I'm still a devotee of Fels Naptha or Octagon, or some other strong lye soap.  The strong akaline in the soap conteracts the acid in the toxic oil.  You have to wash all exposed parts (hands, arms, face, etc.) in a good lather of the soap once an hour or so (and, a shorter "or so" works much better than a longer) while working in a PI area, especially while screening, given the chopped up roots that end up in the screen.  Caveats:  (1.) This doesn't work without usable amounts of water--you need to speard the lather thickly, then wash it all off, each time you employ the treatment.  (2.) I've never tried this with poison oak, having only worked in the east and Midwest, where ivy is dominant.  I have heard (and will stand corrected if necesary) that the acid in the oak oils is stronger, so the soap may not work as well in areas where oak is abundant.  (3.) The akaline in the soap does give you a skin reaction, though this dermatits is nowhere near as severe as what you can get from pure PI oils.  I'm not sure but that akaline soap could cause a severe allergic reaction in someone with a greater sensitivity to it, and finding this out while out in the field could be decidedly unpleasant, even dangerous.  (4.) Speaking from personal experience, DO NOT get the lather in your eyes!  Also, getting any in your mouth is not to be recommended, though this might qualify as experimental archaeology (ethnography?), since it will give you an appreciation for the effectiveness of methods for child discipline, employed before c. 1960.
 
For all that, TechNu works, too, and Fels Naptha and Octagon are increasingly hard to find, perhaps with reason....
 
D. Babson

________________________________

From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY on behalf of Kris Oswald
Sent: Mon 12/1/2003 8:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: poison oak/ivy



Best product   I have luck with is called "Ivy Block" about 8-9 bucks
for a small bottle at wallyworld...cover all exposed areas and about 6
inches past your covered wrist's......after 3 years of being in the
woods every weekend....only had one very minor case and I think that was
from handling contaminated clothes after the fact...before using that..i
lived on benadryl and cortizone cream and an occasional trip to the doc
for steroid pack's