On the label EWG recorded from the packaging of Schmidt’s Signature Charcoal & Magnesium deodorant (data dated February 2024), charcoal powder is the very last ingredient — number 13 of 13. Magnesium hydroxide is number 1. Both names are on the front of the stick, but only one of them is present at a meaningful amount. The ingredient doing most of the deodorising work, by label position, is one Schmidt’s doesn’t put in the name at all: baking soda, at number 6.
Schmidt’s is one of the most widely stocked “natural” deodorants in American retail — it’s on shelves in the big drug and grocery chains and near the top of the aluminum-free category online. Its whole pitch is right there on the front of the pack: Charcoal + Magnesium. Two named actives, both fashionable, both easy to picture doing something. So it’s a good one to actually read.
We did what the desk always does: found the real INCI list — the full one on the back, not the two words on the front — quoted it verbatim, and located each marketed hero on it. Here is where those two words actually sit.
What is on the Schmidt’s Signature label, in order?
Here is the list as EWG’s Skin Deep database recorded it “from packaging,” with data dated February 2024, corroborated line-for-line by a grocery retailer’s product listing. INCI lists are ordered by weight down to 1%, so position is a rough proxy for how much of each thing is in the stick. Thirteen positions on the main list:
- Magnesium Hydroxide
- Cocos Nucifera Oil (coconut oil)
- Maranta Arundinacea Powder (arrowroot)
- Butyrospermum Parkii Butter (shea butter)
- Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride (fractionated coconut oil)
- Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda)
- Euphorbia Cerifera Wax (candelilla wax)
- Simmondsia Chinensis Esters (jojoba)
- Fragrance (Parfum) (Natural Fragrance)
- Tocopherol (vitamin E, sunflower-derived)
- Beta-Sitosterol (sunflower-derived)
- Squalene (sunflower-derived)
- Charcoal Powder
After that come eight fragrance-allergen names — Amyl Cinnamal, Benzyl Salicylate, Citral, Citronellol, Geraniol, Hydroxycitronellal, Limonene and Linalool — labelled as naturally occurring components of the essential oils, not separate ingredients by volume.
One honest caveat up front: we could not put a physical stick under the magnifying glass for this one. Every ingredient list here is secondary. EWG is the strongest of them because it is explicitly “from packaging” and recently dated, and it matched a grocery listing exactly, but the desk’s gold standard is always a label in hand. Treat the positions below as sourced and dated, not as something we read off the pack ourselves. There is also an older, differently ordered formula floating around (see the last section), so the stick you own may not read like this one.
Where do charcoal and magnesium actually sit?
This is the whole story in two lines. Magnesium hydroxide is genuinely first — that half of the name is supportable. Charcoal powder is dead last, the thirteenth of thirteen, present in less quantity than everything else on the list including the vitamin E and its trace sunflower-derived cousins.
- Magnesium Hydroxide — position 1
- The primary ingredient by weight. It’s a low-solubility alkaline powder that raises local skin pH, which is the mechanism “natural” deodorants lean on to make the skin surface less hospitable to the bacteria that turn sweat into odor. As deodorising actives go, this one earning top billing is fair.
- Charcoal Powder — position 13 (last)
- The other word on the front, and the least abundant thing in the stick. It shares the name with the product; it does not share the front of the ingredient list.
- Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda) — position 6
- Not named on the front at all, sitting mid-list. In the older formula (below) it’s much higher. It’s the ingredient with the most documented skin-tolerance discussion of anything in the stick — and it’s the one the marketing is quietest about.
So the front of the pack sells you two heroes. One of them is real. The other is a trace. That’s not unusual and it isn’t against any rule — a front-of-pack name only has to appear somewhere on the label — but it’s exactly the gap this desk exists to point at.
Does charcoal do anything in a leave-on stick?
Here the honest answer is: the evidence is thin, and it’s thinner still for this format. Most of charcoal’s reputation comes from rinse-off products, where it adsorbs oils and is then washed away. A deodorant stick is leave-on — the charcoal stays put on the skin. Whether that does anything useful for odor over a day is not something the published literature settles.
