Brothers Mike and Eric on top of The Grand Tetons in Wyoming! See – no pit stains!

And Mike was so grateful for finding a healthy deodorant that actually works, he took the time to thank us as well:

“My Bro Eric had given me your lavender can and lav stink stick as a gift for Christmas. It took a few months for me to start using it and when I finally did – I was super excited. It works. I thought it might just cover up the BO smell a bit and was worried about the lavender maybe being a little too girlie. Wrong! My BO was gone gone gone. Out of 45 days, I maybe have had 2-3 days where at night I would get that ripe whiff but even then it was super faint.

I have tried Tom’s Lemongrass, Anthony’s, Alba Tea Tree and some others. All of them were natural deo but they also went on wet and were sticky for a while after applying AND simply didn’t do the job. By the end of the day, I was ripe. My poor wife – she put up with the stink because she wanted me to quit using Aluminum anti-perspirant. I had been a life long user of Dry-Idea, well at least since high school or early college I think. So that is about 20 years of putting aluminum on my skin. Thank you for letting my finally move away from that and doing it without any regrets!

THANK YOU!

Mike

SanFrancisco, California”

THANK GOD FOR PSORIASIS

I can’t go anywhere without encountering people suffering with psoriasis; oftentimes the people are small children. Folks with psoriasis are always wondering if I have anything to help them – a bath soak, a skin cream, or a special soap. I know that our soaps and soaks can provide temporary relief; and I have sourced some wonderful oils that I am working up into a healing soak for psoriasis sufferers, but none of that will cure psoriasis. What I do have to offer are a few suggestions:

• Admit that what you are doing for your psoriasis is not working.
• Admit that the suggestions of your well-meaning physicians have done little to relieve your suffering.
• Demand better than creams that thin the skin, drugs that cause bone spurs or damage the liver, or light treatments that increase the likelihood of skin cancer.
• Don’t play the genetics victim role. Make a decision to be smarter and more powerful than the stroke of bad luck genetics that predisposed you to psoriasis.
• Consider the possibility that psoriasis is the best thing that has ever happened to you.
• Don’t wait for the crippling pain of psoriatic arthritis before you listen to your skin.

LISTEN TO YOUR SKIN?

Yep, if you work it right, PSORIASIS COULD BE THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPENED TO YOU. Because psoriasis is so unsightly and draws so much attention to it that it demands your attention. As the largest organ in the body, the skin is a powerful communicator about hidden troubles within. How many folks walk around with ticking time bombs in the form of heart disease, aneurysms, and cancerous tumors that they are totally unaware of. Isn’t it better to be given a warning so that you can do something about your health before catastrophe strikes? That’s what the over-heated, over-producing psoriatic condition is trying to tell you: there is trouble within. And a chorus of other bodily functions is joining the psoriatic choir in a desperate attempt to get you to listen and change; yep, the belching, burping, farting, bloated, constipated, gassy, putrefied GASTRO INTESTINAL CHORALE wants to be heard. You would be well served to listen.

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE?

Okay, now this part is so easy I hate to even say it. If you are willing to eat differently, the psoriasis alarm will stop sounding. As food no longer accumulates and putrefies in the gut, the skin will clear.  As fiber moves food more quickly out of your GI tract, your body will also shed old skin cells more rapidly and the layering of immature cells will clear. By choosing plant proteins instead of meat, you will no longer overwhelm your body’s ability to process protein and the skin will heal. If you can make the transition to accepting psoriasis as a symptom, not a syndrome, you can take control of your digestion, your skin and your future.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BECOME A VEGAN

While you most certainly want to consider doing that, don’t let the inability or unwillingness to go vegan deter you from healing your gut. Start slowly: keeping your meat away from your starch is a great beginning. That’s right, have a salad with your steak, not a potato. Better still, have a really big salad that is “flavored” so to speak with strips of steak or poultry. It’s flipping the entrée-condiment paradigm that will make all the difference. Yep, a little piece of meat paired with a big salad, and not the other way around. Or better yet, choose cold-water fish and steer clear of the arachidonic acid (AA) produced by red meat and dairy. Yep, that means meat and cheese, though upon first reading I know it sounds like a spider thing might be involved. AA is the natural substance that promotes inflammatory response. You got it – the red swollen lesions. If you can’t give up meat and dairy, and you don’t enjoy fish, then for sure add in fish oil, flaxseed oil, or primrose oil

FOCUS ON THE ADD IN NOT THE LEAVE OUT

Every morning of your life, make a green smoothie, and drink all 32 ounces of it. Victoria Boutenko is the grand dame of this movement and her book Green for Life will give you all the inspiration, information and recipes you need to be a real success. The formula is so simple: pure water in a blender with a combination of 60% fruit and 40% dark green leafs. Every day vary what greens you eat. And do whatever you have to do to make it delicious – give it a squirt of agave nectar if you want. Use super sweet fruits like bananas and even a little bit of green in the beginning while your body makes the switch to a chlorophyll rich life. Start with simple greens like spinach and work your way up to kale and the rest of the gang.

Dining al fresco at the cottage. Gluten free pesto pizza. Mango soup. Salad with rosemary and macadamia cream dressing. PROGRESS AND PERFECTION.

AND THAT GOES FOR GLUTENS TOO

I know you want to strangle me at this point. But you really need to seriously consider going gluten-free too. Gluten sensitivity likes to make its presence known with skin and bowel eruptions. Folks, our bodies were never meant to have everything made with wheat. The Universe is designed in a diverse and abundant fashion. Say yes to the variety of grains on the planet and let your body rest from its wheat exhaustion. Once you have eaten gluten-free crackers, breads, pizza crusts and more, you will wonder how you ever survived with just the wheat variety. Be sure to check out my upcoming fiesta salad with quinoa and my gluten-free peach and macadamia nut pizza videos and you will shed any feelings about being persecuted once and for all. I promise.

