POM Industries makes a rather unique offering in the pepper spray world that you’d do well to take advantage of, if you have need of this sort of thing (which I’d argue, you probably do).
Many reviewers attest to the spray’s effectiveness – it’s a 10% OC spray with added UV dye, not a CS+OC mix like Freeze+P is, for those of you who know/care about those sorts of things.
Sidebar on OC vs CS
OC is oleoresin capsicum – it’s an all-natural (save the whales or whatever) derivation of capsaicin, AKA the stuff that makes spicy peppers spicy. I can personally vouch for its effectiveness, having been on the receiving end (for a training, not doing anything nefarious, mind) myself. It’s not 100% effective on 100% of people, but when it works, which is most of the time, it’s quite effective.
CS is 2-orthochlorobenzalmalonitrile (whew) a “tear gas” (actually a powder sort of consistency at room temp), and are occasionally added to sprays (such as Freeze+P linked above) to increase effectiveness and provide some additional incapacitating effects. However, it is much less effective on animals than OC is – that’s why bear mace is always OC and/or related capsaicinoids. Also not 100% effective, just like OC, but again, most of the time. Often used as a riot control agent.
Both agents start working in several seconds to a minute, and (mostly) wear off in an hour or so.
End Sidebar
The POM products appear to deliver their spray in a stream (I hope to get my hands on another couple of them to do some testing soon, I’ll get a video made if I do), which, like most things, has advantages and disadvantages.
When I carried pepper spray professionally, I preferred foam or gel – in my experience, the foams and gels not only went where I put them more reliably, they also seemed to have a more rapid incapacitating effect as compared to a stream; you could do things like spray just above the eyes and allow the foam or gel to drip down.
For me, I’d probably take the stream as my second choice, as it allows for a further stand-off distance with any potential assailant (and pepper spray deployment has relatively minimal consequence as compared with some other self-defense tool deployment). That, coupled with some of the features of POM’s offering, make it a very convincing choice.
Another brief sidebar: for somebody who has limited situational awareness, I’ve been a big fan of SABRE’s Spitfire spray, which is a cone pattern – this allows for an effective respiratory hit, and makes for minimal potential for splashback on to the user, especially when used up close. That said, I’m afraid it might be discontinued – I can’t find it on the SABRE website any longer, so POM’s product is my go-to recommendation now, for reasons I’ll now outline.
First, the price point is good, at about 15 bucks a canister. Second, and perhaps most importantly, the form factor and user interface/safety are amazing and intuitive, and the safety is designed well enough that you don’t have to worry it might go off by accident every time you put it in your pocket – it requires a deliberate flip up of a spring-loaded cap, and then a press of the button:
Second, it doesn’t really look like pepper spray unless you know what you’re looking at, which lends it to easy concealment and comfortable carry, and for those so inclined, it comes in a bunch of colors for accessorizing!
Sweatshirt pocket 
Pants pocket
See? Super concealable and not terribly pepper-spray-appearing.
For those of you who are still not convinced pepper spray is a good idea, I invite you to consider a scenario wherein you are, perhaps, being accosted by someone verbally, having threats made and commands to leave/go away/back up ignored, but (if you carry a firearm) the threshold for lethal force has not been met.
Wouldn’t you rather have an intermediate option?
Another thing to consider is groups – it’s much easier (and less liability-inducing) to address a canister of pepper spray “to whom it may concern” and make a hasty exit, than it is to fire shots randomly into a hostile group.
Finally, and although this might sound silly, folks know you’ll actually use pepper spray – I used to work a job where I encountered a rather rowdy group of people fighting amongst themselves one night, and was unable to break it up by myself, so I had to beat feet in the opposite direction.
After the first event, I made a wise purchase of a rather large can of pepper spray. Shortly thereafter, I was in a very similar situation, but it took about 15 seconds for the group to realize they had appointments elsewhere once that spray left my belt – I didn’t even need to deploy it.
In fact, if you watch videos of law enforcement uses of force, you’ll see suspects refusing commands at gunpoint, but the second the TASER or pepper spray comes out, they rapidly change their tune.
Like anything, spray has its limitations, but like my views on med gear, I view spray as a legitimate and effective layer of an overall self-defense strategy.
One last note – Annette Evans, who for those unaware is a well-regarded self-defense writer, competitive shooter and instructor, has a new project specifically aimed at women’s self-defense called On Her Own, and you can get a couple POM sprays with a free inert trainer (which is very important especially if you’re unfamiliar with spray as a tool – practice with self-defense tools is just as important as with medical gear) while supporting On Her Own!
Just follow that link (or this one you lazy bum) and get yourself some spray and support a good cause – you won’t regret it.
-T
P.S. Extra special thanks to Morgan from No One Coming for turning me on to POM spray in the first place, and for being kind enough to suggest that I link On Her Own instead of his site.