Help with insect repellent !!
 

Hi! I'm from Europe, and have noticed that each time I go the the South (GA, NC, FL etc),I literally get eaten up by mosquitoes. The bites are so numerous (average of 20 to 30 on each leg), swell so much and the itch is so great that it gets impossible to sleep or think of anything else. I'll be in Florida and the Everglades early to mid-August this summer, and am already dreading the bites. The repellents we have in Europe don't seem to be very efficient. What US products would you recommend? Do allergies to mosquito bites exist? Thank you!!

Deep Woods Off in the green can works the best when you are in wooded or marshy areas. It is pretty much available in any retail store.

The most common repellent ingredient is DEET. The strongest versions are brands like Deep Woods Off!, which contain 25% DEET. OFF! also sells other concentrations 10-15%, sprays lotions, towlettes. I find the towlettes handy myself.

There are other brands as well (i.e. Cutter). These can be found in just about any US supermarket, drugstore, WalMart, camping supply etc. Some have a broader selection (WalMart & Target seem to carry everything).

Many people are concerned about applying high concentrations of DEET, or even any DEET, due to possible absorption into the body. You will also see some people recommending never to use DEET on small children.

I can't comment on the medical /scientific foundation of those concerns so you'll need to make your own choice.

DEET based products are very widely available and very widely used in the US - not sure about Europe.

We had to send our son Deep Woods Off for his trip to Thailand and India this year..he said Japan hasn't got strong enough repellants.
That said, Off is strong but I worry every time I spray it on, what am I doing to me??
It also comes in little wipes to carry with you~ Enjoy your visit!

I've never tried it, but a lot of people swear by Avon's Skin So Soft. It's sold in a lot of beach areas in New Jersey and Delaware as a sure-fire insect repellent.

Skin So Soft is highly overrated. Just look for a product with the highest DEET content you can find. Eating brewers yeast or lots of garlic is also supposed to help. Yes, people can be allergic to mosquito bites.

YES, YES, YES, people can be allergic to mosquito bites. I nearly had to bring my son's girlfriend to the ER after her face and eye swelled up after being bitten.

Julie, sounds like you're allergic to mosquito bites! One's reaction also depends on the specific germs each mosquito carries.

That said, I agree with zootsi: get the highest possible concentration of DEET you can find. (You may want to wait until you get here, then go to a drugstore, big chain store like Target, or a camping store.) The kind I use is a liquid 100% DEET that comes in a tiny bottle; I prefer the kind you rub on to the sprays, which I find messy. But be warned: DEET will damage plastic and glass surfaces and some fabrics. (I keep mine in a ziploc bag.) And it doesn't smell great. But it works, and to me, that's worth all the drawbacks; I have tried all-natural formulas, Skin So Soft, etc. and none of them do the job. Good luck!

When you get a bite, take a wash cloth, get it wet and wring out the water. Then put it in the microwave for 30 seconds or more. It will be very hot so be careful when you handle it. Put this on the bites, as warm as you can tolerate, and it will draw out the histamines that make you itch. Try to do this before you scratch the bites and make scabs. I've found this to be very helpful and very easy to do.

Some advice from a fellow bug attracter.

Something I've found effective (but not as good as Deet products) when camping is to put a few teaspoons of household bleach into the sink with a few cups of water, and to wash up with it, after I've taken a "regular" shower.

I can't stand the feel and smell of the more effective repellents when I go to bed ... but during the day I use them. Not everybody can tolerate the bleach either however.

I spend a significant amount of time in mosquito and biting bug areas in warm weather.

The ONLY product that I use and recommend is Repel. It is the best and can be found at sporting goods stores and some drug stores.

Here's a natural prevention strategy that falls into the "Can't hurt, might help" category: Take extra B vitamins, even just a one-a-day type multivitamin will do. Excess B vitamins that your body doesn't need are excreted -- mostly in urine but also in sweat, and the bugs are apparently repelled by it. This effect peaks about 4 hours after you take the vitamins so time it according to your plans. I get an average of one mosquito bite per year.

Other natural strategies include avoiding scented toiletry products, and wearing light-colored clothing.

3M's Ultrathon developed for the US military is great, was a CR fav a couple of years ago, and is long lasting, but DEET gets old after a week or 10 days.
M

have always used pure deet but it does dissolve nail polish so i try to use it as little as possible!

Mosquitos love me so I always have to wear insect repellent wherever there may be bugs. I have used three mentioned here...Skin So Soft, Deep Woods Off, and 100% Deet.

Skin So Soft, though it smells nice does nothing for me.

Deep Woods Off typically works at all mosquito-infested places I've been in the US (I used to do land surveys in marshes). But it didn't work all that well in Mexico or Thailand! Maybe the bugs are different there? I don't think it smells bad...MUCH better than the Off we used when I was a kid!

100% Deet worked for me in Thailand. But it is scary that they say that kids shouldn't use it, and it does dissolve your nail polish and can wreck some fabrics (there's a long warning label on the bottle). And it smells bad. I only use it if I absolutely have to.

Try catnip oil.

