Proven Insect Repellent

[Salty Gator]

I’ve almost gone through a bottle. It works well repelling mosquitoes, and pretty well on gnats. Still haven’t tried them in the face of no see ums, but the fact that it repels gnats gives me hope. It’s not oily like most of the new non deet sprays. I usually give my face a light spray and it did make my eyelids burn, so now shield my eyes w my hand. Thumbs up, I’ll buy more

[GaryDroze]

As someone who has over the years finally built up a pain tolerance against no see-ums, but still can't tolerate skeeters and deer flies, I can attest that consuming copious amounts of garlic the night before an outing definitely repels them. No question about it. Just one drawback...

It also repels significant others for up to two days after ingestion. So I only employ this tactic when my lovely wife is away for a long weekend.

[big bend gyrene]

As someone who has over the years finally built up a pain tolerance against no see-ums, but still can't tolerate skeeters and deer flies, I can attest that consuming copious amounts of garlic the night before an outing definitely repels them. No question about it. Just one drawback...

It also repels significant others for up to two days after ingestion. So I only employ this tactic when my lovely wife is away for a long weekend.

Gary, reminds me of a funny memory from my Boot Camp days.

Had a platoon mate receive a package at mail call, and about 99.999% of the time when any edible item was received it was confiscated by the D.I.s... but in this case when the D.I.s had the recruit open the package it had 3 or 4 FULL BULBS of garlic. No note explaining why... just the bulbs of garlic.

I remember my Senior DI asking him if he REALLY LOVED garlic in a recognizably challenging way, and when the recruit answered in the affirmative the DI told him if he ate ALL of the bulbs at one time he'd let him have them. My memory (granted a bit fuzzy after 20+years) was that the recruit started turning blue before he finished, but FINISH them he did! The follow-up memories aren't fuzzy at all. Within a day or two we marched out to spend time doing field training and while marching you could smell the recruit who ate the garlic from yards away. While in the field more than once the D.I.s had us stand at attention while letting sand fleas and mosquitoes feast on us... extending the time we stood at attention each time someone flinched or tried stealthily slapping the biting critters away. The timing of the garlic delivery always made me think that the recruit had some brilliant inside scoop on loading up if possible just before going to the field.

[silverking]

Glad to hear it's been effective for you, SG. I've been using mine for yard work as well as the coast.

Did you find a local source or buy it on-line?


BBG, bet the barracks didn't have any vampires prowling around for a few days, either.

[Ken_80]

Had a platoon mate receive a package at mail call, and about 99.999% of the time when any edible item was received it was confiscated by the D.I.s... but in this case when the D.I.s had the recruit open the package it had 3 or 4 FULL BULBS of garlic. No note explaining why... just the bulbs of garlic.

I remember my Senior DI asking him if he REALLY LOVED garlic in a recognizably challenging way, and when the recruit answered in the affirmative the DI told him if he ate ALL of the bulbs at one time he'd let him have them. My memory (granted a bit fuzzy after 20+years) was that the recruit started turning blue before he finished, but FINISH them he did! The follow-up memories aren't fuzzy at all. Within a day or two we marched out to spend time doing field training and while marching you could smell the recruit who ate the garlic from yards away. While in the field more than once the D.I.s had us stand at attention while letting sand fleas and mosquitoes feast on us... extending the time we stood at attention each time someone flinched or tried stealthily slapping the biting critters away. The timing of the garlic delivery always made me think that the recruit had some brilliant inside scoop on loading up if possible just before going to the field.[/quote]


I can remember my dad saying those DI's did the same thing to him in the 60's. After chow they were out there standing in formation and wouldn't dare swat one. He said the DI told them "YOU'VE HAD YOUR MEAL, NOW LET THE BUGS HAVE THEIRS"

[GaryDroze]

Gotta love those Basic Training flashbacks, although I've managed to suppress most of mine. Here's a bug-related one from SERE School:

During the survival training phase, instructors showed us how to make rabbit jerky by suspending strips of bunny flesh over a firepit. I could not figure out why they kept telling us to make sure the meat stays enveloped in smoke. I paid scant attention to this detail. Four days later...

During the evasion phase, while hunkered down in the underbrush at night, hiding from the "black pajamas" instructors, I pulled a saran-wrapped hunk of jerky from my pocket. Kept my flashlight off to avoid capture, and started chewing. Weirdly, the jerky started convulsing in my mouth. I sneaked a quick flashlight peek, and discovered the meat was completely covered in maggots. Aha! The smoke was fly repellent!

Minutes later, alerted by my flashlight, the instructors caught me AND made me finish eating the maggot hatchery.

And my wife wonders why I never send anything back at restaurants.