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Speckmisser
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I don't use any cover scent for hogs or deer. I honestly believe most of that stuff is gimmicks. It just makes you smell like a human with dirt on him.
If you're setting up feeders, bait, and a stand, then your scent is going to be all over the place anyway. Just set your stand downwind, get in and be still.
If you're setting up feeders, bait, and a stand, then your scent is going to be all over the place anyway. Just set your stand downwind, get in and be still.
Arrowslinger
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I've used Fresh Earth Scent Waffers for 10 years...they work like a charm! I store my hunting clothes in a bag w/ 3 of 'em, then spray the Fresh Earth scent on me on the way to the stand.....'specially when you're bow hunting. I arrowed two nice hogs this year using this system.
I think we need to show the game we hunt a bit more respect. Nothing you can spray, rub, or wash your clothing in will make a tiny bit of difference at hiding our Human scent. The following is from another site on the same topic. It was a reply I made a year ago about a similiar question.
Rather then retype this all I just cut and pasted my thoughts from previous threads on the same topic. Here are two of them from the older threads:
Today on some cable channel there was a program about smuggling money in and out of the USA. The films were made in Miami and New York airports with a couple clips in Dallas and LA.
The whole documentary was very well done and professional. I did not see the first 10 minutes or so, I was late to the show.
So what story did it tell? Well these dogs did not sniff dope, bombs, guns, or meat. The Customs guys said if you want to find a criminal all you need to do is follow the money! These dogs were trained to smell American Money! They work in the aircraft jet way sniffing the passengers as they were boarding the plane. They sniff here and there as the people walk by and follow the ones who have too much cash.
Most of the video had people open a carry on bag and they had plenty of cash in side. No big impressive feat from what I have seen before. By the way the limit of unclaimed cash you can have leaving or coming into the USA is 10,000 US dollars. That much money in 100 dollar bills is about 1/4" thick and easily fits into a legal size envelope.
Several of the people had cash in one gallon zip lock bags, inside a hardsided brief cases. Not a single one got past the dogs. Many had the money wrapped in plastic cling sandwich wrap. One guy had it inside his lead lined film bag. That one had the Customs guys howling with laughter, as if the lead lined bag was a scent deterent!
Another guy had a big stack of cash in his front pocket and made a rude comment about the dog violating him. However the big one that was really impressive to me was the guy with the Carbon lined Camo jacket in his carry on with the money (50,000 bucks) contained inside the folded up jacket. That was inside a soft sided zip shut wheeled carry on case.
Finally they had the dog on a few practice runs with money that had been sprayed with diesel fuel and put in a plastic bag and then placed inside a suitcase that was then placed in a stack of about 30 passanger suitcases. The dog ran past all of them and on his second loop around he stopped at the case and sat down. He did not indicate which suit case it was in the stack but sat right in front of the correct one. According to the Customs guys and the airport security that's why you cannot lock your luggage any longer in checked baggage. The customs guys just pulled the 4 close to where he sat and seperated them. Then the dog ran them again sitting right in front of the correct one. If he would have been unable to identify one in particular they would have opened and searched all 4.
The really interesting thing this was how these Customs guys take dogs from the pound and train them. None were pure bred special breeds. Everyone was a mutant dog of mixed breed. The customs guys were actually quite boastful about the dogs they use claiming nothing is going to get by his dogs nose. They had lots of stories about people hiding money the dogs found.
One was very interesting. A black girl was boarding a flight for Jamaca. She had a wheeled carry on and the dog just locked on her and the guys knew they had a smuggler by the dogs reaction. She said she had only a few hundred dollars and showed them. They could not find the money and called a female officer to pat her down. Still no money. They began questioning her and it turned out she was there after leaving her job as a bank employee where she had to count money for the last several hours while wearing the same clothes she had on at the airport. The dog smelled the residue of money on her clothing, skin and hair. That's pretty impressive!
Give game the respect it's due and stay down wind. You cannot fool an animals nose with anything currently produced on this planet!
How does one hide their breath? Are we certain that all this is well enough understood that the Hype and fluff regarding these products is real or would these animals have reacted the same anyway?
I can't even count all the game I have been within feet of that had every chance to smell me but stood and stared waiting for movement. So long as I remained still and made no eye contact they eventually went about their business and slowly walked away or began eating again.
If I were wearing a Carbon suit during those events I would have believed the the suit was the reason, yet those animals were there while I stood without camo and with no special treatment to my clothing.
By the same token I have had countless animals bolt away the very instant they scented me. I have seen my dog retrieve a freshly killed pheasant and on her way back to me go on point on another live bird. Now hold on a minute, there is a dead bird of the same species right in her nose being held in her mouth. How is that not a "cover scent" she still smells another different bird and can tell the difference between it and the one in her mouth?
The Cop, or maybe I should call them the "hosts" at a dope dog exhibition I attended several years ago explained it like this. If you have a pizza delivered to your house within a few minutes anyone(human) entering the house will smell "pizza". However when a dog enters the house he smells the cheese, the sauce, the dough, the meat, the peppers, the salt, the perfume in the soap the lady who put the toppings on used when she washed her hands, the cigar the delivery guy was smoking, and the air freshener that is in his car.
