This article is about the original tear gas chemical spray and its derivatives. For capsicum spray in general, see
pepper spray
. For tear gas in general, see
tear gas
. For other uses of the word mace, see
Mace
.
A
generic trademark
, its popularity led to the name "mace" being commonly used for other defense sprays regardless of their composition,
[2]
[3]
and for the term "maced" to be used to reference being
pepper sprayed
.
[4]
It is unrelated to the spice
mace
.
[5]
Historically, "chemical mace" was the development of irritant with the active ingredient called phenacyl chloride (CN) to incapacitate others whereas the term "Mace" is a trademarked term for use on personal defense sprays.
[12]
Though the design has been expanded on, the original chemical mace formula using only CN has since been discontinued. Due to the potentially toxic nature of CN and the generally superior incapacitating qualities of
oleoresin capsicum
(OC) pepper spray in most situations, the early CN has been mostly supplanted by OC formulas in police use, although Mace Security International still retains a popular "Triple Action" formula combining CN, OC and an
ultraviolet
marker dye.
[1]