A word in your ear about personal hygiene...

I realise that this post is going to come dangerously close to an uncharacteristic 'lifestyle' one for me, but I feel almost evangelistic about the little object shown above.

Some years ago, I was visiting a company in a village in the Mendips called 'Crystal Imports', with a view to buying up about 5 tons of a rare-ish crystal called 'potato stones'. The old boy who ran the company was retiring, and I managed to buy up a lot of stuff from him at a good rate.

During the procedure, he handed me one of the crystals above to try out for free. He felt as evangelistic as I do now, and I have to say that I have never come across a product which not only fulfills every promise it makes on the packet, but actually exceeds them beyond my most optimistic expectations.

Somewhere in Thailand, there is a mineral spring which has been used by the locals to bathe in and cure minor skin diseases for generations, and years ago, the Thais started extracting this water, boiling it down until nothing was left but it's mineral constituents in salty, crystalline form, then shaping it into little bars like the one above.

The old boy gave me a chemical break-down, listing these constituents, and there are flipping hundreds of them, including some very rare salts which are found nowhere else on earth in this form.

It is used as a deodorant, and every morning after a wash or shower, I quickly rub one end of this block under my wet armpits, around my toes, and over me nuts.

This leaves an invisible trace of the salts on the skin, and when the bacteria that actually causes the smell we associate with B.O. comes into contact with it, they instantaneously die. End of problem for 24 hours or more, no matter how drunk you got the night before, or how much red meat you consumed at the same time. For about 2 days, all you can smell is the feint scent of the soap you used to wash with, and that's all. No blocked pores caused by the roll-on, plastic varieties of 'anti-perspirants' - you can sweat as much as you want to, and the result will be the same. It even stops those yellow stains from forming in the armpits of white shirts and blouses that are so difficult to remove. It's bloody wonderful.

The other thing is that it lasts so long, that even if you pay £8 for one bar (you can get about 5 bars for around £3.50 each on the net), it still represents fantastic value, because it just lasts and lasts. I have just opened a new bar - that one - as the other one had gone down to about half an inch in the 6 or 7 years that H.I. and me had been using every day. Yes - you can share it, because there is nothing that 'self-cleans' on earth like it, apart from ozone gas.

I may be preaching to the converted here, but if you haven't tried it, give it a go - I guarantee you will not look back. (And I also guarantee that I am not being paid to say this.)