I know, it sounds crazy. I attract mosquitoes from miles around. We can sit outside and no one will get bit except me. I'll have a cloud of mosquitoes around me while everyone else is like, Hey, thanks for serving as our own personal citronella candle!

I hate DEET but I found that it was the only thing that worked. When I tried Skin So Soft, the mosquitoes thanked me for the complementary spa lotion with their meal. :-)

But my husband found some studies showing that catnip oil is just as effective as DEET in repelling mosquitoes. I didn't want to try it, but I did - and it worked! I watched the mosquitoes approach me, and then leave. They would not land on me.

If I were going to the Everglades in August (the worst possible time for mosquitoes), I would bring both catnip oil and DEET. Catnip oil is far less scary in terms of potential harm than DEET is. If the mosquitoes in the Everglades found catnip oil funny, then I'd bring out the DEET.

PS Yes, I'm the person that covered every exposed inch of herself in DEET - except I forgot my ankle area - I thought my socks would be protection enough. Big mistake. I walked around with a literal ring of mosquito bites around my ankles for weeks.

birder,
I picture a person walking through the woods, clouds of mosquitos hovering but not landing or biting, but the person is covered with little cats ((@))

Catnip oil sounds interesting. If there is a mosquito within 100 miles of me, it will find me. Skin so soft does nothing for me. I keep a can of Deep Woods Off! hand when I have to go out side in the summer time. I also have a small pump bottle of ?? (hunting? fishing?) Deep Woods Off that's 95% deet. That worked well in the Everglades in June.

Long pants and long sock help. After buying all sorts of after-sting products, I find ice the most effective at numbing the pain.

On the subject of after sting/bite...

I love a product called sting eeze. It comes in a small yellow plastic bottle with a green cap. I keep one in every car and my travel kit. The stuff is just amazing on all sorts of bites and stings.

So, Julie, from the advice so far, I'd say you should --

Bathe in DEET
Eat lots of garlic, vitamin B and brewer's yeast (a real feast!)
Keep warmed washcloths on the microwave
Swath yourself with bleach
And top the whole thing of with a glop of Skin So Soft before donning light-colored clothing

After that, you should be good to go.

First, use DEET products to keep from being bitten.

Second, treat the bite as soon as you realize you have been bitten. I am a mosquito magnet also and I can feel the bite before I can see it. I use the Cortizone-10 ointment the minute I feel a bite and it usually keeps the sting/itch and swelling away. Usually the bite will go away overnight. If I don't get it right away, it takes the bite longer to go away. This also works well on my young kids.

Couple of choices for treatment:
Cortizone-10 primary active ingredient is hydrocortisone cream 1% (I prefer the ointment to the cream)

Sting Eze comes in a small, dropper-type bottle and relies on camphor as its primary active ingredient (camphor does not work for me)

After Bite—in a pen-type applicator and contains ammonia as the primary active ingredient (this does work for me)

More info on mosquitos can be found here http://www.vh.org/pediatric/patient/...quitobite.html

Have a great trip! And good luck with the bugs. I have seen tourists just eaten up and I always feel so sorry for them because I know how miserable it is.

As basically everyone has said- DEET. Deep Woods OFF in the green sray can has worked well for me in the Everglades during the summers.

One tip: start looking around for inexpensive, light colored, lightweight fabric, loosefitting long sleeve shirts and long pants. Spray the OFF onto the clothes. Much better than wearing shorts and t-shirts and having to spray DEET onto your skin every day. Another option that might not be fashionable but works great is a mesh head cover (they might be available at sporting goods stores in the SE U.S.). You might look kind of silly, but you won't have bugs flying into your eyes or up your nose.

one other thing - several have mentioned that DEET will damage plastic and fabrics. More specifically, the plastic on cameras can be damaged if it comes in contact with DEET. So be careful spraying around cameras, sports watches etc.

Eat a lot of garlic.

Use a smelly fabric softener like BOUNCE on all your clothes.

Spray the DEET on your hat/cap.

Bathe in Avon SKIN SO SOFT for a week before your travels, do not use sweet soaps or fruity shampoos.

Forget all the stupid old wives tales and use deet.

Deet is the only thing scientifically proven to repel insects.

The higher the content, the longer it works.

Deet is the ingredient found in the most effective insect repellents such as OFF or Deep Woods.

Just a follow up - catnip oil is scientifically proven to work 10 times better than DEET.

Don't believe me, read the article:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0828075659.htm

Deet is the only thing scientifically proven in studies funded by the OFF company.

GARLIC! BOUNCE! NO FRUITY SHAMPOOS! Trust me !

Birder

where do you buy catnip oil? I've tried everything else and only Deep Woods works for me, I would like to try something 'friendlier'.

Does it smell like my catnip plant - I have 4 cats are they going to be more affectionate?

Catnip oil! Who'd have thunk it? You can find companies that sell it on the internet, though who knows if their product is as claimed? And who knows if it is really safe? Someone living in Mosquito-land (the south) should try it and report back!

I found this article about it:

http://www.cherylsherbs.com/Catnip_and_Mosquitoes.htm

It says that there are reports that catnip oil is attractive to cats, so Scarlett's picture of a person surrounded by cats is not farfetched. Good thing there aren't tigers in the south!

