Natural Mosquito Repellent Survey...

sticky

Im not anal about it, but Im fairly carefull with putting repellents on, and only use a DEET based repellent..... But I still got dengue fever. Just spent a week in hospital in Bangkok because of it.

Lets face it DEET works better than any other currently available repellent. But what ever you are using, you have to apply it regularly, for it to be any good.

I got munched to death on Koh Phi Phi. Every time you jump in the ocean, what ever you have put on is going to get washed off (at least to an extent).

Some of those mosquitos will carry diseases, maybe only 1% or 0.1%, so chances are youll be ok. But then again you might get Malaria, or Jap B, or, or, or......
Dengue goes away after a week or so, some things last a life time... or just kill you.

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Nick-H

I don't know about Mossies being attracted to DEET (although nothing Mossie would surprise me!)... the way 'repelents' work is not to repel by smelling of something that mossies do not like, but to disable their attempts to locate the smells (sweat, carbon dioxide etc) that atract them to us. They do this by disabling the mossie smell organs.

...at least I think that is what I read somewhere

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Nick-H

Good site, mca.

As there is a general perception that natural equates with harmless it is worth quoting from that site: Note that the label for products containing oil of lemon eucalyptus specifies that they should not to be used on children under the age of three years.

john.sw

Have you seen those battery operated "electric tennis racquet" mosquito zappas?

They're made in Coimbatore (where they are mothers of invention) and great fun is to be had by swinging one around and frying any mosquito in its path!

They come in three sizes called:

Frank (Large)

Dweezil (Medium)*

Moon Unit (Small)

Ahmet and Diva Muffin are the plug-in types.


*The Dweezil is also know as the "Dweezil Doris" after Doris Stokes.

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Nick-H

That's exactly what I mean!

But mine doesn't come from that company or I would have known the name already. I must have picked it up from the ether!

I would have ignored it as a toy curiosity but for the advice of a couple of traveling IMers who assured me that they are invaluable and that they work really well.

Only problem is that I can't help sometimes being reminded of that device beloved by some of our Heros of the Free Word: The electric chair . Good grief, it is bad enough doing this to mossies. How on earth can anyone believe that it is civilised to do it to other human beings?

nb... that question was rhetorical. I have no wish to start a thread on this or to hear from anyone who disagrees with me...

katyrafi

I have absolutely no scientific data to back this up but garlic works for me - eat lots of it, mossies don't like it. Not even the Scottish midges, let alone the giant variety here in Kerala. When I remember I use Odomos sometimes but I can't stand DEET despite all the evidence, I find it burns my skin and doesn't stop the bleeders anyway.

Tea tree oil also seems to have a mild repellent effect and the local massage oil which smells a bit like Tiger Balm keeps them at bay too, probably because the mossies would stick to the skin if they tried to bite through all the oil?! Note to self: use that as an excuse to get my husband to give me a massage every night .....

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IndyBoy

I totaly agree - those electric mozzie rackets are superb - for the first time i felt i had the upper hand with the mozzies. they are invaluable for zapping that annoying little mozzie that somehow manages to get inside your mozzie net.

Also, another gadget i had amazing sucess with was a piezoelectric little mozzie bite zapper. they are about half the size of a lipstick, and you plce the tip on your super-itchy mozzie bite, zap the bite with the miniture electric shocks, and the itching stops, and the bite swelling goes down. also good fun for zapping unsuspecting travel partners on the back of the neck- like a mini-taser! Here is a link to an ebay shop that sells the exact mosquito bite zapper i found really good (http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Travel-Acce...toreviewQQtZkm)

Nick-H

They often get me before I get them

Yes, I also find that the clickers are also very good, if used on a new bite they really reduce the subsequent swelling and itching, and, on an old bite they are better than scratching. Buy the larger one, though; the smaller one is not nearly as effective.