Tom’s of Maine Long Lasting Unscented is sold on its “odor-fighting hops.” Read the back of the Unscented stick and hops (Humulus Lupulus Extract) is the 6th ingredient of 9. The thing in first place — the single largest ingredient by weight — is Propylene Glycol, a solvent and humectant that Tom’s thought worth its own FAQ entry to explain. The ingredient the brand leads with on the front of the pack sits two-thirds of the way down the back.
This desk runs the same exercise on everything: quote the real ingredient list from a public source, then point at where the thing on the front of the pack actually lands. Tom’s of Maine is a good one to run it on, because it is probably the most widely shelved “natural” deodorant in the US — it turns up at CVS, Walgreens, H-E-B and Whole Foods — and its marketing and its label are easy to line up side by side.
What is actually in Tom’s of Maine Long Lasting Unscented?
Here is the ingredient list, quoted verbatim. I read it on the EWG Skin Deep entry for the unscented SKU on 18 October 2026, and cross-checked the identical list on H-E-B’s product listing (heb.com, product 778780) the same day — the two match exactly:
Propylene Glycol, Aqua/Water/Eau, Sodium Stearate, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Organic/Biologique), Glyceryl Laurate, Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil (Organic/Biologique), Ascorbic Acid, Cymbopogon Flexuosus Oil (Organic/Biologique).
Sources: EWG Skin Deep and the H-E-B retailer listing (heb.com, product 778780), both read 18 October 2026. Nine ingredients. One standing caveat on any product: formulas get revised and retailer and database listings lag the physical stick, so if you are checking your own tube, read the panel printed on it. There is a real wrinkle on this one — see the note on zinc below. This is the list those two sources showed on the date above, and they agree.
Where does the hops actually sit?
At position 6 of 9. That puts Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract — the ingredient the pack is named for in all but so many words — below propylene glycol, water, sodium stearate, the aloe, and glyceryl laurate. Under US labeling rules (21 CFR 701.3), ingredients above 1% are listed heaviest-first; anything at or below 1% can go in any order after that. You cannot read a percentage off a label. But the shape of a nine-item list with the marketed hero at sixth, and three botanicals trailing behind it, tells you plainly that the hops is a minor part of the stick by weight, not the bulk of it.
There is a quieter ingredient worth flagging one slot above the hops. Glyceryl Laurate at position 5 is a genuine odor-control ingredient — it is a monoglyceride with documented activity against gram-positive bacteria, the kind that live in an armpit — and Tom’s does not market it at all. So alongside the hops it advertises at #6, the stick carries an unmarketed antibacterial ingredient at #5. The marketed hero is not the only thing in the formula with a reason to be there; it is the one with the best story on the front of the pack.
Why does propylene glycol lead the list — and should you care?
Propylene glycol is first because it is the base the stick is built on: a solvent and humectant that carries everything else and keeps the stick soft. Tom’s addresses it directly on its ingredients page, writing that “it’s not your typical version” and that they use a plant-derived propylene glycol “sourced from vegetable oils—not nonrenewable fossil fuels.” Worth being precise here: plant-derived and petroleum-derived propylene glycol are the same molecule once made, so the sourcing is an environmental point, not a difference your skin can tell apart.
The reason a label-reader notices propylene glycol at all is contact allergy, and this is where I want to be careful to stay inside what the evidence says. Propylene glycol is a recognised contact allergen and sits in the North American Contact Dermatitis Group’s standard screening series. A large NACDG dataset (PMID 19321115, 23,359 patients patch-tested) found about 3.5% reacted to it, with personal-care products the most common source of exposure. A review in the dermatology literature puts it bluntly — “it is especially important to think of propylene glycol allergy in cases of contact dermatitis from deodorant.” That is a minority of people, and a 3.5% patch-test rate is not “this will irritate you.” It means a small but real share of users react to it, deodorant is a classic place it shows up, and it is sitting at position #1 here. If you have had a reaction to a deodorant before, that is the ingredient worth knowing is in first place.
- Propylene Glycol (#1)
- Solvent/humectant base — the largest ingredient by weight, and a recognised contact allergen in the NACDG standard series.
- Sodium Stearate (#3)
- The soap-like ingredient that sets the stick into a solid.
