When you have a family, you're always looking for ways to cut costs. It feels like everything is expensive, and naturally, parents have to find places where they can keep the costs from adding up. Some people buy everything on sale, or shop at big box stores where they can buy things in bulk. If you know where to look, there are ways to reduce certain expenses.
A mom on TikTok recently started an interesting conversation about how she keeps costs down in her household by forcing her family to share sticks of deodorant. Many people — including her husband — find this "gross," but she is firm in her decision.
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The issue of sharing deodorants has clearly become a problem in their household.
TikTok user @missusmom, posed the question to her 90,000 followers, but the video has now been seen over 1 million times. "Do all of the people in your house share deodorant?" she asked. "Or does each member that wears deodorant have their own stick of deodorant?"
She went on to explain that her husband and son share a stick of deodorant, while she shares with her daughters. The reason she was asking is that her husband is growing tired of sharing a stick of deodorant with their son.
"Why would he have his own? I’m not paying for another stick of deodorant," she said.
Her husband had a valid reason for not wanting to share.
She went on to note that her husband called sharing deodorant "gross," which she found odd since she claimed to have no issue sharing with their daughters. His point was that because he and their son have hair under their arms, there is a higher likelihood of there being bacteria and dirt under their arms. He was firm in his belief that they should be using separate sticks.
She dismissed his claims, citing the cost of their deodorant as a reason to continue sharing. "I’m not buying five to eight sticks of deodorant every month," she insisted. "I would need to put extra money into our budget."
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People had a lot to say about her choice.
"Am I crazy and wrong or is he delusional?" she asked viewers about her husband's stance.
People in the comments didn't hold back their questions and opinions.
"Oh no no no… that's like sharing used toilet paper," one person wrote. "Just so gross."
"I’m confused," another comment reads. "Aren’t you finishing the deodorant twice as fast by sharing anyway? So buying everyone their own would just make you replace less frequently."
"Toothbrushes, razors, hairbrushes, and deodorant are not a shared product" someone commented. "What if someone had a staph infection or impetigo?"
"I have been poor, I mean poor poor but I have never shared a deodorant," another wrote.
The woman seemed truly shocked by people's responses.
In a follow-up video, the woman did admit that she had never actually calculated how much she spends on deodorant or how long it takes her family to go through a stick. But then she seemed to take offense with the hygiene aspect of people's concerns.
"All of us apply it directly from the shower. Are you people not doing that?" she wondered. "Do you not apply directly onto clean armpits after a shower?" she asked.
"Nobody’s going in there with sweaty armpits and putting on deodorant. If we have sweaty armpits, we’re taking a shower and then putting it on clean armpits," she continued.
"It is nothing like sharing used toilet paper. It is nothing like sharing a freaking toothbrush," she argued.
She then explained that she grew up sharing personal hygiene products and couldn't see the problem with it.
Someone in the comments asked if she grew up sharing personal hygiene products with her family, and she admitted that she did in another video. She explained that she grew up in a family of six people, and sharing things like soap, wash cloths and deodorant was just the norm.
She did make some outrageous claims that things like liquid soap and shower loofahs didn't exist, but it was likely more to emphasize her point that those items were communal in her house.