Gluten free peach and goat cheese pizza ready for the oven: who’s resisting gluten free now?

LOOK TO THE SOURCE, NOT THE SYMPTOM

• Watch your craving of sweets go out the window.
• Watch your whole family get on the gluten-free bandwagon with you.
• Watch your energy improve so much that you will actually be able to exercise for your health.
• Watch your interest in cooked foods diminish on a daily basis.
• Watch as you begin to crave a second green smoothie in the evening so that you sleep better.
• Watch as members of your family, your friends and your colleagues begin to notice changes in you and even join you in drinking green smoothies.
• Watch your weight drop and your aches and pains diminish or disappear altogether.
• Watch your bloated, gassy, constipated GI track start to perform as it is intended.
• Oh yeah and watch your skin heal.

SOMETIMES THE BEST SOLUTION IS THE SIMPLEST

I love how smart our bodies are. I love being smart about our bodies. I think genius is the ability to take complexity and make it simple. Our gut is always asking us to keep it simple. Simpler, smaller, more elemental breaks in the day for refueling our bodies. I would encourage anyone with a skin condition like psoriasis (or acne, or exczema, or rosacea) to look first to his or her gut. Your brain will clear. Your skin will clear. It’s genius.

THE JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES …

Begins with a single sip. Start slowly, but start. As your gut clears, your brain will clear and you will likely find yourself drawn (if you have not done so already) to sensible health initiatives like chiropractic adjustments, living foods, probiotics, colonics, digestive enzymes, far infrared saunas and more. The sky is the limit. And with a healthy gut you will have the intuitive well being to know exactly what’s best for you. So thank God for your psoriasis and have the guts to listen to what it’s telling you and your gut about your dietary choices and the consequences.

SHOW NOT TELL

I am a firm believer that you can’t just tell people what to do. You have to show them. You have to inspire them. And you have to join them on the journey. Yep, that means no isolating the members of your family who have psoriasis. Join them on a phenomenal new diet that will make all of you look and feel like a million bucks. Stay tuned as we add video to our blog with fast, affordable, and delicious recipes that help us to advance our raw, gluten-free lifestyle – our journey of progress not perfection. Look for future posts on how puny psoriasis becomes in the face of raw foods.

Folks, this blouse had clearly been dry-cleaned any number of times. One of the many reasons, and there are many health-based reasons, we can’t stand dry cleaning is that you are never really rid of the chemical residue the dry cleaning process creates. Clothes need to be laundered in a timely fashion, to remove not only sweat and our deodorant, but all the other toxins released, such as: prescription drug reactions, perfumes and body lotions, and environmental pollutants present in the very air we breathe and move around in.

This particularly lovely blouse was made from iridescent silk and I bet it was a showstopper or this lovely lady would not have grieved the loss so deeply. The Duggan sisters, who publicly appear most commonly in duds of the cotton and dowdy variety, are, in fact, big fans of silk and opt whenever possible for the washable kind. We have successfully laundered our sweat and our deodorant from these silky pits for years. And we could not have said that during our years of using commercial deodorants and losing plenty of clothing to pit stains. However, today when Clare and I were commiserating about Michelle’s unfortunate but avoidable blouse death, Annie came clean to us and admitted to having made a similar mistake with a silk knit tee shirt that she abandoned to the bottom of the laundry basket for some four months last year. Needless to say, one of Annie’s favorite expressions is “Common sense is not common!” Clare and I did our best to NOT repeat Annie’s all-time favorite phrase – in her presence, that is.

Folks, fabric can’t stand up to the ravages of TIME, sweat, deodorant (even ours) and dry cleaning chemical residue in lethal combination. Our little deodorant does a great job keeping you dry and odor free without staining your clothing, but it’s not a miracle worker. Heed the warning now as we change seasons and wardrobe. Moths are not our only enemies. Deep laundry baskets must also remain on the hit list.

Yet, some of those very folks have been spreading the most damaging misinformation about us.  Read on to hear Mary’s response to this ethical dilemma and to learn more about why WE MEAN BUSINESS.

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Dear Jenn,

Guess what popped up on a Google search of bloggers talking about lifestinks® deodorant? You! Hey, I remember meeting you at one of our retail spa partners. You were getting a manicure while I was there working and I took quite a bit of time with you, explaining how our deodorant works. You identified yourself as a blogger and you promised me that if you decided to write about the Duggan Sisters you would let me know. Hey, you didn’t. No problem. I guess. I have read what you had to say and despite the compliments and links to our site you have given us a not quite fair shake. So, here’s some setting the record straight for your readers.

Actually no, we’re not.

Firstly, my sisters and I are not, as you wrote, into “hydrotherapy.” I am not even certain that I know fully what hydrotherapy is. Our actual credentials and training in Naturopathic medicine are clearly listed on our website. Our credentials are wide but our focus is narrow: the 75% of you that is water and how to keep it healthy.

God bless those who make their own.

Secondly, it turns out you’re in the mood to teach folks how to make deodorant and that’s great. My sister Annie and I applaud folks who want to make their own deodorant or soap or candles or lotions. However, we have been working with thousands of busy mommies and daddies for the past decade and we find that few of them have any desire to return to Little House on the Prairie skill sets. More often, they hound us for solutions and guidance in dealing with their children’s autism, learning disabilities, psoriasis, depression, behavioral disorders, explosive diarrhea in the 5^th grade, that sort of thing.

Been there and done that.

Actually Annie and I have spent years and thousands of dollars training in all of those “Little House” skills and we spent years teaching women (free of charge) how to make their own deodorant. We did this in our capacity as lymphatic specialists at the Rose Cottage in Beverly, our home-based health initiative. We were endlessly frustrated that women rarely made the recipes we taught them; but I understood fully, they were simply too busy and exhausted to do so. Grabbing the toxic stuff at the drug store was more realistic. If they made the effort to get the natural stuff at the health food store they were totally frustrated that it never got the job done.

