I am normally a big fan of 100% DEET for keeping the mosquitoes at bay, but at work there are a lot of us getting sick from using DEET all the time due to the abundance of mosquitoes. The DEET works great, just constant everyday exposure has been making a lot of us sick. I was looking at the thermacell that a lot of people like but the cost of refills would bankrupt me over time.

In comes option 2, I had found a Canada company The Original Bug Shirt Company that makes a bug suit that is very well built and the kicker is in the fabric, the mosquitoes cannot bite through the fabric even if it is on top of the skin. The material is extremely tight woven and has had a lot of good reviews. The only negative I have found so far is it is hot but as I read the instructions (after math of course) they recommend only wearing a t-shirt or no shirt and shorts. It does breathe quite a bit when walking and with no shirt and shorts under the pants it wasn’t bad.

There is a ton of pockets and cargo pockets plus the middle big pocket acts as a carrier to put everything into. Basically it has its own stuff sack built in to it. Unfortunately the mosquitoes are thinning out with fall approaching but this will give me another option for long term protection from mosquitoes, flies, ticks, leaches, etc.. The shirt has a draw cord to secure the waist and the legs have built in inserts that go into your shoes protecting the ankles.
All in all it looks very well built and rugged, got it today and can’t wait to field test it.
http://www.bugshirt.com/

Not a bad idea at all. Hope you'll post more info on where you got this garment. If you are wearing enough DEET that it's actually making you sick - that's not a good sign. I also use 100% DEET (aka Jungle Juice), but I don't put the stuff on my skin. I rub it on the cuffs of my shirt and pants, around the neckline of my shirt, and on the brim of my cap. Still seems to work OK.

Pete2

Pete I got it from their website, it was shipped from one of there NY warehouses and got to me pretty quick. If it wasn't for the fact we work in a mosquito enriched atmosphere every day plus they love to attack gingers, this should help me out quite a bit. I had always tried to hang around people that eat a lot of banana which they would go munch on them before me but most of my workers are the non healthy eater types like myself. I must admit it appears very well built and their customer service has been excellent. It would be nice if they made there web page more informative and user friendly but as long as it is a good product and they stand behind it, I'm OK with that.

https://nt1.adventuresports.com/product/bugshirt/BugShirtForm.asp?Region=US

It looks hot.

I recently came across some interesting information about killing mosquitoes (carriers of malaria and sleeping sickness) with baited fruit juice. It has a 90% kill rate in West Africa.

A 1% solution of boric acid in fruit juice seems to do the job.

NY Times: Brewing Up Double-Edged Delicacies for Mosquitoes

Malaria Journal: Successful field trial of attractive sugar bait

Sue

Sue,

I saw those articles roo, and was intrigued. Mosquitos around here have been terrible ever since Irene rolled through several weeks ago - there's lots of standing water around.

I wanted to try it out, but could not find boric acid for sale. Where does one get it in non-industrial quantities?

Jesselp

Edit: Found it on Amazon. Boric acid is on the way - of course by the time it gets here it will probably be too cold for mosquitos, but I'll be ready for next year!

Pete, IIRC, you're not supposed to put 100% DEET on clothing. its specific to skin use. 100% will chemically melt some fabric/ clothing material. I know from personal experience it melted the sleeve on some raingear I had on.

If it's been working for you w/ no problems then that's good news for me. I've just always been on the DEET for skin, not for clothes, bus.

Good review and pics Falcon.

Have you looked into treating your field clothes with permethrin? It is very effective in killing, not repelling, bugs and it has essentially no health effects on humans. Teamed up with DEET and proper clothing it is a good system.

For strange bureaucratic reasons, it is a little hard to find permethrin at retail with formulations over 0.5%. However I have read somewhere that you can get permethrin concentrations at 1-10% from veterinary sources.

Regarding DEET, consider the more advanced DEET formulations that use less DEET but in a time release formulation. 3M UltraThon has only about 35% DEET but it is a time release lotion. You get good protection for a longer time with less DEET involved.

I've found boric acid in pint-sized jars at pharmacies (non-prescription). It can be used as an antiseptic/antibacterial/fungus treatment, and also as a flame retardant.

Sue

Boric acid can also be purchased from most of the big box stores. It is just not sold as boric acid, most of the powdered roach poisons are boric acid. So when you are out shopping read the lable. Couple of name brands are Enforcer and Roach Pruf.

Thanks for the article sue, where I work at is very restrictive of us obstructing with there environment. I was wanting to put a mosquito trap out there and they pretty much shut that idea down. They wouldn't let me put any fruit mix jars or nothing on property, I'm stuck with basic defenses I can wear.

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 .

Akabu, thanks for the link.

On you tube you can find a conversion for refilling thermacell butane cartridges. It also suggested alternatives the the chemicals which were much cheaper. I remember they used the refill port from a Harbor Freight butane torch.

David Enoch

That happened to my HCx as well, but there was no DEET involved. Nothing but sweat. I think they have (or had) an adheasive problem.

Looks interesting!

I like how small it packs down