Nowadays anyone with a purse/satchel carries a pepper spray, especially women. Sometimes when you use the spray, it can blow back in your face or if you’re not paying attention, you might spray yourself in the face.
Some police officers believe that they have a badge to do whatever the hell they want. They abuse their power and as consequence harm the innocent. Recently a couple of police officers pepper sprayed a group of women protesting on Wall Street for no apparent reason. The following will help you to be prepared when you’re unnecessarily pepper sprayed.

Pepper spray is an oil based substance which is derived from oleo-resin capsicum. If you’ve been sprayed in the face, it’s very important to NEVER RUB the contaminated area. I know it’s difficult, but try to STAY CALM.
Pepper spray’s function is basically to ignite your capillaries and cause a horrendous burning feeling. Whenever you touch the contaminated area, you are aiding the pepper spray in performing its job which is to open more of your capillaries.

So what to do instead?

Apply milk to your face (preferably whole milk)
Milk will only alleviate the burning sensation for most people. Just spray milk to the face or just use a towel soaked in milk and apply to the face. The milk will not remove the oils of the pepper spray however.

Soap and water (dishwashing fat removal soap)
To remove the pepper spray oils from your skin, use dish-washing soap preferably as they contain the fat removal agent. The proportions should be as follow: the solution should contain ¼ of soap and ¾ of cold water. Use lots of water because you will have to wash your face at least 5 times for it to work. You can also put the solution in a bowl and dunk your face into it.

Flush your Eyes with salt water
Sometimes the burning sensation will stick and especially in the eye area. To remove the oils from the eyes, just mix some salt in water and flush your eyes with it.

It’s important to know what to do in these cases because pepper spray tends to hang on your face as long as it can and one must react as quickly as possible to remove it. Should it be the case that you won’t be in some place familiar if this happens to you, you should know what to do.

If you’re an activist or a protester that is familiar with these situations, there are products out there that you can buy that’ll remove pepper spray oils from your face immediately. Just google pepper spray antidote.

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