- Glyceryl Laurate (#5)
- An antibacterial monoglyceride doing quiet odor-control work — not marketed.
- Humulus Lupulus / Hops Extract (#6)
- The marketed hero, sixth of nine, below the aloe and the glyceryl laurate.
- Sunflower Oil, Ascorbic Acid, Lemongrass Oil (#7–9)
- Trace-level botanical additions at the tail of the list.
What is going on with the zinc?
This is the honest loose end, and I would rather show it than tidy it away. The same H-E-B listing that carries the nine-ingredient list above also describes the product in its marketing copy as using “odor trapping zinc salts” — yet there is no zinc ingredient anywhere in that list. An older INCIDecoder entry for the same product, uploaded by a user in 2021, does include Zinc Ricinoleate, sitting at position 5 and pushing the hops down to #7 of 10. The two current sources I read (H-E-B and EWG) do not show it.
I am not going to tell you Tom’s removed the zinc, because I cannot confirm that against a current physical label — the difference could be a reformulation, or it could be a database and SKU lag, and those look identical from the outside. What I can say is that the current public lists I quoted do not contain zinc, the marketing copy still references it, and an older list did. If you have a current stick, the back panel settles it in a second. It matters for one specific reason, which is the next section.
Does the hops claim stand up on its own?
Hops does have real antibacterial activity — this is not a made-up ingredient. The study usually behind deodorant hops claims is Dumas et al. 2009 in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, which showed a supercritical hops extract was active in vitro against Corynebacterium xerosis and Staphylococcus epidermidis — two gram-positive organisms involved in body odor. So far so good for the ingredient.
The nuance a label-reader should know: the in vivo part of that same study, the part that measured actual underarm odor over eight hours, tested a hops and zinc ricinoleate stick — not hops on its own. Zinc ricinoleate is itself a well-described odor-binder (Abendrot & Lauffer, 2018). I am not going to claim the current Tom’s stick does or does not work — I have not tested it, and efficacy is not a call this desk makes from a label. The checkable point is narrower: the best-known human evidence for “hops in a deodorant” pairs it with zinc, and the current public ingredient lists for this stick do not show zinc. That is a fair question to sit with, not a verdict.
If what you want is a deodorant where you are not reading a solvent in first place and then hunting for the active two-thirds of the way down, that is a different kind of formula — and it is the thing we make. Our aluminum-free tallow deodorant at Evil Goods is built on tallow rather than a propylene-glycol base (Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, and I point to it here because this whole piece is about which ingredient sits where). Being straight with you: a different base is a different trade-off, not a magic fix, and anyone who reacts to one deodorant should read any new label — ours included — before switching. The back of the pack is the honest document; the front is the advertisement.
FAQ
Where does hops sit in Tom’s of Maine Long Lasting Unscented?
On the current H-E-B and EWG Skin Deep listings, read 18 October 2026, Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract is the 6th ingredient of 9. It sits below propylene glycol, water, sodium stearate, aloe and glyceryl laurate.
What is the first ingredient?
Propylene Glycol. By the heaviest-first convention of INCI lists, that makes it the single largest ingredient by weight in the stick. It is a solvent and humectant that forms the base of the formula, and Tom’s has a dedicated FAQ entry explaining it.
Is propylene glycol a problem in deodorant?
For most people, no. It is a recognised contact allergen in the North American Contact Dermatitis Group standard series, and a large patch-test dataset found about 3.5% of tested patients reacted to it, with personal-care products the commonest source. That is a minority, but deodorant is a classic place it shows up, so it is worth knowing it is in first place if you have reacted to a deodorant before.
Does the deodorant contain zinc?
The two current public lists I quoted do not list any zinc, but the retailer’s marketing copy still mentions “zinc salts,” and an older 2021 ingredient list included Zinc Ricinoleate at position 5. I could not confirm against a current physical label whether zinc is present, so I am not asserting it was removed — a current back panel would settle it.
Does hops actually fight odor?
Hops extract has shown antibacterial activity against odor-related gram-positive bacteria in vitro. The best-known human odor study, Dumas et al. 2009, tested hops combined with zinc ricinoleate rather than hops alone, which is worth knowing given the zinc question above. Whether any particular stick works is not something a label can tell you.
