And then there’s non-prescription drug products like sunscreens, anti-perspirants, dandruff shampoos. … These are things that would elicit a physiological change or benefit. For anti-perspirants, there is a chemical reaction. They don’t just mask your odor, they occlude your sweat glands to minimize sweating.”
Any product like this is considered a non-prescription over-the-counter drug product, which means its production is more carefully scrutinized, Deravi said. There are usually regulations for companies that use materials in a product that create a response in the body, whether it’s deodorant or sunscreen.
The FDA did not specify what in particular went wrong, but Deravi said there was likely some issue along the assembly line, potentially with the equipment or site.
The recall was issued July 10 and includes three types of 1.8 ounce Power Stick deodorants. It affected Power Stick brand roll-on antiperspirants made by A.P. Deauville, a production facility based in Easton, Pennsylvania, which purchased the Power Stick brand from Unilever.
The affected products were sold at national retailers including Walmart, Dollar Tree and Amazon.
Deravi said antiperspirants specifically don’t just mask odor, but occlude your glands to minimize sweating which makes them fall in the category of non-prescription drug products.
“Any of these products, like every cosmetic product, has to go through good manufacturing processes,” Deravi said. “Across the board, whenever you sell direct to consumers, you have to have a facility that’s up to spec or that’s been audited or visited by the FDA. You have to have equipment that is clean, material that is certified and all your pieces of final product tests and validated. Everybody’s got certain specs that they have to meet which is what this recall is all about.”
However, the FDA did not say where along the line that the product failed to meet standards.
Many antiperspirants contain aluminum hydrate, Deravi said. This compound polymerizes and clogs glands to block sweat and differentiates antiperspirants from deodorants, which usually just mask the scent of one’s body odor and lack the aluminum hydrate to block sweat pores.
Despite this one instance, Deravi said deodorants don’t usually fall victim to recalls and these ones likely aren’t harming people.
“If there was a consumer problem that fed into this, I feel like they would have said something,” she said. “People would have said something if consumers had adverse reactions. It might just be a quality control problem.”