A 2020 dermatology review in Clinics in Dermatology (PubMed) put it bluntly: brands attach the usual skincare promises to charcoal — clearer skin, fewer breakouts and the rest — but the review concludes “clinical evidence does not support these claims.” A 2021 review in the International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health (read it here) reached the same place — “little to no clinical evidence” behind cosmetic charcoal claims. None of that means charcoal is a problem to have in the formula. It means the word on the front of a leave-on deodorant is carrying more marketing weight than its position — or the science — supports.
What about the baking soda nobody put on the front?
The ingredient with the most real-world tolerance conversation around it isn’t either named hero — it’s the sodium bicarbonate at position 6. Baking soda is alkaline, and underarm skin is often freshly shaved, so it’s a common thing people report reacting to.
The nuance matters, and the formal data cuts against the internet’s louder version. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review’s safety assessment of sodium carbonates (PDF) concludes that sodium bicarbonate specifically is not a primary skin irritant at the dilute concentrations tested. But a 2024 review in the Journal of Integrative Dermatology (“Baking Soda and the Skin”) notes that case reports of local irritation do exist with topical baking soda used in excess, and that “the exact safe concentration for topical use is not clear.” A deodorant stick is not a diluted lab sample — and that gap between the lab number and daily use on shaved skin is where the user complaints tend to live. Worth knowing which formula you have, because the older one puts far more baking soda in the stick.
Is there a version without the baking soda?
If baking soda is the thing you’re trying to avoid, the useful move is to read for it directly rather than trust a front-of-pack word. Some “natural” deodorants are built around it; others leave it out and lean on other ingredients. Our own Evil Goods Tallow Deodorant — and yes, this site is published by the team behind Evil Goods, so weigh that accordingly — is a tallow-based, aluminum-free option; read its ingredient list the same way you’d read Schmidt’s and decide for yourself. The point of this desk isn’t “buy ours,” it’s “turn the pack over first.”
Why does Schmidt’s own website list magnesium first?
Because a brand’s website and a regulatory label are two different documents. Schmidt’s product page presents ingredients in a story order that opens on the hero names to match the product title — that’s an editorial choice, not the INCI order. The INCI list, ordered by weight, is the one on the back of the physical pack. When the two disagree, the back of the pack is the document that’s regulated.
One caveat: there is more than one formula out there
An older ingredient order, uploaded to Incidecoder in 2020, reads differently: arrowroot first, coconut oil second, baking soda fourth, with magnesium and charcoal both down in the tail (magnesium around 8th, charcoal 9th of 11). That predates the “Signature” reformulation and may be a discontinued SKU, so treat it as history rather than the current stick. Either way, the two named heroes have never both been near the top of the list, and the honest test is the same: read the panel on the stick in your hand.
Frequently asked questions
Where does charcoal sit on the Schmidt’s Charcoal + Magnesium label?
On the Signature formula EWG recorded from packaging (February 2024), charcoal powder is in the last position on the label — the thirteenth and final line, the least abundant thing in the stick.
Is the magnesium claim accurate?
On that same list, magnesium hydroxide is the first ingredient by weight, so the “magnesium” half of the name is supportable. The “charcoal” half sits at the very bottom.
Does charcoal deodorise in a leave-on stick?
The published evidence is weak, and mostly comes from rinse-off products. Dermatology reviews say clinical evidence doesn’t support charcoal’s cosmetic claims generally, and the rinse-off mechanism doesn’t transfer cleanly to a stick that stays on the skin.
Does Schmidt’s contain baking soda?
Yes. Sodium bicarbonate is at position 6 on the Signature list and higher on the older formula, even though it isn’t named on the front. It’s the ingredient with the most documented skin-tolerance discussion in the stick.
Why doesn’t the website order match the label?
The website uses a brand-story order that opens on the hero names; the regulatory INCI list on the back of the pack is ordered by weight. They are different documents, and the label is the one that’s regulated.