The dog does not smell one thing but has the incredible ability to identify each smell for it's own value, and in only parts per billion amounts.
I once had a bear bait that was almost the size of a VW bug. It was a big pile of rotting meat I used for a population study I was doing for the Wa. dept of F&G. and the WA Forest protection Association. I used road kills and all the trappers beaver carcasses I could collect. You could smell this from 1/2 mile away with the wind just right. You could actually hear it from 20 yards away from all the maggots squirming around on it and the bugs buzzing round it.
One day I was lucky and got a 5 gallon pail full of the old fried food from the local gas and go. Burritos, tacos, jojo's, egg rolls, chicken and the rest of that deep fried heart stopping crap.
I took the bucket and a shovel into the site with me and lifted a huge rotting beaver carcass that was more grey slime then an actual remaining carcass. I dumped the fried contents into the hole and let the carcass slide or "ooze" back over it. About an hour later while I was in my elevated hide the first bear showed up. He walked in nervous and circled the pile. While he was only a foot from the massive stack of squishing ooze and maggots he stood on his hind legs and woofed. Then he dropped down and bolted away. About a minute later a big male pitched up at the site. If this was not the ultimate, although unusable cover scent then I don't know what is. It was however worthless as witnessed by the bear detecting another bear 50 yards away or more when only a foot from this pile of obnoxious goo. ( note to self: cover scent is a joke)
The Big bear walked around the pile and instantly pulled the grey slimey beaver off the pile of "goodies". He ate all of what was there, I think and then he left. Within a few minutes another bear came and also went to the exact spot. He ate and quickly departed as another bear came and he too went to the same place to eat. He pawed around and dug a big hole in the pile of slime, no deal for him. Nothing left, but he could smell the fresh deep fried food had touched the grey slime and he knew it was there someplace.
If you think for a second that cover scent works think again! I'm not confusing attracting scents with cover scent. Don't believe that putting some "cover" scent on your camo outfit, boots, or the treestand you're in will hide your human scent. Read this post again if you don't understand why.
All this can be said equally for the scent suits. It only takes a tiny few particles per billion for a deer, bear, or most any other game to detect you from the natural surroundings. I contend that if you were close to an animal with this special suit, you would also have been without it! The amount of scent coming from your mouth alone is more then enough to alert any game with a nose!
I think PT Barnum said it best, that quote still works today for most hunters with a fresh Cabelas catalog and a Visa Card!
Rather then retype this all I just cut and pasted my thoughts from previous threads on the same topic. Here are two of them from the older threads:
Today on some cable channel there was a program about smuggling money in and out of the USA. The films were made in Miami and New York airports with a couple clips in Dallas and LA.
The whole documentary was very well done and professional. I did not see the first 10 minutes or so, I was late to the show.
So what story did it tell? Well these dogs did not sniff dope, bombs, guns, or meat. The Customs guys said if you want to find a criminal all you need to do is follow the money! These dogs were trained to smell American Money! They work in the aircraft jet way sniffing the passengers as they were boarding the plane. They sniff here and there as the people walk by and follow the ones who have too much cash.
Most of the video had people open a carry on bag and they had plenty of cash in side. No big impressive feat from what I have seen before. By the way the limit of unclaimed cash you can have leaving or coming into the USA is 10,000 US dollars. That much money in 100 dollar bills is about 1/4" thick and easily fits into a legal size envelope.
Several of the people had cash in one gallon zip lock bags, inside a hardsided brief cases. Not a single one got past the dogs. Many had the money wrapped in plastic cling sandwich wrap. One guy had it inside his lead lined film bag. That one had the Customs guys howling with laughter, as if the lead lined bag was a scent deterent!
Another guy had a big stack of cash in his front pocket and made a rude comment about the dog violating him. However the big one that was really impressive to me was the guy with the Carbon lined Camo jacket in his carry on with the money (50,000 bucks) contained inside the folded up jacket. That was inside a soft sided zip shut wheeled carry on case.
Finally they had the dog on a few practice runs with money that had been sprayed with diesel fuel and put in a plastic bag and then placed inside a suitcase that was then placed in a stack of about 30 passanger suitcases. The dog ran past all of them and on his second loop around he stopped at the case and sat down. He did not indicate which suit case it was in the stack but sat right in front of the correct one. According to the Customs guys and the airport security that's why you cannot lock your luggage any longer in checked baggage. The customs guys just pulled the 4 close to where he sat and seperated them. Then the dog ran them again sitting right in front of the correct one. If he would have been unable to identify one in particular they would have opened and searched all 4.
The really interesting thing this was how these Customs guys take dogs from the pound and train them. None were pure bred special breeds. Everyone was a mutant dog of mixed breed. The customs guys were actually quite boastful about the dogs they use claiming nothing is going to get by his dogs nose. They had lots of stories about people hiding money the dogs found.
