At the barn I sprayed a liquid onto a cotton cloth – only to have the substance pool on the fabric rather than soak in – and was reminded of osmosis. It’s the reason that, say, a slightly damp towel picks up a countertop spill more efficiently than a dry towel.
And that has me thinking: If we lightly spray with water first, wouldn’t that encourage fly spray to be sucked into the coat rather than lie on the surface and evaporate?
I think it would depend on if the spray is oil or water based.
In general, we want fly spray to sit on top of the coat. It can be irritating to the skin. Spraying a wet horse will often cause scurfing.
Off on a tangent here, but many years ago I came upon a document that summarized a marketing study about the amount of overspray users would tolerate with fly sprays. Maximizing overspray increases consumption and thereby increases sales and profit.
Water-based sprays will evaporate more quickly no matter where they are.
Oil-based sprays stick around a lot longer, even sitting on the surface of the hair
But you want them on the surface, because that’s where the flies would be.
AND, you don’t want those chemicals really sitting on the skin, not often. So even if you’re spraying on a cloth to put on a face, for example, you just want to lightly wipe on, you don’t want to rub in
Had the cotton cloth ever been washed with liquid fabric softener? That crap can make the most absorbent material repel water like a windshield that’s been freshly coated in rain repellant.
Wow! Great insight and guidance, as usual.
As for the fabric softener question, not sure, but it was a new cloth and often they’re treated with softeners, so the answer is probably. I never use the stuff myself.
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