Best insect repellant?

[notfred]

My leg itches. In an effort to avoid a repeat of this event I'm asking for you opinions as to the best insect repellant that is applied directly to skin (not a candle or anything).

 

[quakefiend420]

gasoline

 

[suicidalpigeon]

pants

 

[jds2006]

don't wear deodorant

 

[h8red]

DEET based products will be the old stand by. Just look for the active ingredient on front of the bottle and it should tell you the percentage of DEET. All the DEET products, regardless of percentage, are equally effective. The only difference is that a lesser DEET amount will get you less protection time. For instance a product containing DEET 4.5% will protect you for ~1.5 hours whereas a product containing 25% DEET will protect you for ~ 5 hours or so. There is no need to use the really high contentrations of DEET on your skin.

This year there are a couple of newer products available. One is called Cutter Advanced which contains a non-DEET alternative called picaridin (I think) and is supposed to be just as good, not smell as bad, and is lighter on the skin. Another is Repel Lemon Eucalyptus which is an "all natural" product. Roughtly 30% Repel lemon eucalyptus is equivalent to 10% DEET.

So to answer your question: any product containing DEET will work. Just aim for lowest amount you can get by with for the amount of time you will be outside

Hope that helps

 

[quakefiend420]

only 3 replies until someone posts something useful...isn't that a record around here?