I’m tired of mosquitos biting me. If i can’t stop them biting me, the next best thing is to stop them biting me a second time. So what’s the best (safe for me) way to make myself poisonous to mosquitos, and optionally other bugs that might bite me?
I’m tired of mosquitos biting me. If i can’t stop them biting me, the next best thing is to stop them biting me a second time. So what’s the best (safe for me) way to make myself poisonous to mosquitos, and optionally other bugs that might bite me?
DEET 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:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25936273/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/icaridin
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25522134/
https://academic.oup.com/jtm/article/25/suppl_1/S10/4990399
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)
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what noise does a dragonfly make?
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