One was very interesting. A black girl was boarding a flight for Jamaca. She had a wheeled carry on and the dog just locked on her and the guys knew they had a smuggler by the dogs reaction. She said she had only a few hundred dollars and showed them. They could not find the money and called a female officer to pat her down. Still no money. They began questioning her and it turned out she was there after leaving her job as a bank employee where she had to count money for the last several hours while wearing the same clothes she had on at the airport. The dog smelled the residue of money on her clothing, skin and hair. That's pretty impressive!
Give game the respect it's due and stay down wind. You cannot fool an animals nose with anything currently produced on this planet!
How does one hide their breath? Are we certain that all this is well enough understood that the Hype and fluff regarding these products is real or would these animals have reacted the same anyway?
I can't even count all the game I have been within feet of that had every chance to smell me but stood and stared waiting for movement. So long as I remained still and made no eye contact they eventually went about their business and slowly walked away or began eating again.
If I were wearing a Carbon suit during those events I would have believed the the suit was the reason, yet those animals were there while I stood without camo and with no special treatment to my clothing.
By the same token I have had countless animals bolt away the very instant they scented me. I have seen my dog retrieve a freshly killed pheasant and on her way back to me go on point on another live bird. Now hold on a minute, there is a dead bird of the same species right in her nose being held in her mouth. How is that not a "cover scent" she still smells another different bird and can tell the difference between it and the one in her mouth?
The Cop, or maybe I should call them the "hosts" at a dope dog exhibition I attended several years ago explained it like this. If you have a pizza delivered to your house within a few minutes anyone(human) entering the house will smell "pizza". However when a dog enters the house he smells the cheese, the sauce, the dough, the meat, the peppers, the salt, the perfume in the soap the lady who put the toppings on used when she washed her hands, the cigar the delivery guy was smoking, and the air freshener that is in his car.
The dog does not smell one thing but has the incredible ability to identify each smell for it's own value, and in only parts per billion amounts.
I once had a bear bait that was almost the size of a VW bug. It was a big pile of rotting meat I used for a population study I was doing for the Wa. dept of F&G. and the WA Forest protection Association. I used road kills and all the trappers beaver carcasses I could collect. You could smell this from 1/2 mile away with the wind just right. You could actually hear it from 20 yards away from all the maggots squirming around on it and the bugs buzzing round it.
One day I was lucky and got a 5 gallon pail full of the old fried food from the local gas and go. Burritos, tacos, jojo's, egg rolls, chicken and the rest of that deep fried heart stopping crap.
I took the bucket and a shovel into the site with me and lifted a huge rotting beaver carcass that was more grey slime then an actual remaining carcass. I dumped the fried contents into the hole and let the carcass slide or "ooze" back over it. About an hour later while I was in my elevated hide the first bear showed up. He walked in nervous and circled the pile. While he was only a foot from the massive stack of squishing ooze and maggots he stood on his hind legs and woofed. Then he dropped down and bolted away. About a minute later a big male pitched up at the site. If this was not the ultimate, although unusable cover scent then I don't know what is. It was however worthless as witnessed by the bear detecting another bear 50 yards away or more when only a foot from this pile of obnoxious goo. ( note to self: cover scent is a joke)
The Big bear walked around the pile and instantly pulled the grey slimey beaver off the pile of "goodies". He ate all of what was there, I think and then he left. Within a few minutes another bear came and also went to the exact spot. He ate and quickly departed as another bear came and he too went to the same place to eat. He pawed around and dug a big hole in the pile of slime, no deal for him. Nothing left, but he could smell the fresh deep fried food had touched the grey slime and he knew it was there someplace.
If you think for a second that cover scent works think again! I'm not confusing attracting scents with cover scent. Don't believe that putting some "cover" scent on your camo outfit, boots, or the treestand you're in will hide your human scent. Read this post again if you don't understand why.
All this can be said equally for the scent suits. It only takes a tiny few particles per billion for a deer, bear, or most any other game to detect you from the natural surroundings. I contend that if you were close to an animal with this special suit, you would also have been without it! The amount of scent coming from your mouth alone is more then enough to alert any game with a nose!
I think PT Barnum said it best, that quote still works today for most hunters with a fresh Cabelas catalog and a Visa Card!
jjhack, I have to disagree. When i first started hunting i never used any kind of product to mask my scent. Thought they were all gimicks. Last few years have been washing cloths and myself in different products and my rate of not spooking deer and hogs have gone up 300%. So i believe these products do work. It is damn near impossible to stay downwind from any game. The hog i killed last night was directly downwind of me and never knew i was there. The same for the 2 deer that came in before the hog.
Well, chew on this for a while and think of what a co-incidence your success might be!
The extreme commercialization of bow hunting has, in my opinion, resulted instances where hunters have been duped. In fact, I can think of several products that are down right gimmicks and obviously seek to play upon consumer ignorance and slob hunters looking for success shortcuts.
The question has been raised: Can activated-carbon scent elimination clothing really give you an edge against the nose of this animal?