I'd guess that Julie is not allergic to mosquitos. I have always found the mosquitos in the south to leave monstrous, itchy bits, whereas Pacific Northwest mosquitos cause bites that hardly itch and that go away in no time. I think there are a lot of varieties of mosquitos.

One easy solution, Julie, is to come to the Pacific Northwest next time. We lead relatively bug free lives without the use of any insect repellents.

I second the B vitamin idea. My daughter is very allergic to bites & we tried it last year on the advice of her doctor. It was amazing. Start taking the pills one week before you go.

For anyone wanting facts about the efficacy of DEET as opposed to alternatives, check out

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/347/1/13

The _New England Journal of Medicine_, probably the most respected medical journal on the planet, states:

"Currently available non-DEET repellents do not provide protection for durations similar to those of DEET-based repellents and cannot be relied on"

In fifty years of use by tens of millions of people in the U.S, there have been about fifty cases of toxic reactions to use of DEET, with no reported fatalities. In less than five years, more people than that have DIED in the U.S. just from West Nile virus. So decide for yourself which is a bigger threat: DEET or mosquitoes carrying West Nile.

Being a regular hiker and mostly outdoors person, I use a bug repellent whose name I can't remember immediately, but it is a product that one sprays on one's clothes.

I buy it from my local REI sporting goods store when it has it. A lot of times, especially into the summer, REI runs out. That's because the US Government has ordered so much of the stuff to send to US Troops in places like Iraq.

The spray does not smell and will stay on the clothes through several washings. It's better than having to lather yourself in DEET juice.

BTW, REI also carries an excellent DEET product called Jungle Juice. Comes in a very small container.

If the mosquitoes swarm, REI also has a mosquito netting that you can wear around your head and hat, something like the net that beekeepers use. I've had to use one in the jungles of SE Asia and it's quite good.

After being bitten, I've also used both Sting Eze and AfterBite and find both very effective. AfterBite works better for me.

A local "home remedy" is banana skin. I'm told that, if one is bitten, one can rub banana skin on the bite and it'll ease the swelling and itching. Haven't tried it yet - maybe someone can further enlighten us on whether this method works or not? :)

Lastly, in Asia, there are inexpensive mosquito repellent coils which are burned like incense. I've been trying to get some for backyard barbeque time - which is coming up soon!

Julie,
I notice that your legs seem to be the target of the bites. Sure they aren't fleas? If you happen to see the "mosquitos" in your bed then they may be the culprit's. If in fact they are Mosquito's the Deet suggestions are valid.
Easy (REI Seattle?)...try Fred Meyer. My daughter gets the coils in the ceramic container there I think.

Seems to me that the people who swear by, oh, catnip oil or Skin So Soft or vitamin pills are the same people who hardle ever get bit by anything anyway--like my BIL, who swears up and down he's never had a mosquito bite in 30+ years of living.

Another funny thing I've never understood: bugs seem to like "fresh meat," but why? What I mean is, natives of the buggy places I've been get bit, but not as much as the visitors. From the bugs' point of view, that just doesn't make sense.

Skintastic, made by Off. I'm from misquito invested Minnesota and it works great. no bites.

E - you must not have read my post about catnip oil. If there's a group of 10 people, I'll be the first one bit, the last one bit, and most likely the only one bit. See my post above.

I am not a salesperson for catnip oil. I was surprised it worked. Nothing else but DEET has ever worked for me.

But I must say that when we go to the Everglades this coming May, I will be bringing both the catnip oil and the DEET. If the mosquitoes overcome the catnip oil, then I will bring out the DEET. But in terms of being outside in my Tampa yard, I do get bit terribly when I don't use anything, and I don't get bit at all when I use the catnip oil.

Someone asked where I got it from - my husband bought it - he is going to look up where he got it (someplace on line).

I hate spraying on repellent, but I think that the DEET products are best. I have found a nice compromise: there are little bracelets you can buy (I think by the OFF company) that have the repellent on them. You can wear the bracelet on your ankle and it keeps bugs away from your whole body! The bracelets look similar to those stretchy, spiraled, slinky-like keyring holders that many people use for their work keys. (Not a great description, but maybe you can make sense of it when you see them in stores.)

I noticed in my latest Land's End or LL Bean catalog (can't remember which) they had clothing with bug repellent in that supposedly lasts for 25 washes.

So far the mosquitos aren't bad at home but the gnats really are out. I'm using SSS on my limbs and spray Off on a hat when I'm out working. Working so far - but I do want to try the catnip oil!

I can sense all the cats of the world wrinkling their noses in a little sniff; smoothing down their whiskers; and beating a path for the Deep South! State legislatures will take under consideration bills to change the State's tag line to the "State of Kitty Love." People will be able to purchase vanity plates for their cars with blissed out cats on them. And what about all those poor starving mosquitos? They'll be swarming north!

By the way, I agree, it's creepy to slather on the DEET, but who knows how safe catnip is? Meow!

Those bracelets are not bad! Very lemony smelling :)
Yes, Orcas, I keep picturing the cats! ((@))