'This is gross': Mum forces family to share common hygiene item to save money

"I have been poor, I mean poor poor, but I have NEVER done this." 

"Do all of the people in your house who wear deodorant have their own deodorant, or do they use the same stick of deodorant?"

This is the question that a mum casually asked her 90,000 followers on TikTok this week.

At first, I was a little taken aback, but then she said, "Let me explain why I'm asking you this..." so I relaxed, hoping there was some completely rational reason behind her asking, other than the fact that she herself shares deodorant with her family. 

But I was wrong.

So, so wrong. 

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Image: TikTok

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"Why would we have our own deodorant?"

"So, I'm in the shower last night and my husband comes in to get ready for work and he's like, 'I can't find my deodorant' and I'm like, 'It's in the drawer where it always is," the mum, Ellie, recounts.

Her husband then suggested that their son could be the culprit, and had moved "their" deodorant out of the bathroom. 

So yes, by this point, we have come to learn that this is indeed a deodorant-sharing household and she's not just asking this question to her followers as a hypothetical or because she's run out of content ideas. 

The husband, growing increasingly frustrated that he can't find the communal deo, asks Ellie why they can't just have their own sticks.

"Why would we have our own deodorants? I'm not paying for a whole other stick of deodorant," she replies, seeming genuinely confused by the suggestion.

Her husband replies, "You know this is gross, right?"

But alas, she doesn't think it's gross at all, hence why she enforced the whole group deodorant thing in the first place. 

"Me and the girls share deodorant too, and that's not gross," she insists, but her husband argued that it's "different for guys" as they have underarm hair.

The mum, who I'm now convinced shares underwear too, maintains that even if she also had underarm hair, she would continue swapping pit juices with her offspring. 

"I'm not buying five to eight sticks of deodorant every month," she exclaims. "I would need to put extra money into our budget because we all use clinical strength deodorant. That's like $15 to $20 a thing."

No judgement here, but this mum just admitted to having an extra-sweaty family and still won't invest in individual sticks?!

Okay, maybe a little bit of judgement. 

She then concluded her clip in a way that all people who lack self-awareness do and asked, "Am I crazy? Am I delusional?"

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"What on earth?"

Thankfully, out of the 2.5 million viewers, some of them spoke up and broke it to the mum.

"I have been poor, I mean poor poor but I have never shared a deodorant," one said.

And someone else added: "My mum was a single mother, we lived in a shed, and we still had our own deodorant."

"What on earth, I have never heard of sharing deodorant," a third wrote.

Others pointed out that the mum has her hair dyed blonde, her eyebrows perfectly shaped, fake lashes and has maybe had some cosmetic surgery. 

"Seriously, just pay a little extra and give your kids their own deodorant," one comment urged. "And maybe spend less on your own appearance."

"Toothbrushes, razors, hairbrushes, and deodorant are not a shared product" someone else commented. "What if someone had a staph infection or impetigo?

The mum responds to deodorant question

After the backlash, the mum, who asked for opinions but clearly didn't want any, made a follow-up video. 

"All of us apply it directly from the shower. Are you people not doing that?" she said. "Do you not apply directly onto clean armpits after a shower?" 

"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.

"It is nothing like sharing used toilet paper. It is nothing like sharing a freaking toothbrush."

Okay, while I'm not convinced by her justification, I suppose it is slightly less weird when you think about it that way.

I still can't help but wonder, if you're going to share, why not just buy spray?!

Originally published as 'This is gross': Mum forces family to share common hygiene item to save money