Nothing ruins a beautiful summer evening more than, you guessed it, mosquitoes. Well any kind of bugs really. We spent the 4th of July with friends of our who live on some acreage and it was quite funny to see their daughter walking around with a can of OFF spraying all the lawn chairs! Truth be told, I don't like insect repellent on my potato chips, so I kindly waved her aside when she neared me with her can, but I also don't like bugs crawling around my food. What a dilemma. So that's when I dug out my OFF Clip-On that I received courtesy of BzzAgent and SC Johnson. An alternative to those who don't want to spray themselves with insect repellent.

The base unit comes as a fan encased in plastic, a repellent pad and two AA batteries. The most difficult part of putting it together was taking it out of it's outer packaging, lol! Really it's easy; the plastic casement opens up, you place the repellent pad in its appropriate spot and close it. To activate the unit there is an on/off switch. It's that simple.

I love the on/off switch. When I was in the house I could switch it off and not waste any of the product. And it has a visible indicator that allows you to know when you are running out of repellent and need to replace the pad. The repellent pad is supposed to last about 12 hours or be replaced after 2 weeks of being in the unit if you've used it less than 12 hours. I can't say how long it lasts personally as we've only had it in the unit for 3 days and we didn't use it for 12 hours.

The fan easily clips on to anything you might want it to. Clothing, chairs, backpacks etc. I put it on the back of my chair so I wouldn't have it blowing right on my food, but so it would still keep the bugs away. Since it isn't applied directly to the skin, it's a nice alternative for children to clip to their clothes when they're playing outdoors.

It doesn't smell like most bug sprays either. I really liked that.

The fan is pretty quiet, and after you have it on for awhile you hardly notice it. The fan takes air in and distributes the repellent that is on the pad out, in effect "shielding" you in repellent without actually putting it on your skin. If you can picture that effect, you see that it is more effective if you are in one place, than if you are moving around. Although it still works even if you are moving around, just not as well.

I don't know if this is something I would use all of the time for bug protection. Likely when my daughter goes to camp next week I will send a traditional repellent with her, as she is sure to be moving around a lot and probably needs more protection than what the OFF Clip-On Fan can offer. But for lazy summer evenings, sitting out and enjoying the sunset, this works dandy and will make those times memorable for reasons other than the bugs!

You can visit OffProtects.com and get a coupon for a free refill pack when you buy a starter unit, that's a $5.00 value! You can also view a video there for a better idea on how it works.