The Natural Deodorant market has recently expanded, with plenty of products out there promising to keep you fresh, and dry, without the use of traditional ingredients such as aluminium salts. Listener PC Hollie got in touch on WhatsApp after she’d seen claims that regular deodorants and antiperspirants containing aluminium salts might be bad for our health, and wanted to know if natural deodorants are really better for us?She also wanted to know why they’re more expensive, if it’s worth paying more, and if they can do the same job and keep her dry while she’s fighting crime. Greg Foot finds out by speaking with a dermatologist Dr. Adil Sheraz, a chemist specialising in the makeup of natural products, Dr. Barbara Olioso, and by performing a “sweat test” where he convinced fellow gym goers to sniff his pits, and assess his sweat patches.This series, we’re testing and investigating your suggested wonder-products. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad and wonder if there’s any evidence to back up a claim, drop us an email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a voice note to our new WhatsApp number: 07543 306807.PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCER: Kate Holdsworth

The Natural Deodorant market has recently expanded, with plenty of products out there promising to keep you fresh, and dry, without the use of traditional ingredients such as aluminium salts. Listener PC Hollie got in touch on WhatsApp after she’d seen claims that regular deodorants and antiperspirants containing aluminium salts might be bad for our health, and wanted to know if natural deodorants are really better for us? She also wanted to know why they’re more expensive, if it’s worth paying more, and if they can do the same job and keep her dry while she’s fighting crime. Greg Foot finds out by speaking with a dermatologist Dr. Adil Sheraz, a chemist specialising in the makeup of natural products, Dr. Barbara Olioso, and by performing a “sweat test” where he convinced fellow gym goers to sniff his pits, and assess his sweat patches. This series, we’re testing and investigating your suggested wonder-products. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad and wonder if there’s any evidence to back up a claim, drop us an email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a voice note to our new WhatsApp number: 07543 306807. PRESENTER: Greg Foot PRODUCER: Kate Holdsworth

Natural Deodorants

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers. In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist Sean Farrington examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt? Some of the world’s most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world’s most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand’s fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions. From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in January, 2026. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds. For this brand new series of Toast, episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode on BBC Sounds first, a week earlier than anywhere else.Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

Health & Fitness

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers. In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist Sean Farrington examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt? Some of the world’s most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world’s most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand’s fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions. From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in January, 2026. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds. For this brand new series of Toast, episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode on BBC Sounds first, a week earlier than anywhere else. Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

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