Glock-A-Roo, I did try permethrin and also 40% Deet and was still getting lit up. It was only 100% that is working for us. The company purged all the 40% deet issued to us and replaced it with 100% due to everybody getting tore up. I even tried the spray foggers they have at walmart and those were useless as well. I haven't tried the thermacell but I had gotten the cloths due to the cost and hours of protection of the thermacell.

The good advantage of this suit is I can carry a tarp and sleep in piece than dragging a long a tent but Sue is right, it is a hot suit. I carry a tent for the mosquito protection, but the cloths give me a back up if I don't want to carry a tent.

I hear you Comms, I have a lot of cloths, etc.. dammage by DEET including my old HCX, but garmin replaced it out of warranty which made me a big fan of them.

DEET VS HCX (Deet Won)

Falcon, what kind of place just shrugs off their employees getting drained or poisoned???

Sue

I bought a big bottle of Permethrin this spring but never used it; the skeeters were non-existent around here. Rather, with my dad passing I didn't get out camping while they were at their worst. On one trip to Black Hills National Forest I had to use some repellent but that's it.

i have a jacket somewhat like that,it has lots of pockets on the outside and sleeves so you don't have to open the jacket to get at something.i found it to be too much for the canoe country in Minnesota but i would use it farther north in Canada where the black flys come in droves.the new Bug Off clothing and a head net works fine for me.the Fleet Farm stores around Minnesota carry Barn And Stable Spray which is the heavy dose of permethrin.i used it treat a nylon Baker Shelter style tent and it really works.
i should note that the bugs up north don't carry any nasty diseases and a itching bite is the worse you will come down with,other places i would "suit up!"

Sue, a lot of safety issues are kept at our local management and never really get escalated. Then when a problem some how does make it above our local management, it takes a very long time before things get fixed. The company I work for is a lot better on a safety standpoint than some of my past employers. One past employer actually spun the company off into another company for the sole purpose of having no liability with upcoming terminal illnesses of employes exposed to very dangerous chemicals and there solution is to put the company out of business when these people start to sue for damages.

Despite some flaws with this company, they are one of the best companies I have worked for in regard to how we are treated and job tasks. I am hoping in the long run, our safety will react to this and get them to spray our area more to reduce the mosquito population. I think a few of my workers are starting now to elevate the issue.

CANOEDOGS, I wanted clothing that actually was dense enough to keep the bites away instead of clothing that was impregnated with chemicals. Over time you would have to keep retreating the cloths where these cloths are chemical free. But I hear you and agree with your analogy to suit up in heavy bug country, we have some pretty good cases of encephalitis down here which are usually fatal.

I saw an interesting statement on another forum where a guy was trying to sum up deet

http://www.viewsfromthetop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22305

"DEET is nasty stuff, and permethrin comes with a MSDS attached, so it can't be all that good for you either."

"o a certain extent, this is a comparison of apples and oranges. The two treaments work by different mechanisms, only one of which is appropriate for ticks. (Of course, comparison of the final result is valid, even if the different methods use different mechanisms.)

* DEET is a repellent. (Actually is is not really a repellent, just a blinding agent--its vapor interferes with mosquitoes ability to smell and find humans. It does not necessarily chase them away.) There is no fundamental reason why it should work for other species. (It may or may not work on another species if it happens to use a similar mechanism for finding humans.)

* Permethrin is a contact insecticide. (A nerve poison, IIRC. It kills or disables insects upon contact.)

Ticks sit on plants and latch on to you when you brush by--they don't fly around and find you by smell. If you are wearing permethrin on your clothing and they touch it, they will be disabled or killed. Unless ticks happen to be annoyed or damaged by DEET there is no reason to expect it to repel them. In fact, the DEET treated subjects may have been completely unprotected from ticks. (Your experiment did not include an untreated control group so it did not address this issue.)


The best defense is a layered approach. Permethrin on your clothing and DEET on your skin. (I personally use permethrin on my clothing and only use DEET or picaridin on my skin if the mosquitoes are bad.)


BTW, Buzz-Off (tm) clothing is just permethrin treated clothing. You can apply permethrin on whatever clothing you already happen to have. Both soak-in and spray-on versions are available at hiking stores."

falcon..just as an aside i was surprised at how well permethrin works.i sprayed the inside of my one man tent and the underside of the rain fly.there is no way to get into my tent without a few bugs getting in.in the past i have spent over 15 minutes tracking them down and trying to kill them,a tough job as they "see" you coming.this year by the time i got in and settled down the nasty little biters were already "stunned and confused".i was able to kill several at a time between my hands.no live spiders turned up in the AM when i was clearing out the tent to pack and at night when i had a light on to read the moths and whatever that get between the tent and fly and flap around did not last long.

I am not going to read all responces Just this all the Treated Clothing use this . I have and the US Mil. have used it for years.
Use It!
www.sawyer.com/products.htm#Airline

Thanks for the advice canoedogs, I will definately have to try that the next time I go camping. My biggest concern at work is dieases like encephalitis. I need them as far away as I can get them or a barrier they can't breach. Spraying that on my clothes doesn't keep them from biting my arms, face or,neck .