And so, we became deodorant makers.

In frustration, I began to make up batches of our humble little deodorant, a dozen at a time, and sell it to our clients at the end of their Manual Lymphatic Drainage session in hopes of keeping them away from both the deadly chemical products and the ineffective natural ones. Yes, we have done our share to teach individuals how to “do by self” but we found it was not impacting the health culture adequately. Further, many of those who attempted to make it on their own were not successful as they were unable to get sodium bicarbonate and were defeating the purpose entirely by using baking soda, which is laced with aluminum, though people rarely know that. Many were using improperly sourced oils that just weren’t up to snuff and so they were getting badly burned. You have to really know what you are doing when you are using essential oils in sodium bicarbonate, as it is not the easy trick of placing them in carrier oils or lotions. Extremely fine sifting is also essential to avoid burning, so I go berserk when I know people are trying to purchase only our refill bag so they can dump it into their powder sugar sifter or salt and pepper shaker, thereby exposing our powder to tin and the like. These cheats are always the first to complain that the product doesn’t work and I find that irritating.

Hey, that’s not fair.

Thirdly, I don’t think you gave your readers a fair shake in explaining up front our pricing to them, as I had taken the time to explain it to you. For parents too exhausted to make their own deodorant, lifestinks is a Godsend. However, being told completely out of context that it costs $27 is a real disservice. So, let’s share with them the information I shared with you while your manicure dried.

Go green and save green.

We are the only “green” deodorant on the market. We sell our dry powdered deodorant in a very high quality stainless steel decanter that is refillable. Our lifetime “keep it out of the landfill” decanter costs $27 and is filled with six months of deodorant. Many of our users report that the deodorant lasts more like 9 months and we couldn’t be happier. We make sure all consumers know that the less you use, the better it works. Many of our confirmed users get to a place of such healthy lymphatic function that they only need to apply every other day!

From $4.50 per month to $1.50 per month in 6 months!

But let’s work with the conservative figure of 6 months that we advertise. That makes our product $4.50 a month for 6 months. At the end of six months you turn to your one year refill bag priced at $18 and your price point then becomes $1.50 a month! I think this sort of price clarification (up front, not deep into a blog discussion) is essential in any discussion with consumers facing the severity of our current economic situation. We are among the most affordable deodorants on the market, but like many green endeavors much of the cost is front-loaded; but oh the joys of the benefits as time plays out and you just keep refilling. We encourage everyone to really study the prices when they pick up their next inch of deodorant. You might be surprised to know what you are spending to apply toxins to the axillary drain of your lymphatic system.

It isn’t easy being green, but we’ve had support.

Our green refill design is one reason why we were selected to be the keynote speakers at last year’s Green Family Festival. We are green on so many levels and have moved slowly and methodically to make certain that we are doing the absolute best we can with labeling and inks and containers and on and on and on. In December of 2009 we were identified by the State of Illinois at Chicago’s “One of a Kind Show and Sale” as their business of focus for 2010, when they realized how many green jobs we could create for the struggling citizens of Illinois. They, in conjunction with the Sustainability Institute at University of Illinois Chicago have inspired many extraordinary Chicagoans to donate their services to us to help us to launch this important green health product, this important education service, this endeavor that the citizens of Illinois can be proud to call their own, so we now have pro bono patent attorneys, corporate attorneys, industrial designers, and the like. Yes, we have been blessed.

Wait, there’s more !

Paramount to us in the designing and pricing of our product was that the entire family be able to use it.

• As it is a dry powder formulation, there is no cross-contamination that is part of traditional roll-ons and crystals. We wanted Mommy to be able to throw one in the medicine cabinet and hopefully keep: the boys away from Axe; the girls away from Dove; and Daddy away from Mitchum – all in one fell swoop.
• That is also why we came up with the concept of the stinkstick® deodorant booster. If someone needs what the toxic companies call Clinical Strength, then they can apply one drop of the booster oil to their armpit, before applying the dry powder, and up the odor coverage while still remaining on the family plan. The glass roll-on is very convenient and the oils within are the same high quality oils that saturate our dry formulation.
• Don’t get me started on all the re-purposing mommies have done with their stinksticks. Let’s just say they are phenomenal all purpose healing tools for zits and bug bites and wound care, in general.

Not just for pits – mommies repurpose.

1. It was smart Mommies who let us know how wonderfully our lifestinks deodorant is for clearing athlete’s foot and stinky shoes, long before podiatrists began calling for our foot powder formula!
2. Flight attendants taught us how well it works as toothpaste when they run out of products while on the road.
3. The ways in which smart mommies are using our product never fails to amaze me. The most recent repurpose I heard about was from a group of female medical doctors who said they use it to remove the intractable odor from their front- loading washing machines. They reiterated that at a price point as low as ours this sort of repurposing is so do-able.
4. I myself love to sprinkle it in the sink following the use of my Neti pot as I know that I have just dumped lots of toxic waste into the sink and with the power of my deodorant sprinkled there I am not going to infect other members of my family who share the sink with me. The list of ways smart mommies use our products just goes on and on and on.

I am not a chemist and I do not play one on TV.

Moving along, Jenn, you unjustly presented me as chemically under-informed, because I am not a fan of the potassium alum crystal deodorant you use. As I said to you the day I met you at the spa, where we spoke while I worked and your manicure dried, I am not a chemist. I carry Advanced Certification in Lymphatic Wellness, with a focus on Breast and Prostate Health, through the Midwest College of Naturopathic Medicine – whew. Naturopathic medicine focuses on healing through herbal compounds, among other techniques, none of them chemically derived. I am not trained in chemistry and have never claimed to be. But, when world-class physicians like Dr. Mercola confirm what naturopathic physicians, and others have claimed for years; namely, that the potassium alum in crystals is dangerous and unhealthy I want to cheer. When I receive a call from Northwestern University’s Raby Clinic for Integrative Medicine asking to have a meeting with me about endorsing and selling our lifestinks deodorant, again I want to stand up and cheer. Everyone deserves accurate information about products so important in maintaining breast and prostate health and it seems that finally we are making headway after years of effort.