I was once asked, “What do you think is the biggest gimmick on the (outdoors equipment) market is today?” I will warn you up front that my response to the question, which follows, may be a bit painful. Furthermore, I will say that if you do find my response painful, it’s likely that you spent your hard earned wages on the product that I’m about to scrutinize.
Here goes: I believe the biggest gimmick on the outdoors equipment market today is activated-carbon scent elimination clothing that are being marketed under various brand names. You know the ones I’m talking about, so I won’t name names. I’m talking about all of them.
If you’re a bow hunter and believe in the effectiveness of these special garments, hopefully you aren't so angry that you stop reading this article. Because if you read this in its entirety, I promise that you will learn something.
There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity, and I would never dream of calling my fellow bow hunters stupid. It’s the ignorance (i.e. the lack of knowledge) factor that has led many quality and even professional bow hunters to be fooled by the claims made by the manufacturers of scent elimination clothing.
I plan to educate you, not point fingers or spit propaganda.
I have worked with various forms of activated-carbon, the same material that is used in the many brands of scent elimination clothing. Many of you have read articles by authors that claim their scent elimination clothing was pinnacle in helping them tag the biggest buck; without it, the hunt would not have been successful.
What’s new? That is a common marketing strategy used to push new equipment. Bow hunters, despite what gear they choose, are a traditional bunch. Many of us have gained knowledge on how to hunt our query and what equipment to use through word of mouth and testimonials of other perceived more knowledgeable bow hunters.
When Chuck Adam, for instance, talks or writes, I listen and pay attention. I’d be crazy if I didn’t. He is without question a knowledgeable bow hunter and we all stand to learn a lot from an experienced bow hunter like him.
The problem with these scent elimination garments is, unless you have a science background and to an even greater extent, have worked in the environmental protection / remediation profession, you simply cannot posses a clear understanding of how activated-carbon works.
Structure of coconut husk activated-carbon seen through an electronic microscope.
So, as I promised, I am going to tell you how activated-carbon works and why it is my opinion that activated-carbon scent elimination garments are ineffective. Then you can take the information presented here and make an educated decision for yourself.
activated-carbon comes in several forms and is used in many applications as a filtering or cleansing media. activated-carbon can be manufactured from carbonaceous material, including coal (bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite), peat, wood, or nutshells (i.e., coconut shells or walnut shells).
The manufacturing process consists of two phases: carbonization and activation. The carbonization process includes drying and then heating to separate by-products, including tars and other hydrocarbons, from the raw material, as well as to drive off any gases generated. Heating the material at 400–600°C (752-1472°F) in an oxygen-deficient atmosphere that cannot support combustion completes the carbonization process.
activated-carbon comes in the form of a very fine powder, which is impregnated or weaved into the textile fibers of garments. It also comes in a granular form. Both forms are used in various applications including to purify both water and air. Some of the popular drinking water filters and mechanical air filters on the market use activated-carbon as a filter media.
activated-carbon is an extremely porous material with high ratios of surface area to unit weight. One pound of activated-carbon contains up to 100 acres of surface area!
activated-carbon has a particular affinity to organic materials such as volatile organic compounds or VOC’s. Human odor is composed of different gaseous molecules of VOC’s and other chemicals such as hydrogen sulfides, which are absorbed by activated-carbon.
Think of activated-carbon as a common sponge that you would use to wash dishes with. Take a sponge and place it in a cup of water. What happens? It soaks up the water. The sponge, like activated-carbon, has thousands of little pores and channels running through it. When activated-carbon soaks up human “stink” odors, it does so through a process called adsorption.
Stinky gasses (i.e. human odors) are adsorbed into the many micro pores on and within the activated-carbon and are retained there. Now, what happens when a sponge becomes saturated?
A sponge that is saturated with water cannot adsorb any more. Hold a saturated sponge full of water in your hand and you will observe water dripping from it. When activated-carbon in a water or air filter becomes saturated it is called breakthrough.
Forms of activated-carbon
www.chemvironcarbon.com
In short, when a water’s or air filter’s filter media (i.e. activated-carbon) becomes saturated with contaminants, the filter is rendered useless and the contaminants contained in the water or air stream pass through the filter. After a while, you will be drinking dirty water or breathing stinky air until the filter is replaced. Makes sense right?
Think of activated-carbon as a molecular sponge. As is the case with any sponge, activated-carbon can only hold or adsorb so much stinky stuff. Once activated-carbon becomes saturated with contaminants, it must be reactivated or replaced entirely.
What do you do with a sponge that is saturated with water? You squeeze it to release the adsorbed water so you can reuse it. Or, you simply get a new dry sponge. Like the sponge analogy, activated-carbon must be “squeezed out” so to speak, in order to reactivate it for reuse.
Now you know how activated-carbon works. Most of the information I just provided can be found on some of the more popular scent elimination garment manufacturers’ web sites.
So far you might be thinking to yourself “Wow, activated-carbon really works”. Well, it does work, sort of.
activated-carbon is a fine filter media, but using activated-carbon as the key component in a scent elimination garment is not a practical application.
