Product Review: Sawyer Products 20% Picaridin Insect Repellent

I bought this for the same reason I buy many things for which I want only "the best": It was recommended by The Wirecutter.  You may have heard that DEET is the active ingredient you want to look for when buying bug spray, but this site says that another chemical, picaridin, is better; it's just as effective at warding off biting insects but isn't as messy or smelly.  Or at least I've been told; I haven't used any DEET in a long time, but if I recall correctly, using DEET wasn't a huge hindrance.

That being said, the Sawyer is, I think, really effective.  I cannot remember any time I've been bitten while having this product on me.  My big drawback is the bottle it comes in.  It is extremely leaky.  When I got the package through Amazon, it already had repellent leaking out of the top of the cap.  And it was completely screwed on.  Also, you get two caps for each of the two bottles they send you, one that fits over the other.  That would ensure that it doesn't leak through the top and all over the place, but if the bottle were better, you wouldn't need two caps, would you?

And beyond that, it doesn't matter how much you try and stop the leaking through the top, because the bottle(s) have been leaking through the bottom ever since I took them out of the packaging.  Just the other day I moved the bottle of Sawyer I'm using and it left a mark of repellent on the counter.  I pressed down on the bottle like it was a stamp and it left this soft but noticeable ring of bug spray every time.  I don't know if it's a bad bottle or if the picaridin or the bug spray formula is so corrosive it can leak through plastic, but that is far from ideal.  And I haven't even used the second bottle yet.

It's good, and yet, use at your own risk.