Let’s talk ethics.

I see that you linked your blog readers to our site, but I wonder if you truly read our story. Believe me, we did not set out to be deodorant makers; that grew organically from our larger endeavor. I think it is imperative to keep our product linked with our larger endeavor. Believing that you can preempt our recipe is not the ethical dilemma, (we know you aren’t able to and so does the US Patent Office) but separating our product from our story is to me an ethical breach. It is most certainly not anything one woman should ever do to another.

Sick and dying mommies started it all.

With the sort of work that Annie and I are trained in, we have spent lots of time with dying mommies. Why? Because by the time these women seek out natural or alternative treatments they have tapped out what the allopathic physicians are able to do, they have very short term diagnoses, they are very scared and they and their families know they are at the very end of their lives. So you do your best, and you drain their lymph and you prepare them for death  – we carry Advanced Certification in Transformational Reiki and are trained in special end stage care and procedures. Hospice workers constantly marvel at what we are able to offer in true end stage care.

They inspire our passion.

And you fall in love with these lovely dying mommies and their kids and their brothers and sisters and spouses and you spend lots and lots of time and you do lots and lots of it pro bono. And then you go to their wakes and their funerals and then for a year or so you go over and have dinner with their shattered families on a twice-weekly basis because you were the ones closest to them at the very end.  You anointed the dead body, you gathered at the bedside on Christmas Eve and sang Silent Night over the dead mommy’s body. You put on your special black suit that you wear for the funerals over and over again as the epidemic rages and your anger mounts. Anger that these intelligent, seemingly healthy, physically fit and now dead mommies were not given basic information about how to maintain healthy breasts. And so you make a decision. For Annie and I that decision became our DON’T BE A BOOB CAMPAIGN: get smart about breast and prostate health, today.

There is nothing elitist about cancer.

That campaign fuels all of the work that we do, not, as you write, the desire to make some sort of elitist product for wealthy women who hang out at spas having their nails done! We have worked 75-hour weeks for 3 years now, desperate to get our message out. We have worked outdoors in heat and rain and ankle deep in snow, clocking in 86 public shows in 2009 alone to market test our products, in addition to hand-making all of our product and building our business, spending lots and lots of time with our simple little diagram of the human breast explaining how the lymphatic system works and why the 75% of you that is water matters so much. Sometimes it led to a sale, sometimes it didn’t. The sale is not what motivates us. Getting out our message is what matters. Getting people into a really healthy and effective deodorant matters to us. Get women out of underwire bras and onto rebounders matters to us. Educating people about the importance of living food to create an alkaline and cancer unfriendly body matters to us. We can take on any “oxymoronic” language that offends you and clean that up after the mommies stop dying.

Back to your ethical dilemma and the 3 ingredients bit.

Now, regarding your dilemma about our three simple ingredients, I hope that the next time that you describe to your readers that a product has three simple ingredients you will give them the whole story. Tell the truth that your eyes bugged out when Mary Duggan took the time to explain the problem with aluminum laced baking soda to you and that you did NOT know this and that you now know it because of the years that she spent studying and refining her little product with it’s three simple ingredients and the time she took explaining all of that to you – whether or not you intended to make a purchase when your manicure had dried. Explain how many years it takes to build effective direct relationships with botanists and growers in New South Wales so that we can guarantee oil that is way beyond pure and tested. Explain how the Duggan Sisters went the extra mile spending years learning the fine tuning of working with types and strains and harvesting standards and proper shipping guidelines and the need for extracts and blends of Melaleuca oils to minimize the usual problems of burning and irritation that so often turn people off to tea tree products. Tell the whole story.

Then, explain the time and enormous expense of having a highly informative website and the finest after care program in the industry to guide people through the problems and challenges for many in transitioning to a natural deodorant. Tell the whole story about how many hours it takes to maintain those services. Tell the whole story about those three simple ingredients and the delivery system that has been described by individuals in the cosmetic industry as REVOLUTIONARY. Tell them that our product is trademarked and that we were offered a patent but declined. Share with them the full scope of the information that I took the time to share with you.

Can you teach them this?

I have absolutely no concerns Jenn that you can teach anyone how to take the three simple ingredients that you have in your kitchen to replicate OUR deodorant. Here’s why:

• We put in a $7,000 HVAC system into our 105 year old cottage to guarantee that the air surrounding our products is the healthiest possible. How many mommies can make that investment in their deodorant making?
• All of the water that touches our working life is filtered through the finest porcelain filtration system available worldwide and recommended by the US State Department for staffers exposed to some of the dirtiest water in the world. How many mommies have that in their kitchen?
• This past year we took on our first deodorant technician to help us keep up with the growing demand. It took me 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for 3 solid weeks before I had her adequately trained to make her first batch of lifestinks deodorant! Are you offering that level of expertise?
• Additionally our employee has adapted to our strict guidelines by willingly changing her detergent, foregoing all makeup, changing her personal care products and even adding green smoothies (made by us and given to her at no charge) into her life to keep her aligned with our vision and quality commitment.
• Our employee has signed NDAs up the wah-zoo-zoo, bounces daily on our rebounder, dropped 30 pounds and become a phenomenal deodorant technician and member of our lifestinks family. Here’s why?

There is a reason it’s called an artisan product.

Like the Duggan Sisters, she is an artist working in the healing arts. Yep, she’s an artisan. What is a loaf of bread Jenn but the three simple ingredients of flour, salt and yeast? In the hands of an artist it is phenomenal. In the hands of a non-artist it is something banal and tasteless. In the hands of a chemical purveyor it becomes Wonder Bread. It’s all in the artistry; and the Duggan Sisters are world-class artists in the creation of the ultimate deodorant experience for citizens worldwide who truly love their health.

