What is the best mosquito repellent?

It looks like Ultrathon with DEET and Cutter Advanced with Picaridin might be the top two.

Thanks!

100%, melt your compass, gore tex and any synthetic it touches DEET, combined with Permethrin treatment on shirt, pants and socks. Don't half-arse the bug treatment. Entomological genocide is called for.

I have not found Picaridin to be as affective as DEET.
Ultrathon is a good formula but for the worst of it I always go with 100% DEET.

In Lousy-anna, the answer is hands down, without a doubt, "Deep Woods Off w/DEET"!!!!!

+1 for Deep Woods off.

Used to use Deet, now its Repel Lemon Eucalyptus and Cutter Advanced (15% Picaridin). So far so good. Both rate extremely high for effectiveness in the reports I've read. I've got enough things to think about, my insect repellent destroying my gear shouldn't be one of them IMO.

The best is still DEET and preferably in lotion since it's easier to apply and doesn't penetrate the skin as much. 3M Ultrathon is the best but it's not allowed in Canada because it's more then 30% DEET (I think it's 33%) but I go with Watkins which is 28.5% DEET lotion.

Don't forget to apply your sunscreen about 30 min before, then the DEET lotion, then reapply sunscreen as needed. I think the Ultrathon lasts for about 8 hours and that's one of the reasons that DEET lotion is prefered.

BACKPACKER magazine just did a comparison of bug repellents...worth a read.

nepetalactone was found to be 10 times more effective than DEET

Full Article available here at http://www.albawest.com/text/repellents.pdf

You have to weigh up the risks of using DEET as compared to its effectiveness. There are safer solutions if only if it means applying the application just a little bit more often.

I second the permethrin treatment. Awesome, and don't need to re-apply even after washing for quite some time. Keeps the ticks off like nothing else imho. got to be deet for the skin. I use 30% bens, in a small pump that's easy to back. EMS sells the refill so you can replenish your field pump as needed. I hear this talk of the "risks of deet". it's been around and tested for something like 40 years and there is no evidence of harm (except to mosquitoes!).

The problem with DEET is that although it is an undoubtedly an effective insect repellent (but not the most effective) there is evidence to show its harmful effects. There may not be any deaths officially attributed directly to DEET (although there is some debate about its association with gulf war one syndrome, which itself officially doesn't exist either apparently). Just because its been in use for more than 40 years doesn't mean much either because it is very difficult to produce a medical study whereby diffuse brain cell death from its use 40 year prior to getting Alzheimer's disease is quite a challenging one to produce statistically.


Any target shooters out there, I wonder if DEET would make a difference to your performance?

I wish I still had my first set of ALICE gear. It didn't like DEET, but the DEET found it yummy.

I think it really depends on where you are.. The worst condition I've been in required 100% DEET. That was the ONLY thing that worked against those baseball sized mosquitoes in Vietnam back in 1997.

Not thinking of the health concerns, the one thing I found interesting was how "accurate" the effectiveness timeframe was.. I forget whether I applied 6 times every 4 hours or 4 times every 6 hours, but the mosquitoes reminded me like clockwork.

The one thing I HATED were the mosquitoes hanging out under the chairs and tables.. Getting bit in the back of the knee sucks..

I've been using the REPEL all natural stuff (lemon eucalyptus) for several years now, and am quite happy with its performance. In a non-scientific test I did during a month-long stay in the woods (yes, a whole month) it proved better at repelling giant, blood-sucking Southern Oregon mosquitoes than Deep Woods Off.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I read up a little on mosquito repellents. It appears that DEET does not really repel. It makes you smell like a plant and so the mosquitoes are not interested in you. What attracts them is the smell of fermented sweat. Staying is sweaty clothes might have more to do with the mosquitoes biting than the kind of repellent you use.

Thoughts?

