It sits hidden on the bottom shelf of the deodorant section, in the DMZ between the manly man Old Spice pit sticks and the ph-balanced Secret women's anti-perspirant.

The gender neutral hippy deodorant.

Your options are the Tom's of Maine drywall spackle and the tiny pink jar next to it that your eyes pass over instantly without conscience thought. Your sub-conscience ignores it because it does not belong. The tiny pink jar that says "Crystal."

If you know anything about hippies it's that they love themselves some crystals. They love crystals so much so that they decided to put one in a jar and sell it as deodorant. De. Odorant.

Silly hippies, crystals are for time machines.

Seeing as this is a tech blog, instead of mocking the common sensually-challenged, I have decided to put it to the test. I bought the crystal deodorant, careful to avoid direct eye contact with the cashier, brought it home and discreetly hid it from my roommates.

Day One: Pit Check

This morning, today, I have used it for the first time. The instructions say to "moisten the top of the stone and smooth under arms or soles of feet." All sorts of awesome in this sentence. First off, stone? Second, feet? People need feet deodorant? (On second thought, I wonder why this isn't more of a thing. I'm sure some Madison Avenue-types could convince us to spend more money on feet deodorant.)

As this is science, and the scientific method calls for rigorous study and lab assistants, I wrangled our other online developer Caroline into performing the only real test that matters: The pit check.

Current status:

"You do not stink yet. That's too close for comfort to your arm pit. I don't want to be all up in your arm pit."

–Caroline Pate, Online Developer

Not bad, hippie crystal deodorant. Not bad.

But we will see at the end of the day.