Avon doesn’t market its Skin So Soft bath oil as an insect repellent, and it’s not clear where the legend that it works as one started. Yet many people swear by it, including avid outdoorspeople like my late dad. It’s not clear where the legend started, but as far as our myth-repellent colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports can tell, Skin So Soft doesn’t actually repel insects.

Now, Avon does take advantage of the product’s legend and now markets a Skin So Soft brand combination insect repellent/sunscreen, but combo products are problematic because you need to reapply sunscreen more often than insect repellent, which means building up more of the latter on your skin than you probably need.

As part of their tests of insect repellents, Consumer Reports tested the original Skin So Soft bath oil, the product that so many people swear by to repel mosquitoes. They found that it…did not repel mosquitoes.

The deal with Skin So Soft [Consumer Reports]

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