Here in South Lousy-anna, the beer we drink and the Cayenne pepper that we consume make our sweat unappetizng to the Lousy-anna State Bird - the MOSQUITO

I had the opportunity to speak with a reasercher who specialized in mosquito borne illness and he confirmed that mosquitoes are also attracted to drastic color variations. I asked him this becasuse on one of my camping trips (which I nicknamed skeeter island) I noticed they literally swarmed around anything we had that was black or very dark colored, almost like it was bait. Apparently colors that don't contrast too drastically with the environment are better for keeping the skeeters away.

That's simple. Mosquito's pray is any warmblooded animal. They have special IR receptors in their antennas for hunting (along with the smell sensors). Black or dark color things warms up faster under the sun, and stays warm longer...

I think all people are different...

I know my father and I are rarely bitten and if we are we don't notice it for a day or so. While on the other hand the woman get HUGE bumps and are itching like crazy that night.

Me too, I rarely get bitten even without repellent, and when I do it's completely gone (the bump) in hours. For mosquitos that is. Undesirable body chemistry??

I guess the biggest problem I have with repellent is it removes paint from my gear and melts some synthetic fabrics and permanently stains others. OTOH, I have caught serious diseases in Africa from mosquitos. All it takes is one bug bite. Some can stay in your body for years and manifest when you're weak from something else. Some of those diseases or similar are migrating to here. So I'm doing the repellent thing again, trying to stay with the more modern formulations around 30% DEET that are slow release. From what I've read, many of the more sophisticated ~30% formulations are similar in effectiveness to the old 100% DEET styles. But I carry the old 100% DEET (AFAIK now "illegal" to sell in Canada) JIC it gets serious. Or I become attractive...

I just did a literature search and found (as I did a couple of years ago when I last did the same search) that there is little to be worried about when using DEET. The best data comes from a review of >20,000 poison control center contacts regarding DEET exposure. Now remember, people usually only call the poison control center when they have had an abnormal exposure - abnormally large or via an unusual route. Even then, the rate of symptoms was quite low - 70% of these patients with abnormal exposure had no symptoms at all. Only 2 individuals died. Interestingly, it did not appear that the actual concentration of the DEET played a role in the rate of side effects.

After reviewing the 110 articles that seemed to be related in any way, I would conclude the following:

1. DEET is probably safer than the insect bites it prevents and certainly has a lower rate of side effects (I truly hate the side effects of mosquito bites). In fact, more people seem to die of water toxicity than from DEET exposure.
2. Use the time release versions of DEET - not because they are safer, but because they seems to work as well and for a longer period of time than the 100% DEET
3. Don't let your dog drink DEET. But even then, the one article I found on companion dog exposure indicated that even the worst canine exposures did not result in long-lasting or fatal symptoms.
4. There was no published research indicating that any of the other products on the market were safer than DEET. In fact, I was unable to find any studies on the safety profile of oil of lemon eucalyptus at all. The fact that it is "natural" does not convince me of it's safety.

Finally, I will mention that there was not a single, solitary, piece of medical evidence in the medical literature that documented a long-term side effect arising from moderate use of DEET that was generally consistant with the labeling. Even in kids or dogs.

I'm not sure of the exact composition of the Repel lemon eucalyptus repellent but eucalyptus oil itself has been used for centuries with no ill effects that I've heard of. In S. Amercia I've even seen people throw green eucalyptus leaves over hot coals for use as a cheap area repellent. However, as with all menthol/mint type oils, if its concentrated and too much is used, it can irritate the skin.

Unfortunately, there are large numbers of substances that have been used for centuries that turn out to be not-so-good for you. And the problem with "natural" products is that there is no legal requirement for such safety research to be done before the product is sold commercially. So, again, there is no medical research data that speaks to the safety of lemon eucalyptus whereas there is safety data on DEET (though not the greatest data ever, I will agree). Not saying lemon eucalyptus is unsafe -- simply saying there is no medical data one way or the other. It is totally possible that if someone actually researched the subject they would find that lemon eucalyptus is associated with skin cancer or some such. Or they might find that it is totally completely safe. Who knows?