Unscientific Scent Elimination Spray Test
Although I am increasingly suspect of all of these products, this year I have done a very unscientific, but I believe a very realistic, test on two of the newer scent ‘elimination’ sprays. I subjected the X-Scent brand with its emulsified silver ions and the Dead Down Wind brand, with its enzymes, to the dreaded arm pit test.
I am not a scientist, nor the son of a scientist, and I did not sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I do sweat and my armpits do stink. So, I figured since both of these products claim that they kill the bacteria that produces human odor, that I would test them on my pits in different ways. The first test was to be a post stink test, so I worked outside for a day with no deodorant on. Afterward I took the old whiff test with my own non-deer nose. Yep, both stunk about the same, as far as I could tell. So did my T-shirt at the same location. I sprayed one pit with X-Scent and the other with Dead Down Wind (DDW), and waited a few minutes. Both pits still stunk, with the X-scent one showing no sign of eliminating any of the odor. There did seem to be a slight difference with the DDW one, but only slight. Same results with the smelly T-shirt.
The next test was a pre stink spraying. I sprayed each freshly washed pit (with the HS scent elimination green soap) the next day with each product, using no deodorant again. This happened around 8:00 AM. At noon, after getting the kids ready for church, and as fate would have it, sitting in a warm church whose AC was on the fritz, I smelled my pits. Both had noticeable odor, but again, the DDW one smelled a little less than the X-Scent brand.
That’s it. Take from it what you will. As for myself, I am beginning to believe that my dollars will be better spent buying more tree stands and placing them so that I have a stand for every possible wind condition. Playing the wind seems more viable than most products ever will.
As a side note, last night I went out to one of my stands, wearing my rubber boots that have remained outside in a plastic bag, and were sprayed down with liberal amounts of Dead Down Wind before entering the woods, as were my clothes. A red fox comes trotting through the woods, hits my trail, puts his nose to the ground, and turns around and trots in a different direction. This is no big deal, by itself, except that it is the second time the same fox did the exact same thing. So, my deduction is that anyone who thinks you can move through the woods without leaving a trace of your passing to the wild critters out there are only fooling yourselves, IMHO.
PS. I will not enter into an argument with anyone on this, I’m just sharing my test for you to think about and perhaps test for yourself.
PSS. I also don’t buy into the carbon suit gimmick.