Finally, here comes the good citizenship part.

As we have grown and developed this simple healthy green product, our vision has expanded to develop this from an actual cottage industry into something much larger that can actually create jobs for our fellow citizens who are suffering the realities of unemployment and foreclosure. Here Jenn is where the question of citizenship comes into this discussion. Here is what I think it trumps any and all “Little House” initiatives.

Unemployed mommies and daddies matter to us.

As we have stood in public for the past three years, interacting with thousands of our fellow Americans, they have shared their stories of financial hardships, and deadly diagnoses. And when they couldn’t afford our deodorant, they often walked away with our product at no cost, a gift from the Duggans. When I listen to people’s stories, they are concerned about deodorant but they are despairing over the need to work, the fear that they will lose their home, the agony of not being able to afford medical care for their sick children. That responsibility is what keeps me and my sisters awake at night and ever on the go to meetings with bankers and meetings with lawyers and meetings with the State and meetings with real estate brokers and meetings with retailers. If all of those meetings go where they need to go, in the end there will be jobs. Too many of my middle aged male head of household neighbors have come knocking at my back door wondering if they could be paid minimum wage to help me make deodorant for me to use my time in any other way.

Lifestinks when you don’t have a job!

Think of the jobs we can create. Three sisters, 75 hours a week for three years, in their basement, making a natural deodorant that is now on the shelves at the 5 Diamond Kohler Spas, Merz Apothecary, the Palmer House Hilton, for God’s sake, Northwestern University’s Raby Clinic for Integrative Medicine, 17 Whole Foods Markets in Illinois and numerous independent stores. Consider the fact that we never contacted Kohler or Northwestern or Whole Foods. Yep, that’s right. Our retail partners have called us because so many people had been talking to them about these crazy sisters who make a natural, refillable, effective deodorant in their basement. We have 300+ other doctor’s offices, healing centers, & health foods stores nationwide on waiting lists wanting our deodorant. People are clamoring for a safe solution to this most human of all needs.  Think what three committed and exhausted women can do! Let it take your breath away. It takes ours away. Better yet, support it. Think of all the jobs that will be created! Think of the healing there is in that. Think of all the inspiration there is in that.

Woman to woman, ethically speaking.

Finally Jenn I hope you will continue to think long and think hard before you undermine the efforts of women who have the audacity and vision to build a business in the depths of a dark recession; women who are creating jobs for the citizens of Illinois. We have completely self-financed our business, cashed in our pensions and savings, lived without salaries or spouses or health care coverage or any leisure time whatsoever to keep our message alive. We are now three sisters (yep, a third one jumped into the fray) who used to live in three homes, and drive three cars and now we share one home and one car and one big dream.

In the Duggan household our motto remains the same: ENOUGH WITH THE PINK, LET’S THINK. Isn’t a focus on early diagnosis insulting? Isn’t it time to get really smart about actual prevention with concrete, affordable and not terribly time consuming efforts that men and women can do on a daily basis to prevent disease and foster vibrant health? To that end, we have put forward our lifestinks deodorant and our full program for lymphatic recovery and wellness.

Let’s keep cyber space clean and fair.

And Jenn, while we’re at it, let’s commit to a cyber conversation that tells the real story. Story matters to the Duggans. Our site is full of stories. Please encourage people to read them. Go to our website to view video testimonials of individuals who have given our products a chance (that means actually purchased them) and are singing the praises of lifestinks deodorant.

I hope you will have the ethics and integrity to post my response to your blog so that your readers are given the fair shake that we were not. I will most certainly be posting it to my blog. And this time, please send me a notice that I am being discussed in cyberspace. It is imperative that misinformation, disinformation, and incomplete information be nipped in the bud before the cyber conversation gets so muddled that it is hard to get back to the truth. It’s a question of ethics, isn’t it? Kind of like saying, hey, I use and defend a crystal deodorant that some of the finest medical minds in the country think is dangerous; but how’s about I show you how I think I can replicate/copy/pilfer/steal a natural deodorant made by three women who actually know what they’re doing and have mortgaged their lives to bring to the marketplace. This just doesn’t make sense to me, ethically speaking, that is.

Make whole the nation.

So Jenn, let’s keep the green focus clear. Let’s keep our critical eye on the chemical purveyors of deadly products and actually support the grass roots efforts of real Americans trying their level headed best to make whole our nation with jobs and products we can all be proud of. The next time you’re at one of our retail locations, Jenn, why not pick up some lifestinks® deodorant and participate in the healing of our economy and our nation. Or better yet, order from our website. I will be looking for your order to come through.

Kind regards,

Mary Duggan
President
Duggan Sisters

www.duggansisters.com

is the inimitable Stephen Colbert. So, in this post Duggan #11 is asking Colbert #11 to give the Duggan Sisters’ message some much appreciated attention.

Isn’t attention getting what baby sisters are supposedly all about?

Mr. Colbert, are you listening?

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Dear Mr. Colbert,

This past spring I watched as you impaled the Dove/Unilever body image damage machine. It was brilliant and I thank you. I implore you to use your acclaimed voice to take it one step further.

Please consider the story of two sisters on the South Side of Chicago fed up with corporate greed and ineptitude who started making natural deodorant by hand in their basement and selling it to their neighbors. Hear their remarkable story of an endeavor that has captured the imagination of everyone who has met them and garnered them shelf space in premier retail locations in the course of one year, and without any marketing, public relations or advertising.

It’s true, Mr. Colbert, you need no longer go to Maine for your deodorant that doesn’t work. Now, from the city that works comes a natural deodorant that actually works! lifestinks® deodorant. Your awareness of my sisters’ story could launch a worthy endeavor into the stratosphere. Consider the Duggan Sisters brand for one moment.

