Re: Alternatives to DEET

[Guest guest]

I haven't used DEET since I noticed while in the army our DEET insect

repellent melted certain types of plastic. " If it's doing that to plastic,

what's it going to do inside my body? " was my thought.

In my neck of the woods we have a particularly challenging time of year:

black fly season. It lasts about 6 weeks and the viscious little bastards can

drive a person insane. Headnets, gloves, and long sleeve shirts are in order

for nonchemical bugreppelent. Now essential oil based bug dopes are becoming

increasingly available. One local lady has a pretty successful business

marketing her locally made essential oil and soybean oil based bug dope to the

local grocery and convinience stores. She sells a lot.

My grandfather (an old time Maine guide) and his generation, preDEET, got by

with a mix of mineral oil, pine tar, and citronella essential oil. It made a

foul smelling oil that gave one an instant tan. In the 70's they used that

while my parents sprayed us down with DEET and laughed at the older mix.

Nowadays I think fondly of that stuff.

An early version of the total tonic I made looked really nasty and sat in

the corner for 4 or 5 years unused. Went down to the pine barrens of New

Jersey, a tic infested zone, for a class and I took that stuff and used it

externally on my ankles as a tic repellent as it looked too nasty to take

inside. That was one of the few weeks in that location I didn't get harassed by

tics, they do NOT like garlic. Massive doses of garlic inside always cuts down

on tic infestation.

One mix I liked was an herbal oil made of rue and wormwood (thank you

tte for that from your book, Traveler's Joy). After the herbs were

strained out I added citronella essential oil.

Another emergency mix (no bug dope in an area where there were LOADS of

mosquitoes) was an oil base to which I dumped lavender, rosemary, and

wintergreen essential oils. I chose those oils as they were in my medkit and as

I couldn't remember the list of EO that worked best to repell bugs I figured one

of them might work. It actually did, then I noticed an herbally aware friend

was using my bug dope to treat her sore neck muscles. She said it worked good

for that.

I thought that part about soybean oil being a bug repellent in itself was

useful. Thanks for sharing that.