I never had any success with it. It might work in the cities, and populated areas where the mosquitoes have other easy options, but literally the only thing that has ever worked reliably for me in the mountains is 97% DEET. Even the lesser concentration of it, I think it’s 36%, didn’t work. I’ve tried just about everything trying to get away from DEET, and none of it works reliably. If mosquitoes are bothering me in town it’s usually enough to just wear one of those electric repellers that make dragonfly noises, but I only bother with that if I’m out golfing or something, and they’re not particularly bad there. Wherever they’re out in force, I whip out the DEET. Forewarning though, don’t spray it on polyester because it can melt it, and like you said, keep it away from eyes, nose, and lips. We spray it onto our hand and then wipe it onto our face and ears.
Comment on How can i make myself poisonous to mosquitos?
scrion@lemmy.world 3 months agoDEET works, but is also not exactly healthy and does irritate both skin and mucus membranes. Also, applying DEET over sunscreen reduces the effect of the sunscreen by about 30%. Unless you are in a tropical environment with dangers of Malaria carrying insects, (P)Icaridin is a good alternative:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25936273/
www.sciencedirect.com/topics/…/icaridin
Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ferris@infosec.pub 3 months ago
what noise does a dragonfly make?
Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 months ago
From what I understand, it makes the sound of their wings beating. Dragonflies are natural predators of mosquitoes, so the mosquitoes instinctively avoid it.
Fondots@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Purely annecdotally, picaridin has worked as well or better than DEET for me. I barely get bitten when I use it, and I usually get bitten up pretty badly when I use DEET (though less than when I don’t use it)
I also find picaridin bug spray to not feel greasy and has less odor than deet, which is nice.
DEET is also fairly toxic to dogs (and cats, but I don’t have one of those) and while it’s not licensed for use on dogs, it doesn’t appear to be toxic to them, which I appreciate as a dog owner (I’m unsure about cats, that info seemed less readily available but I also didn’t put much effort into finding it)