I love trying new ostomy pouch deodorants because I know that effective products can improve the quality of life for many colostomates and ileostomates. In this review, I will be looking at the No-Roma product by Salts Healthcare.
Disclosure: The bottle used for this review was purchased in full through my online supplier.
Table of Contents
About No-Roma Ostomy Pouch Deodorant
Product name: No-Roma Ostomy Appliance Deodorant
Manufacturer: Salts Healthcare Ltd.
Product #: 833056 (for 227ml bottle)
Size: 227ml; a 1 oz travel size is also available.
Quantity per package: 1 bottle
No-Roma is a clear, odorless ostomy pouch deodorant by the company Salts Healthcare out of the UK.
It does not contain any lubricants, so it won’t prevent pancaking, but it can be used by both ileostomates and colostomates.
No-Roma is designed to kill odor-causing bacteria in your pouch, but I haven’t been able to find an ingredient list anywhere: no MSDS info on the Salts website, nothing listed on the bottle, and my email to Salts was never replied to. I will assume there are no animal ingredients in it, as I’ve never seen a pouch deodorant that isn’t vegan so far, but I would like to know if there are any potentially harmful ingredients in it!
UPDATE: The folks at Salts reached out to me and confirmed that this product is vegan. They also pointed me to their MSDS resource, which was in their legal page. The ingredients listed are : Contains less than 5% 2-Bromo-2-Nitropropane-1, 3 diol (BNPD),Nonionic Surfactants, Sodium,Carboxymethylcellulose, Polydimethsiloxane, Potassium Hydroxide,Soft Water.
The cap on the bottle of this product is a screw-off, which I found annoying because it means that you can’t open it with one hand. It also means that you have to put the cap somewhere, which may not be very convenient.
I will say that dispensing this product is easy, so it doesn’t leave a mess like some other products can.
One thing I found quite odd is how nasty the label on the bottle can get simply by being exposed to humidity from the shower. I have kept my pouch deodorants in the same spot in my bathroom but have never seen this happen to other products.
How I Use This Product
Like other pouch deodorants, you add No-Roma to your pouch every time you empty it; if you wear a closed-ended pouch, then you simply add this product to your pouch when you replace it.
The instructions say to add “add one drop” to your pouch, which means the 227ml version of this product should last months. In my experience, however, I’ve needed to use much more than a drop, so a bottle lasted about 3 weeks, using it approx. seven times a day.
Colostomates may get several months out of this product, since they don’t have to empty or change their pouch more than a few times per day.
Does it Work?
As I mentioned in the previous section, the instructions say to use “one drop”, which I found to be quite optimistic. “Two drops may be used if one is found to be insufficient”… I tried doing that for about a week, but found that it wasn’t really doing much, so I eventually started adding a squirt instead. Unfortunately, not even a squirt was doing much to reduce odor.
Believing that perhaps the liquid wasn’t being distributed in my pouch, I even started to move the deodorant around, making sure to get it smeared along the inside of the pouch. Nothing.
I was pretty amazed by the lack of efficacy of this product, to be honest. I could understand some inconsistencies, but No-Roma seemed to do nothing at all for me regardless of the quantity used.
I’d also like to point out that I’ve tried this product when my ostomy output was thick and liquid, and it made no difference – it just never worked.
Conclusion
At the time of this writing (Jan 2022), a 227ml bottle of No-Roma sells for approx. CDN$13.60, and you should be able to find this wherever Salts Healthcare products are sold.
Here in Canada, they seem to be easy to find, but I know that my US friends find it more difficult to find Salts products, so you may have to shop around.
As far as I can tell, samples are not available for this product, but you can purchase the travel size if you want to try it out.
Like with other pouch deodorants, this should be covered by all insurance companies.
Pros:
- Clear liquid
- Two sizes available
- Odorless
- Vegan
Cons:
- Doesn’t work (at least, not for me).
- The screw-off cap isn’t convenient.
- Hard to find in the USA.
- Non-lubricated, so it won’t help prevent pancaking. Salts does not offer a lubricated version of this product.
- No expiry date listed anywhere.
- The bottle gets nasty if exposed to humidity (like from a shower).
Not Recommended
Based on my experience with this product, I can’t recommend it considering there are numerous other pouch deodorants available that work better than this.
For more information, please visit the Salts Healthcare site at: www.salts.co.uk
Question: Have you used this pouch deodorant? Did it work for you??
Good Topic!
I’ve tried 3 products over 13 years.
1) A homemade mix using food grade 3% hydrogen peroxide, one whole bottle, its about 1 cup, then distilled or purified water to nearly the top and a 1/4 cup of Johnsons baby body/shampoo wash & sometimes adding a few drops of an essential oil. Adding the shampoo/body wash last to minimize bubbles, stir with the handle of a longer wooden spoon ir swish but beware of bubbles! My son found a similar recipe for homemade ostomy pouch deoderant on the internet. I needed to change it to get the affect I wanted & I mixed it in a clean 1 gallon size plastic milk jug. On this I found all it really did was require a larger amount to do the job & add extra fluids to my pouch plus it took too much of my time to make & bottle up in convenient size squirt bottles… Lol! I tried this when the cost of M9 for me was too high as a new ostomate & unable to work new widow with 2 kids & 3 dogs at home.
2) Essential oils only. I worried nonstop that the oils, with my high output ileostomy would get under the wafer & cause leaks. Plus I didn’t like being able to “smell" the oils at work in my pouch. After all, to me if I could smell the oils so could others & they often required an explanation I didn’t want to give or lie about.
3) M9… by far the best product to date for me. After all…WE are “ALL DIFFERENT!" lololol!!! However, using the amount of drops recommended on the bottle does not work for me. I need to add 22 drops or 2 very short fast squirts of M9 I put into an old Ostomy Powder bottle to get the desired affect. I get 1 month from one eight ounce bottle.
I am sorry this does not seem to work for some people….but it does for me! And it works well. you need a good squirt. But it does the job.
It is worth noting that the more often you empty your pouch, the more effective it is. IE if you go 8 hours or so…like all night…the effect wears off somewhat.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Graham!
Pouch deodorant is one of those products that have a wide range of effectiveness depending on the person, or their diet.
It’s a shame that using it “as directed" doesn’t seem to be the ideal dosage. I’ve found this to be true with other products as well. It seems like a squirt is always best! ??
after 9 years with a colostomy and lots of experiments, nothing beats a drop of peppermint oil or eycaliptus oil for odor
I’ve tried several essential oils and they all seem to end up smelling very “skunky". Not sure why, but I’m glad they work for you =)
I never wasted my time using deodorant for my ileostomy pouch. I’ve always used just regular peroxide you can get anywhere and it’s a lot cheaper and it’s very effective and I don’t have to move it around in my pouch I just pour in maybe a cap full or less and that’s it . it does the trick every single time no matter what I’m eating…its not a lubricant of course but because I have an ileostomy I don’t have to worry about a lubricant.
I’ve been wanting to try that, but I’ve been warned of the potential damage it can cause the mucosa lining of the stoma, so I’m a little apprehensive! Are you using a 3% solution?
I have just got back from the hospital with a chemical burn to my stoma from using this product
I have a massive blister and 3 smells ones
And the pain is bad !!!! ?
Oh no, that’s terrible to hear. I would imagine you’re sensitive to one of the ingredients. I hope that you’re better soon. ?