Their story: Two sisters in Chicago, specialists in end stage care get righteously angry.  Having attended one funeral too many for young mommies, they realize they have forgotten more about healthy breasts (and armpits) than these sick and dying mommies have ever been taught. They make a decision to make deodorant and a difference, one armpit at a time. The DON’T BE A BOOB campaign begins at a parish Christmas fair on the south side of Chicago.

Their motivation: Shift the culture. END THE INSANITY. Heal the deadly statistics.  Provide basic lymphatic knowledge, diet and exercise suggestions and a safe effective natural deodorant THAT ACTUALLY WORKS –  lifestinks®.

Their motto: Enough with the PINK, let’s THINK!

Their strategy: The DON’T BE A BOOB CAMPAIGN: a simple laminated diagram of the human breast, armpit and lymphatic system that accompanied them and illustrated their message at every public speaking opportunity they could find: from PTA meetings and school science fairs to the prestigious ONE OF A KIND SHOW at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart.

Their credentials: Advanced Certification in Lymphatic Wellness and myriad other healing modalities through the Midwest College of Naturopathic Medicine.

Their vehicle:  Make lifestinks® deodorant in their basement and within 1 year attend 86 church, school, street fairs and farmers markets to talk healthy breasts, and why safe deodorant matters.

Their promise: To our Mom on her deathbed, minus one breast and her uterus, who commanded us, “God put a tongue in your mouth, now use it!” Yes, Mom.

Their goal: Nationwide awareness of lifestinks® deodorant in 2011.

Their milestones: They have created a 23-page website with a web store. They have sold in 42 states and to the US military overseas. They have a patent application pending for a new dispenser. They have been selected as Entrepreneurs of Focus by the State of Illinois. They were keynote speakers at the Green Family Festival because of their refillable deodorant decanter.

They garnered the cover of the Irish American News and reports on ABC, WGN and the Chicago Sun Times. As “gold star clients” of the University of Illinois Sustainability Clinic they were assisted in getting legal representation, industrial designers and funding opportunities. They were recruited by Whole Foods Market and have launched lifestinks® deodorant in 16 Whole Foods Markets in Chicagoland as part of their Summer of 2011 Land of Lincoln No More Stinkin’ Campaign.

Their retail partners: Kohler Waters Spas, Chicago’s famed Merz Apothecary at Lincoln Square and Palmer House Hilton, Northwestern University’s Raby Clinic, Whole Foods Market Midwest Region and a variety of independent stores.

Their endorsements: Northwestern University’s Raby Integrative Medical Clinic; Dr. Karyn Mitchell, President, Midwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and the thousands of people who have voted with their dollars and purchased lifestinks® deodorant.

Mr. Colbert, I too am the youngest of eleven. I have lived in the Netherlands for the past 14 years working in global brand management. I have actually been to Unilever Headquarters and stood in the belly of the beast. I returned to the US this past year to help my sisters before they collapsed from exhaustion in their efforts to launch this, I think, worthy endeavor. I love them. I am proud of them. And, I believe you would be bowled over to meet them and experience their passion, wisdom, courage AND HUMOR. I would like to make that possible.

Let’s make sure that we thoroughly squash the Unilever Dove message. Let’s shine a light on two sisters in their basement making a real contribution to rebuilding our nation’s health one armpit at a time. May I send you a lifestinks® deodorant care package? May I introduce you to my sisters?

Kind regards,

Clare M. Duggan
Duggan Sisters
773.341.4246

Everyone seems to be buzzing about a story in the Los Angeles Times entitled, “Access to grocers doesn’t improve diets, study finds.” It references a study that confirms what I have long said about healthy eating – access to grocery stores is not enough. Yes, food deserts are immoral and problematic. Yes, economics figure largely into obesity. But, apparently from the results of this substantive study, proximity to fast food seems to be the big determinant in being too big. If it’s there and it’s cheap and it’s fast and it’s delicious who can say no to fast food. WHY? Because fast food is addictive, just like cigarettes, and so we need to call this bad boy by its real name DRUGS, and JUST SAY NO!

I am a huge fan of Dr. David Kessler. Kessler is the former head of the FDA largely responsible for taking on the tobacco industry. If you have not read his thrilling book, A QUESTION OF INTENT: A Great American Battle with a Deadly Industry then I strongly suggest you do. If you enjoyed Russell Crowe in the film The Insider, and you are willing to take on a substantive and thrilling read, then you will love this book.

Mary meets Dr. David Kessler, San Diego, 2003: Back in the pre-raw days of too many Cinnabons!

Okay, I am in the nerd category where I actually have an autographed copy, but that is a story for a different day. I bring up Kessler in this discussion because now he has taken on the deadly fast food industry in his book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. If you haven’t read it yet, I urge you to do so before you eat even one more fast food meal layered with fat, sugar and salt – the Bermuda Triangle of addictive additives.

RAW FOOD AS FAST FOOD

My job, as I see it, is to protect my family (and hopefully yours in the process) from these drug dealers by keeping my family off the streets, out of the malls and eating at home where I create as many meals as I can that meet my definition of fast food: available, affordable, delicious and nutritious. Fast food that is not junk food is a challenge; but it is do-able. I think the food system, if you will, that is most able to get the job done is raw foods.

When Annie first trained as a raw chef, we could not get her out of the kitchen. The meals she prepared were incredibly complex, extremely labor intensive, layered with rare and often expensive ingredients and for the most part delivered to the table hours after I had passed my limits of patient endurance. Awaiting raw foods, I almost starved. Crabbiness was ever-present. Important work was left undone.  I knew if we were going to be successful raw foodists that I would have to find a different and I think better way. I still struggle daily with food choices and food preparation and grocery shopping and the incessant call of oh so available take out food. But, I am miles from where I started. And raw soups have been a big help to me on my personal journey to eat food that my brain recognizes, food that satiates my family and me, food that switches the hunger switch to off.

SOUP QUEEN KRISTEN SUZANNE arrived in the nick of time.

