Introduction to Pepper Spray Reviews

Pepper spray is a very popular tool for self defense, riot control, and other situations in which effective non-lethal deterrents are needed. However, this popularity has not been accompanied by an increase in accurate common knowledge about how to choose among the numerous alternatives.

You see, I became interested in carrying some sort of self defense weapon just in case good sense wasn't enough to steer clear of trouble. The obvious choice (for many people, at least) is to carry some sort of handgun. The trick with handguns, though, is that quality guns are expensive,  require quite a bit of practice to reach a skill level useful in an adrenaline-filled real life crisis, are illegal to concealed carry without a license (in some states/districts it is illegal, period), and are highly subject to legal repercussions even if used properly (that is, are you sure that guy with the knife was trying to kill you? If a jury can be convinced shooting him was excessive, you and the bad guy both go down).

Knives, batons, and stun guns all suffered from a similar flaw I really didn't like: you have to be quite close to your assailant to use them. I would like to have the ability to hit from a bit of a distance; it's just safer that way.

So, I decided that I would just get the best pepper spray product I could justify purchasing, and voila!, my problems would be solved. Right? Well, as it turned out, not so much. Pepper sprays are marketed in all sorts of bizarre ways, and many of the objective features pointed to by the marketing are only one piece of the pepper spray effectiveness puzzle.

What makes the situation worse is that when it comes to subjective reviews of pepper spray effectiveness, it is difficult (as near as I can tell it is impossible) to find a site where many different sprays have been tested by the same person. There are plenty of subjective reviews, of course, but to compare apples to apples we need a wide variety of sprays tested by the same people.

This blog is my humble attempt to clear some of the confusion about the basic workings of pepper spray, and to review several of the popular varieties by testing them on yours truly. I hope this helps some of you out there who are just confused about all of this as I was!