Skin So Soft Bugs the Bugs

For decades, Avon Skin So Soft Bath Oil has been touted as an excellent ‘underground’ insect repellent by many of those who have used it in the tropics and in forested areas. Mind you, Avon assiduously avoided marketing it for that use, noting that it hadn’t been approved by the EPA for that purpose.

Despite the fact that repellents with DEET are supposed to be far more effective than Skin So Soft, there are still lots of people — including many cruisers — who swear by Avon’s well-known product.

We’re not sure when it happened, but at some point Avon got into the insect repellent business with two products marketed specifically for that purpose. One is Skin So Soft Bug Guard Plus Picaridin, and the other is Skin So Soft Plus IR3535 Expedition.

Both products contain picaridin, which is a synthetic repellent based on a compound that occurs naturally in the black pepper plant. Skin So Soft Plus Expedition is pretty much the same product but with sunscreen.

Consumer Reports tested the three products a few months ago and came to the following conclusions:

1) As was the case when they last tested Skin So Soft Bath Oil in 1993, it was effective, but only for a few hours, and thus was among the least effective repellents they tested.

2) Skin So Soft is a "middle of the pack" repellent that contains only two thirds as much picaridin as competing products, and doesn’t contain any DEET. Avon promotes the product because it doesn’t contain any DEET, a compound many consumers don’t like.

3) Consumer Reports cast shade on the Expedition product because they don’t like multi-purpose products.

To us, the interesting thing is that apparently Skin So Soft Bath Oil does work for a couple of hours, and in many cases that’s as long as cruisers need it because many insects are dawn-and-dusk irritants.

What’s your experience been with Skin So Soft? Would some singlehanders smell better if they used it even when there were no bugs around? Is there a repellent you like better? (Email Richard.)