Two years ago my work life was so all consuming that creating enough time for our preferred living foods lifestyle was damn near impossible. Fortunately, Clare stepped into the abyss and presented me with just the tiniest little raw cookbook. Authored by raw chef, Kristen Suzanne Helmstetter, and one of many available on her website, Kristen Suzanne’s EASY RAW VEGAN SOUPS met my primary criteria for raw recipes: authentic ingredients, quick prep time and DELICIOUS. I now own lots of Kristen Suzanne’s itsy bitsy cookbooks and I consider her a raw goddess as I enjoy lots and lots of her imaginative and FAST recipes. We pair her soups with any number of wonderful salads and they easily become satisfying main meals. If I am really pinched for time, I pack our raw soups into three go mugs and the Duggan Sisters hit the road with quick and restorative fast food.

TOMATOES: Eat ‘em now while you can actually taste ‘em.

We make ORANGE TOMATO soup once a week all year long and it’s always great, especially paired with a savory salad and creamy rosemary dressing. But, when the tomatoes are summer delicious and I can grab the basil from my own yard then this recipe really knocks my socks off.  Note: when I am preparing this in the middle of the winter and the juice oranges are sweet, but the tomatoes are mealy, I add a squeeze of agave nectar to help the pitiful winter tomatoes hold their own. I have even substituted dried basil in a pinch; but the recipe definitely suffers from a lack of fresh basil. I have also found that Roma tomatoes are a must; any others just make a mess of the smooth, silky texture that makes this soup light enough to serve as a beverage.  Also, this recipe doesn’t make a whole lot; so after you’ve tried it once, if you really love it, double it. We call this ORANGE TOMATO SOUP but Kristen Suzanne named it after her nephew and I would never want to get between the love we aunties feel for our nephews so here’s a page right out of Kristen Suzanne’s book.

DEVEN’S ORANGE-YOU-GLAD TOMATO SOUP (fat-free)

Yield 5 cups

This soup is named after my adorable nephew who is always telling me “knock-knock” jokes. Our favorite is the joke about “orange-you-glad…” hahaha, I’m laughing even now as I write this.

1 pound Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 cups fresh orange juice
1 – 2 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons shallots, chopped
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan crystal salt
1/2 green onion, minced (white and 1-inch of green)
1/4 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
black pepper, to taste

Blend all of the ingredients, except the green onion, basil, and pepper, until smooth. Pulse in the green onion and basil. Season with black pepper. Pour into serving bowls and enjoy this high-energy soup.

I just love Jamie Oliver.  There are so many voices in the discussion about food; and I admire what many of them are contributing to our national debate. But nobody does it better than Jamie Oliver when it comes to taking it from discourse to the main course. Check out this Jamie O quote from a recent and fascinating Los Angeles Times article entitled, “Access to grocers doesn’t improve diets, study finds.”:

“If you go into most grocery stores across America, the majority of the store is chock-full of processed food calling out to you from the packages, ‘Pick me! I’m tastier and more convenient. And ringed around all this are good old veggies, with no instructions.”

I couldn’t agree more. I hear this CALL FOR INSTRUCTIONS all the time from sincere folks who really want to eat healthier and go to the produce aisle only to be overwhelmed by the wide array of fruits and vegetables available that they know are good for them; but, they don’t know how to prepare them. In particular, they don’t know how to prepare them without cooking them.

The summer harvest is upon us and that means lots of zucchini will be available from the garden, the grocer or, failing that, a generous neighbor with an overload of crop to share. I used to make lots and lots of delicious but unhealthy zucchini bread; now I make lots and lots of delicious raw meals that contain zucchini.

A favorite in our family is raw hummus. When we first went raw, Annie would come home from raw foods classes with raw hummus recipes that were just too complicated for me. For twenty- five years, I had been the Queen of Hummus: I mean I can make Palestinian men cry and call their mamas – that kind of good. I could make hummus in my sleep and I needed a recipe just that accessible. However, with the transition to raw foods I was suddenly faced with the challenge of hummus without cooked garbanzo beans. Now you have to understand, PURE RAW FOODISTS can be real snobs about garbanzo beans, and many other matters. Garbanzo beans – cooked, that is – have, and you must say this with an inflection, a VERY low vibration. Translation: even when sprouted, they don’t have much to offer. So, in the name of cook-a-likes, namely flavors that capture the essence of a cooked offering even when the ingredients differ, here is my all-time favorite raw hummus – simple and delicious.

This recipe, from one of my absolute favorite raw chefs, Matthew Amsden, author of the must-have raw cook book “RAWvolution,” is a staple in our weekly food plan. If you make it a day ahead, it will thicken a bit and more closely resemble the satisfying thickness of cooked hummus. I serve it with chopped red and orange peppers, carrot sticks, celery sticks, and peeled cucumber slices – my personal favorite complimentary flavor. Remember to sprinkle the finished product with a dusting of paprika – a small homage to the cooked original.

NOTE TO GLUTEN FREE FOLKS: If you have someone who is transitioning to raw foods or simply hungering for gluey, gluten-acious and nutritionally worthless pita bread, then I suggest gluten free pita bread, gently toasted in a toaster oven. We are currently big fans of Heaven Mills, which does have a bit of sweetness to it buy hey progress not perfection keeps us all moving in the right direction. Add a few wedges of pita to your family’s dipping selections and watch them move quickly away from bread for dipping and straight to the satisfying crunch of veggies.

HUMMUS:

MAIN CRITERIA: Fast and simple with do-able ingredients.

FREQUENCY: I try to make one fresh batch each week.

WANT TO MAKE IT A BIGGER MEAL: Serve with Tomato Orange Basil Soup: one of our favorite recipes to follow soon.

INGREDIENTS:

2 medium or 3 small zucchini, peeled and chopped

¾ cup raw tahini

½ cup fresh lemon juice

¼ cup olive oil

4 cloves garlic, peeled

2 ½ teaspoons sea salt

½ tablespoon ground cumin

INSTRUCTIONS:

In a food processor, combine all of the ingredients and blend until thick and smooth.

