Zinc oxide Deodorant

I don't actually sweat overly much, but I do have what I would characterize as evil underarms that overcome whatever deodorant I apply. This slays me because my mother and father don't really need to use deodorant at all (like roses!), and when my husband sweats it just smells like man in a good, non-BO way. I used to be a regular antiperspirant sorta gal, then moved on to men's antiperspirant. These work ok, but made my underarms rough and despite packaging claims otherwise, stained my clothes yellow, which is not cool when you're talking items that require hand-washing like silk or cashmere. I am also not a fan of the aluminum thing - Alzheimer's runs strongly on my maternal side, and I figure why take the chance, especially if I don't need the antiperspirant effect?

For the past year I have given the coconut oil-baking soda variations a go, and while they work well enough, after a couple of weeks I get the most awful rash and cracked skin. This seems to happen regardless of the amount of baking soda used. I ended up switching on and off between that (Miessence was pricey but nice) and the crystal stuff, which is a PITA to wait to dry, works for a decent amount of time, but I still get yellow stains (and they're not really "aluminum-free").

In the past several weeks I've gone through five different "natural" deodorants, none of which work particularly well unless reapplied every few hours.

I've seen talk of using products like Lavilin or Now Foods zinc oxide-based cream, or just straight-up diaper cream with at least 20% zinc oxide - has anyone here (preferably someone with evil underarms) used it with success? Do you find that it stains? Made your underarms unhappy otherwise? I saw one reference to it here in a thread on deodorants and was looking for some more commentary and experiences...

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