Unlike a common kitchen sponge, you can’t just leave it on the counter and let it dry out. In order to re-activate activated-carbon, it must undergo a process called Pyrolysis. To fully re-activate saturated activated-carbon, you must heat it to approximately 800 °C or 1,472 °F, in a controlled atmosphere of low oxygen concentration to reduce the possibility of combustion.
This is scientific fact and is even stated in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Engineering and Design, Adsorption Design Guide, Design Guide No. DG1110-1-2, if you’d like to check it out for yourself. This fact is not however mentioned on any of the popular scent elimination clothing manufacturers’ websites.
One of the most popular scent elimination clothing manufactures instructs consumers to simply place worn garments in a common household clothes dryer for 20 to 30 minutes to re-active the carbon in the garment. The average temperature generated by a clothes dryer does not even come close to being able to generate the extreme temperatures necessary to drive out contaminants absorbed in the many micropores and channels of activated-carbon. In fact, most residential clothes dryers only heat up to a temperature that is well under 200°F.
Those of you, whom use water filters or air filters in your homes, think about it. Why can’t you just boil your filters in hot water or throw them in the oven or microwave for a few minutes to re-activate the carbon filter media. You can’t; that’s why. You don’t own special multi million-dollar pyrolysis thermal regeneration equipment that produces enough heat to re-activate carbon. Therefore, you have to buy new filters every now and then.
Re-activating carbon for industrial uses is big business. Type in the words “activated-carbon” in your favorite Internet search engine and you will see what I’m talking about here. In order to fully reactivate the activated-carbon in one of the many scent elimination garments on the market, you might as well just throw the garment in your campfire, because the extreme heat necessary to re-activate the carbon would likely destroy the garment anyway.
Forgive my sarcasm, but I tend to get irritated when I see good folks getting duped. And as a class, I think bow hunters are a pretty good bunch. So as a product, I think all the activated-carbon scent elimination clothing products on the market are nothing more than gimmicks.
I do not believe, based on sound science, these garments are even effective the first time you use it. Think about it. Each garment would have to be manufactured and placed in a sealed, scent proof bag when shipped and remain sealed on the shelf at retail stores. This is not the case, however.
From the minute the clothing is manufactured, it begins to adsorb “stink” and continues to adsorb “stink” while awaiting an ignorant, misinformed consumer to purchase it. It is likely that the activated-carbon contained in the garment is already completely saturated with “stink” upon being purchased.
Many of the scent proof garment manufacturers somewhat acknowledge this, in an attempt to bring some legitimacy to their product. They recommend that you immediately wash and re-activate garments by placing them in a clothes dryer as soon as the product is purchased. Funny, they also happen to recommend their own brand of laundry detergent that is special made for these special garments.
As I explained above, washing and drying the garment is merely an exercise in futility. At best, the only way these garments could be manufactured and utilized effectively would be if they were designed for one time use. In other words, they would have to be disposable.
The military actually uses activated-carbon suits as a kind of chemical protection garment, but they’re a single-use, disposable garment and not intended for multiple washings.
Here is something else you should consider before purchasing one of these products: activated-carbon’s adsorption effectiveness when used in an air filter application becomes greatly reduced when it is wet. So what happens when you sweat during those humid early season bow hunts? That’s right, your clothing gets wet and becomes even less effective.
A leading manufacturer of activated-carbon garments admits that no laboratory testing has been conducted to determine the effectiveness of the clothing when it is wet from hunter’s perspiration.
So why the craze? Why are so many hunters rushing out to purchase these garments, when the science-based fact is that they don’t work?
As I mentioned earlier, consumer ignorance is one reason. I think another reason is that many hunters so badly want to believe that they can purchase something that will render them invisible to a whitetail’s or elk’s nose.
As I said earlier, many of you have read articles by authors that claim their scent elimination clothing was pinnacle in helping them tag the biggest buck; with out it, the hunt would not have been successful. I truly believe the fact that these hunters who wore these garments while achieving success, can be chalked up to being merely a coincidence. Many of the authors who wrote these type articles failed to mention they were wearing their lucky hat and that their lucky rabbits foot was in their pocket at the time.
All sarcasm aside, I think many successful hunters who wear these special garments fail to recognize that they have been consciously paying closer attention to personal hygiene techniques before every hunt.
You must understand that none of the success story articles that push these special garments are based on science studies. They are opinions; misinformed ones at that.
I’ve talked to a few technical representatives with some of the more popular scent elimination clothing manufacturers and none of them have performed controlled scientific studies to demonstrate the true effectiveness of these garments. However, they claim to have “field tested” the garments. Come on folks. How do you field-test these garments?
It is said that a deer can smell nearly 1,000 times better than humans. You cannot legitimately observe the effectiveness of these garments or read a whitetail’s mind. No one, to the best of my knowledge, has contracted a non-biased independent laboratory or university to demonstrate the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this clothing.
It is my belief that the manufacturers of these specialty garments know what the results of such a study would show; therefore it would not behoove them to undertake such an exercise. So they just claim the garments are field tested by the product-pushing pros.
As stated earlier: This is just my opinion, but it’s one based on sound science, education and a realistic view of product marketing techniques.
The extreme commercialization of bow hunting has, in my opinion, resulted instances where hunters have been duped. In fact, I can think of several products that are down right gimmicks and obviously seek to play upon consumer ignorance and slob hunters looking for success shortcuts.
The question has been raised: Can activated-carbon scent elimination clothing really give you an edge against the nose of this animal?
I was once asked, “What do you think is the biggest gimmick on the (outdoors equipment) market is today?” I will warn you up front that my response to the question, which follows, may be a bit painful. Furthermore, I will say that if you do find my response painful, it’s likely that you spent your hard earned wages on the product that I’m about to scrutinize.
Here goes: I believe the biggest gimmick on the outdoors equipment market today is activated-carbon scent elimination clothing that are being marketed under various brand names. You know the ones I’m talking about, so I won’t name names. I’m talking about all of them.
If you’re a bow hunter and believe in the effectiveness of these special garments, hopefully you aren't so angry that you stop reading this article. Because if you read this in its entirety, I promise that you will learn something.
There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity, and I would never dream of calling my fellow bow hunters stupid. It’s the ignorance (i.e. the lack of knowledge) factor that has led many quality and even professional bow hunters to be fooled by the claims made by the manufacturers of scent elimination clothing.
I plan to educate you, not point fingers or spit propaganda.
I have worked with various forms of activated-carbon, the same material that is used in the many brands of scent elimination clothing. Many of you have read articles by authors that claim their scent elimination clothing was pinnacle in helping them tag the biggest buck; without it, the hunt would not have been successful.
What’s new? That is a common marketing strategy used to push new equipment. Bow hunters, despite what gear they choose, are a traditional bunch. Many of us have gained knowledge on how to hunt our query and what equipment to use through word of mouth and testimonials of other perceived more knowledgeable bow hunters.
When Chuck Adam, for instance, talks or writes, I listen and pay attention. I’d be crazy if I didn’t. He is without question a knowledgeable bow hunter and we all stand to learn a lot from an experienced bow hunter like him.
The problem with these scent elimination garments is, unless you have a science background and to an even greater extent, have worked in the environmental protection / remediation profession, you simply cannot posses a clear understanding of how activated-carbon works.
Structure of coconut husk activated-carbon seen through an electronic microscope.
So, as I promised, I am going to tell you how activated-carbon works and why it is my opinion that activated-carbon scent elimination garments are ineffective. Then you can take the information presented here and make an educated decision for yourself.
activated-carbon comes in several forms and is used in many applications as a filtering or cleansing media. activated-carbon can be manufactured from carbonaceous material, including coal (bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite), peat, wood, or nutshells (i.e., coconut shells or walnut shells).
The manufacturing process consists of two phases: carbonization and activation. The carbonization process includes drying and then heating to separate by-products, including tars and other hydrocarbons, from the raw material, as well as to drive off any gases generated. Heating the material at 400–600°C (752-1472°F) in an oxygen-deficient atmosphere that cannot support combustion completes the carbonization process.
activated-carbon comes in the form of a very fine powder, which is impregnated or weaved into the textile fibers of garments. It also comes in a granular form. Both forms are used in various applications including to purify both water and air. Some of the popular drinking water filters and mechanical air filters on the market use activated-carbon as a filter media.
activated-carbon is an extremely porous material with high ratios of surface area to unit weight. One pound of activated-carbon contains up to 100 acres of surface area!
activated-carbon has a particular affinity to organic materials such as volatile organic compounds or VOC’s. Human odor is composed of different gaseous molecules of VOC’s and other chemicals such as hydrogen sulfides, which are absorbed by activated-carbon.
Think of activated-carbon as a common sponge that you would use to wash dishes with. Take a sponge and place it in a cup of water. What happens? It soaks up the water. The sponge, like activated-carbon, has thousands of little pores and channels running through it. When activated-carbon soaks up human “stink” odors, it does so through a process called adsorption.
Stinky gasses (i.e. human odors) are adsorbed into the many micro pores on and within the activated-carbon and are retained there. Now, what happens when a sponge becomes saturated?
A sponge that is saturated with water cannot adsorb any more. Hold a saturated sponge full of water in your hand and you will observe water dripping from it. When activated-carbon in a water or air filter becomes saturated it is called breakthrough.
Forms of activated-carbon
www.chemvironcarbon.com
In short, when a water’s or air filter’s filter media (i.e. activated-carbon) becomes saturated with contaminants, the filter is rendered useless and the contaminants contained in the water or air stream pass through the filter. After a while, you will be drinking dirty water or breathing stinky air until the filter is replaced. Makes sense right?
Think of activated-carbon as a molecular sponge. As is the case with any sponge, activated-carbon can only hold or adsorb so much stinky stuff. Once activated-carbon becomes saturated with contaminants, it must be reactivated or replaced entirely.
What do you do with a sponge that is saturated with water? You squeeze it to release the adsorbed water so you can reuse it. Or, you simply get a new dry sponge. Like the sponge analogy, activated-carbon must be “squeezed out” so to speak, in order to reactivate it for reuse.
Now you know how activated-carbon works. Most of the information I just provided can be found on some of the more popular scent elimination garment manufacturers’ web sites.
So far you might be thinking to yourself “Wow, activated-carbon really works”. Well, it does work, sort of.
activated-carbon is a fine filter media, but using activated-carbon as the key component in a scent elimination garment is not a practical application.
Unlike a common kitchen sponge, you can’t just leave it on the counter and let it dry out. In order to re-activate activated-carbon, it must undergo a process called Pyrolysis. To fully re-activate saturated activated-carbon, you must heat it to approximately 800 °C or 1,472 °F, in a controlled atmosphere of low oxygen concentration to reduce the possibility of combustion.
This is scientific fact and is even stated in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Engineering and Design, Adsorption Design Guide, Design Guide No. DG1110-1-2, if you’d like to check it out for yourself. This fact is not however mentioned on any of the popular scent elimination clothing manufacturers’ websites.
One of the most popular scent elimination clothing manufactures instructs consumers to simply place worn garments in a common household clothes dryer for 20 to 30 minutes to re-active the carbon in the garment. The average temperature generated by a clothes dryer does not even come close to being able to generate the extreme temperatures necessary to drive out contaminants absorbed in the many micropores and channels of activated-carbon. In fact, most residential clothes dryers only heat up to a temperature that is well under 200°F.
Those of you, whom use water filters or air filters in your homes, think about it. Why can’t you just boil your filters in hot water or throw them in the oven or microwave for a few minutes to re-activate the carbon filter media. You can’t; that’s why. You don’t own special multi million-dollar pyrolysis thermal regeneration equipment that produces enough heat to re-activate carbon. Therefore, you have to buy new filters every now and then.
Re-activating carbon for industrial uses is big business. Type in the words “activated-carbon” in your favorite Internet search engine and you will see what I’m talking about here. In order to fully reactivate the activated-carbon in one of the many scent elimination garments on the market, you might as well just throw the garment in your campfire, because the extreme heat necessary to re-activate the carbon would likely destroy the garment anyway.
Forgive my sarcasm, but I tend to get irritated when I see good folks getting duped. And as a class, I think bow hunters are a pretty good bunch. So as a product, I think all the activated-carbon scent elimination clothing products on the market are nothing more than gimmicks.
I do not believe, based on sound science, these garments are even effective the first time you use it. Think about it. Each garment would have to be manufactured and placed in a sealed, scent proof bag when shipped and remain sealed on the shelf at retail stores. This is not the case, however.
From the minute the clothing is manufactured, it begins to adsorb “stink” and continues to adsorb “stink” while awaiting an ignorant, misinformed consumer to purchase it. It is likely that the activated-carbon contained in the garment is already completely saturated with “stink” upon being purchased.
Many of the scent proof garment manufacturers somewhat acknowledge this, in an attempt to bring some legitimacy to their product. They recommend that you immediately wash and re-activate garments by placing them in a clothes dryer as soon as the product is purchased. Funny, they also happen to recommend their own brand of laundry detergent that is special made for these special garments.
As I explained above, washing and drying the garment is merely an exercise in futility. At best, the only way these garments could be manufactured and utilized effectively would be if they were designed for one time use. In other words, they would have to be disposable.
The military actually uses activated-carbon suits as a kind of chemical protection garment, but they’re a single-use, disposable garment and not intended for multiple washings.
Here is something else you should consider before purchasing one of these products: activated-carbon’s adsorption effectiveness when used in an air filter application becomes greatly reduced when it is wet. So what happens when you sweat during those humid early season bow hunts? That’s right, your clothing gets wet and becomes even less effective.
A leading manufacturer of activated-carbon garments admits that no laboratory testing has been conducted to determine the effectiveness of the clothing when it is wet from hunter’s perspiration.
So why the craze? Why are so many hunters rushing out to purchase these garments, when the science-based fact is that they don’t work?
As I mentioned earlier, consumer ignorance is one reason. I think another reason is that many hunters so badly want to believe that they can purchase something that will render them invisible to a whitetail’s or elk’s nose.
As I said earlier, many of you have read articles by authors that claim their scent elimination clothing was pinnacle in helping them tag the biggest buck; with out it, the hunt would not have been successful. I truly believe the fact that these hunters who wore these garments while achieving success, can be chalked up to being merely a coincidence. Many of the authors who wrote these type articles failed to mention they were wearing their lucky hat and that their lucky rabbits foot was in their pocket at the time.
All sarcasm aside, I think many successful hunters who wear these special garments fail to recognize that they have been consciously paying closer attention to personal hygiene techniques before every hunt.
You must understand that none of the success story articles that push these special garments are based on science studies. They are opinions; misinformed ones at that.
I’ve talked to a few technical representatives with some of the more popular scent elimination clothing manufacturers and none of them have performed controlled scientific studies to demonstrate the true effectiveness of these garments. However, they claim to have “field tested” the garments. Come on folks. How do you field-test these garments?