I put an individual ramekin of hummus on each person’s plate and sprinkle with paprika. Then I ring the plate with dipping options. I find I can easily serve 6-8.

To read the complete Los Angeles Times article, click here.

The Duggan Sisters have had a ball with the name of our deodorant. For folks who don’t get it, perhaps a bit of history behind the naming of our lifestinks® deodorant would help. Here’s the first layer of the story. In 2006 we pooled all of our available resources to have a sophisticated website built to support the work of our home based healing center – The Rose Cottage in Beverly. We were amongst a handful of people trained in a very unusual system of Manual Lymphatic Drainage and we had lots of other healing techniques in our bag of goodies – from Raindrop Therapy and Far Infrared Sauna to Transformational Reiki and Forrest Yoga. Business was pretty good, but ever the worrier, Mary, was looking at a flagging economy and wondering how long we would survive the looming cash crunch; a website had gone from being a possibility to an essential. So, we gave a reputable designer our last resources and spent ten months working with him on all the site maps and video and text that underpin a website. The task was daunting and ultimately futile. The night before our “big launch” a casual email arrived from our designer with the simple message that he had “lost” our website – please call!

I know, I know, who in the world has ever heard of a lost website! Well, the Duggan Sisters have and for ten months we had to fight the good fight to retrieve our substantial financial investment – we got most but not all of it back. What we were unable to regain was the lost time; meanwhile the economy was going from bad to worse and our fears were mounting. In desperation we called our local parish, hoping to participate in a holiday fair that was just days away. We wanted to rent a table where we could stand and explain our work to the members of our community. No longer afforded the worldwide exposure of a website, we decided quickly to reach out to the multitude of needy folks within a five mile radius. The event organizers were open to our work and sympathetic to our plight but made it clear that the fair was for artists – artists with art to sell. But we are artists, I insisted. We are working in the healing arts and we make the world’s finest deodorant. We were in and in honor of the good name we had made for ourselves treating some of the sickest of the sick Mommies in our area we were in with a discount and a really great location. Still, we could never have imagined that within days, in the gymnasium of St. Barnabas Parish, we would be launching our lifestinks® deodorant business.

We made deodorant around the clock for days; yet we sold out by noon on the first day of the fair. The Monday following the fair our phone rang off the proverbial hook with inquiries and orders for our ROSE COTTAGE IN BEVERLY LOVELY LAVENDER DEODORANT. We looked at each other and said, “It looks like we’ve hit a nerve and it looks like we’re deodorant makers.” Thus began the Duggan Sisters’ deodorant making information spreading campaign to change the way Americans think about health, perspiration, body odor, breasts, and the personal care products that make all the difference. Armed with a simple photocopy explaining the lymphatic function of the human breast we launched our “Don’t Be a Boob Campaign: get smart today about breast and prostate health.”

Oh, and the name, well the Rose Cottage soon gave way to the larger Duggan Sisters brand and our deodorant became lifestinks®. Never given to cynicism, our full motto remains, life stinks – but we make deodorant. Maybe you have to have held lots of dying Mommies in your arms to get it. Maybe you have to try to explain death to their surviving children to get it. Maybe you have to hear staggering stories about misdiagnosis and misinformation and years of suffering to get it. Maybe you have to give your last dime to a web designer who loses your work and who explains himself with a snooty “whatever” to get it. Maybe you have to have faced a lifetime of bitter defeats, unjust outcomes and inconsolable loss to get it. Or maybe, as we think, the idea for the name was a gift from on high. Maybe you just have to stand in festivals and farmers markets and street fairs and social halls for the better part of a year, in every conceivable type of weather and turnout to really get it. You have to listen to the devastating stories of your fellow citizens hurting in ways that are unimaginable as jobs and health insurance and homes and marriages and hope itself are lost to an economic downturn that has nearly destroyed our nation. And maybe you have to convince them to believe again, to try again, to think differently, to call out the liars, to hold manufacturers and physicians and drug companies to a new standard of integrity. Maybe you have to ask them to trust you and the integrity of what you are trying to do. At least that’s what we did.

In all honesty we have had our moments of doubt, fears that we would look cynical when we are anything but. So, we had our label designer work with us on some new concepts, catchy new names and different labels and snazzy colors and across the boards we encountered a resounding NO, YOU CAN’T DO THAT! A resounding no from simple folk and marketing professionals alike that wandered into our tent, our booth, our stall, our folding table in the corner of yet another stinky gymnasium. No, no, no when we would propose other “happier” nomenclature. No, no, no – you are a product of these very times. You are on the mark and on the money with presenting a grass roots alternative to the corporate greed and lies that have nearly destroyed our country. Of course life stinks, life is unfair, life is organic and earthy and stinky in many of its finest moments of birth and death and rebirth. So make deodorant.

And so we did and so we do. We have enjoyed disarming unsuspecting folks in the most unlikely of places with our little campaign of truth telling and honest to goodness safe and effective natural deodorant in a can that you can refill. Many or even most times the bit of a giggle or more typically the deep and healing belly laugh that accompanies the reading of our product’s name is followed by a shared story of anguish and loss and resilience that motivates us to continue on our most difficult days. It helps us to push through ever-present exhaustion, financial terrors and David and Goliath fears to keep making our little deodorant.

So if you find someone curling their nose or looking askance at our in-your-face name be sure to remind them that some of the most dangerous products on the market are named for peaceful birds or whispered confidences and have no references on their labels to neurological devastation or lymphatic death. Let’s not be boobs. Of course it’s a terrifying mess that we’ve made of our world and our health. Let’s change it. Telling the truth is a great place to start. Life stinks; but the Duggan Sisters make deodorant.

Want to learn more? For more information on our Don’t Be a Boob campaign, click on the image below: