To My Ships is making deodorant cool
Could we be finally seeing a natural deodorant that actually works and looks cool in the bathroom cabinet?
THE SELF CARE AND GROOMING INDUSTRY has spent decades convincing us that moisturiser is a lifestyle and shampoo a philosophy. Deodorant, meanwhile, has been treated like the dutiful middle child who shows up, does their job, and leaves without anyone noticing. Enter To My Ships, which has just arrived at Mecca and is attempting the unthinkable: to make sweat protection… chic.
Founder Daniel Bense’s CV comes with a solid pedigree of transforming the mundane into something magical. He cut his teeth at Aesop, the Melbourne outfit that turned handwash into a cultural marker, and then helmed Sunspel, the British heritage brand best known for dressing Daniel Craig’s James Bond in polos and made us reassess our approach to wardrobe core basics. To My Ships is his own leap. Why start with deodorant? “It felt like the right place to begin, intimate and essential, but also an overlooked part of the everyday that deserved respect, care and more attention,” he says. Translation: if you can make armpits glamorous, you can do anything.
The brand takes its name from a line in a 15th-century songbook. Ships as vessels, journeys, ballast for personal mythology. All very literary, which makes sense once you encounter the first collection, Of the Gods. The hero ingredient is Polygonum, a green, aldehydic plant note that’s rarely used up front in perfumery. Here, it’s pushed into centre stage. Bense once described it as smelling like “the steam from an iron”. Specific, slightly surreal, and exactly the sort of brief that forces a perfumer (in this case, Céline Barel) to get inventive.
What he wanted, he says, was a corrective to the artificiality of the mainstream: “The world smells too artificial, too overbearing, too duty free, so we removed as much as we could. From the very first instance, we were drawn to Polygonum. It felt familiar yet unlike anything we had come across.”
The results are not what you’d expect from a stick of deodorant. They’re closer to an eau de parfum that just happens to keep you dry for 24 hours. The science is quietly impressive: fermented lactic acid and noni-fruit stem cells create a microbiome-focused blend that targets odour-causing bacteria. “These specialist ingredients are only now becoming available to brands willing to formulate from scratch. The evidence is in the results,” Bense explains. “Our deodorant is clinically proven for 24 hours of effectiveness and is suitable for sensitive skin.”
To My Ships’ design is equally forensic. Instead of going down the recycled-cardboard-halo route, Bense enlisted Formafantasma, the Italian studio known for making systems that question how things exist in the world. Their solution: tall, slender bottles made from post-consumer aluminium, which use up to 10 per cent less material than the usual formats. The surface is left raw, industrial treatment on show. “Beauty, in this case, is simply utility refined,” he says.
Bense’s aesthetic vision has also ensured that the packaging looks as good as the aromas they contain. “Every vessel should feel precious, because its creation has impact,” Bense says. “Our unprinted aluminium bottles can be reused in many ways. I use them as dish soap dispensers, as water bottles after the dishwasher, and the larger formats look great in my bathroom. Think twice, do once.”
The second collection, Stand Up Bravely, takes a warmer, spicier path and is personally my favourite of the duo. Also including a deodorant and parfum, Stand Up Bravely blends marjoram and sandalwood with bergamot in the opening. If Of the Gods looks towards the heavens, Stand Up Bravely plants your feet into the earth.
Instead of functioning as a collection of random SKUs, both lines read like variations on a theme: daily rituals unified by one olfactory thread. “We will continue to be led by mythic references,” Bense says, “but what is more grounded and everyday than the humble deodorant?”
Of course, the grooming shelves are already groaning under the weight of “conscious” branding. What makes this different? Bense keeps it blunt: “Less talk, more walk. Genuine change happens when form meets function and value. A product must be effective, a pleasure to use, and offer value when bought in bulk, in both time and money. We are not here to lecture, but to design systems that make the responsible choice the natural one.”
That philosophy gives To My Ships a slightly defiant edge. Where other labels push earnest manifestos, Bense is simply betting on good product and word-of-mouth. “Everything we do is built from the product up,” he says. “The product will speak for itself, and word of mouth is our strongest asset.”
What comes next? More unloved essentials, reimagined with the same rigour. “From here we will seek the unloved and overlooked items of daily life, redefining them while holding to our principle of always doing more with less.”
For now, the idea of a deodorant that smells like green aldehydes or warm earth and comes in a bottle Dieter Rams wouldn’t throw out feels novel enough. To My Ships isn’t preaching wellness; it’s trying to make the most basic act of self-care feel like a considered ritual. And if that makes you laugh at the absurdity of taking your underarms seriously, that’s the point.
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