It is said that a deer can smell nearly 1,000 times better than humans. You cannot legitimately observe the effectiveness of these garments or read a whitetail’s mind. No one, to the best of my knowledge, has contracted a non-biased independent laboratory or university to demonstrate the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this clothing.
It is my belief that the manufacturers of these specialty garments know what the results of such a study would show; therefore it would not behoove them to undertake such an exercise. So they just claim the garments are field tested by the product-pushing pros.
As stated earlier: This is just my opinion, but it’s one based on sound science, education and a realistic view of product marketing techniques.
JJHack, good post! After reading some of your posts over the last few months, I am surprised you just have the BS in science. In one of the labs I worked in years ago, one of my labmates used sheets of activated carbon to "suck-up" and bind-up violatile organic compounds labelled with radioactive iodine from the air inside cell culture incubators during labelling experiments. The sheets worked great, but they were sealed in plastic until use, and they were disposed of after a single use.
So long as your alive you cannot remove your natural scent. It's comes out of your pores and the vast majority from your breath. Far more comes from your breath exhaled from your nose or mouth then from your skin. Unless you have some means of not breathing nothing else really matters. Since an animals ability to sort and catorigize smells is so well developed you cannot possibly beieve that it can be some how hidden or masked. Just a few parts per billon of human scent is easily detected. Imagine that a little packet of dope in a ziplock bag placed inside a can of coffee and then inside a suitcase will be found every time 100% by a "domestic" dog without fear for his life. Change that to a wild animal and you have zero chance if the game decides it so. Sure we have all been in waht appears to be easy detection of big game and they go by with little concern it happens. But with a special suit or special spray it makes you believe that the product did it. Nothing could be further from the truth!
I don't sell the stuff or market a competing product. I have no vested interest in the way you spend money. I just hope that some reading this will wake up and smell the coffee and put their dollars towards something more practical. Play the wind right or take a really big gamble in my opinion.
I don't sell the stuff or market a competing product. I have no vested interest in the way you spend money. I just hope that some reading this will wake up and smell the coffee and put their dollars towards something more practical. Play the wind right or take a really big gamble in my opinion.
U actually believe that scent free soap, detergent and other similar stuff are a waste of money. BS. I have seen it with my own eyes that these products do work. Thats a fact. I hunt 3 to 4 days a week and these are not rare situations. I have been made only twice this season.. Maybe i'm hunting deer and hogs that let their guard down as soon as the stand up and start to feed!
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Unless you put yourself in a hermetically sealed bubble animals are going to smell you. The one thing we feared in the military was being detected by a dog or other animals, no matter how we tried to hide our scent. From all the Sneaky Petes I met in the service never met any who could fool a dog.
Play the wind.
I recently had a ranch owner tell me about how I needed scent spray to get a hog on his place. I just stayed downwind on a stalk for over an hour until the hog turned and got close enough.
Play the wind.
I recently had a ranch owner tell me about how I needed scent spray to get a hog on his place. I just stayed downwind on a stalk for over an hour until the hog turned and got close enough.
boarrunner
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roaddog, I think you probelly owe your success to the experiance you have gained hunting 3-4 days a week, not to some over the counter product.
Roaddog, I have no vested interest in these products. If you get a good feeling about using them then you should. When you find actual scientific proof they work by all means post it.
Have you ever wondered why the companies that manufacture these things have never bothered to have any lab work done to prove they work? Woulden't you think their sales would be better by advertising something honest and proven? It really is smoke and mirrors but if your confidence is better by using these things then by all means keep the economy of hunting sports going!
I have no bone to pick with you or anyone else that believes in them. My money is still in my pocket, I'm not in the position of trying to convince myself I was not duped.
Have you ever wondered why the companies that manufacture these things have never bothered to have any lab work done to prove they work? Woulden't you think their sales would be better by advertising something honest and proven? It really is smoke and mirrors but if your confidence is better by using these things then by all means keep the economy of hunting sports going!
I have no bone to pick with you or anyone else that believes in them. My money is still in my pocket, I'm not in the position of trying to convince myself I was not duped.
larrysogla
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To interpret JJHacks well presented info as "mad at the whole industry" is a stretch of the mind as wide as the Seven Seas. JJHack made a very rational, logical case as to how a "carbon impregnated suit" can in all incredulity, improbability will enclose/contain human breath odors, foot odors, hair odors, neck/ear/eye odors, gun oil odors, hand print odors on the bow/arrow, ALL of which are outside the "carbon impregnated suit". If it is outside the "carbon impregnated suit" those odors cannot be contained but will escape into the atmosphere unrestrained/unrestricted. Many times we are convinced/converted/brainwashed by popular notions/commercial ads that are accepted as truths based on what the majority agrees/tolerates, regardless of chemical properties/physics rationale/scientific laws/biological characteristics. The "suit" can only contain human odors INSIDE the suit & only IF hermetically sealed as in a military HAZARDOUS materials/chemical warfare suit. 'Nuff said. As long as you enjoy
your hunt, more power to you. larrysogla.
