Visor spray review: Muc-Off Premium anti-fog spray tried and tested

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Muc-Off Anti-Fog Spray is an inexpensive way to avoid misting up when wearing goggles or a helmet visor with no Pinlock option.

Most riders will know by now that the best way to keep the inside of your visor free of misting or condensation is by fitting a Pinlock insert. These are available for pretty much every helmet and are made in conjunction with the helmet manufacturers, who add the pins to their visors, for the Pinlock lens or insert to fit to.

Pinlocks work by both actively absorbing moisture themselves as well as creating a sealed pocket of air between the inner and outer visor surfaces to insulate the inside, much like double-glazing in a house.

However, thus far, there are no anti-fog inserts available for drop-down sun visors, sunglasses or spectacles that riders may need to wear. But these can fog up just as easily – or more so – than the inside of the visor. So how can this be rectified? With something like this anti-fog spray from Muc-Off.

Fogging or misting of the inside of the drop-down sun visor or glasses occurs when there is a relatively high-humify and low-temperature atmosphere; your breathe creates the humidity and the ambient temperature and the cold air flowing over or through the helmet, the chill.

Your warm, moist breath condenses on the cold surfaces of the sun visor or glasses and the result is a covering of tiny droplets of water which appear as fogging. That’s why it tends not to be such an issue in summer – generally, the glasses or sun visor are warmer.

A spray like the Muc-Off anti-fog consists of a surfactant, which effectively reduces the surface tension of the tiny water droplets and prevents them forming as a series of individual drops – the mist – and instead, they form a single thin layer or water which becomes effectively transparent.

Application is easy; spray it on and wipe off – with a tissue, not a microfibre cloth. Then, simply go about your business.

In use, it’s pretty good. Muc-Off claims one application can last up to a few days and when I tried it on a drop-down sun visor, which can be notoriously difficult to keep fog-free, particularly in winter when they can be really useful in low-sun conditions, it was definitely better than without, with no actual fog forming.

Similarly, I tried it on a pair of glasses, even though I don’t need to wear mine when I’m riding (only reading or at the computer) and again, no fog was formed. However, in both cases, I could clearly see how it prevented the fog from being present.

As mentioned earlier, the treatment caused the water to spread across the entire surface – of the sun visor as well as the glasses – as a film of water.

Related: Best water repellent sprays for your motorcycle helmet visor

While this was much easier to see through than a layer of fog (which was impossible when I tried the same ride without the spray applied) it was still a little weird – vision was a bit blurred through the film of water but at least it was possible to see whereas, without the spray applied, the visor and glasses fogged up immediately and needed me to crack the main visor open to clear them.

The verdict

While I wouldn’t want to use this spray to replace say a proper Pinlock insert designed to go with whatever helmet I’m wearing, I do keep a bottle handy and regularly treat sun visors to keep fogging at bay.

As I said, I don’t need to do my glasses as I don’t wear them when riding but the now-omnipresent facemask when out of the house occasionally means they steam up in shops, so a treatment from time to time helps prevent this too.

At much less than its £10 RRP online, it’s well worth having a bottle at home.

Pros:

Helps keep sun-visor and glasses misting at bay

Great value, even at £10 RRP

Small enough to keep in a pocket or under the seat

Cons:

Vision can be a little blurred depending on the amount of moisture you produce

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