Natural Repellent for Ticks, Mosquitoes, Flies, Gnats and No-See-Ums

I have had a great deal of experience in very buggy environments. I have fished and hunted in some of the worst Mayfly concentrations I've heard of. Many years ago, before DEET there was a product that worked 'a little bit'. It was "Old Woodsman". It stunk terribly. It stained the skin brown and ruined nearly all clothing it touched (with stains and a permanent stink). I felt after years of using it that it contained a pine extract and Eucalyptus oil. However this is only a guess from having used it for many years.

Truth is, I don't think you can beat DEET. In fact I'm nearly certain you can't. Under normal circumstances bug replant is overkill anyhow. "Learn to deal with it friend" was my standing advice. However, there are some areas on the planet, areas that most people never see, that are so inundated with various biting bugs it would simply be impossible to work. That is the standard your replant will need to be tested against.

Will it cause Mayfly clouds to part as you pass through them? DEET works like magic. It hardly matters one little bit if it's dangerous or not. If you experienced these dark clouds of nasty mothers you'd pour gasoline on yourself while you smoked rather than "deal with it".

DEET numbs the lips and melts nylon. It can't be good for you. I wish you the best of luck finding a natural repellant but honestly feel you're fighting an uphill battle.

"you'd pour gasoline on yourself while you smoked rather than "deal with it"."

That would be really funny if not so true. If someone could come up with an effective natural bugacide I'd be your best costumer. I think the worst in the woods is the horse fly's. They don't sting you, they take a chunk of your flesh.

I've tried some of the natural bug repellents, and all that does is piss them off.

I have 2 bird dogs, I've tried the natural and the cheap stuff, but the only thing that really works is Frontline and Advantix. You really don't want 2 dogs with fleas, ( women really hate that ).

I have heard stories about Alagash deer flies so bad woodsmen killed themselves before they could find their way out. A lot of folks who haven't seen bugs like that wouldn't believe the story is true. I have no doubts myself.

While in northern Ontario writing a story about Pike fishing there (Domain Pitmicon) my wife and I encountered mayflies so thick you'd have drown in them without a head net. The clouds of em were so dense you could see the shadow of the swarm cross the lake we stayed on. I guess you could say with only minor exaggeration that they blotted out the sun. While out on the water there were times we were so distracted by them we couldn't tell which way we were headed.

I remember thinking a shotgun loaded with beach sand might be a satisfying form of revenge. They were thick enough to employ a tactic like that with the possibility of some success.

I lay down flamethrower fire in a 100 yard splay, then set up the SAMs for the horse flies. Works like a charm - though a bit loud.

The best I can come up with in a quick search is "black fly" (as a more correct common name) and perhaps these are (from a web wiki): A black fly (sometimes called a buffalo gnat, turkey gnat or white socks) is any member of the family Simuliidae of the Culicomorpha infraorder.

A big problem for me is that they are quite small. This could only be considered a guess.

Once again, my appoligies to you and the rest for my error(s).

Thanks for pointing it out!

Ya, I've always called them black flies. Thank God they're only around for a week or so. I've drenched myself with DEET, and it works really well. However those little bastards climb in your nose and ears and bite you there!

Many years ago we drove up to Hudson Bay to fish, ( a huge endeavor as we had to carry everything we would need, including gasoline). Well, we got there, tried to set up camp, but within about 3 minutes where inundated buy every biting insect on the face of the planet. It was the horse fly's that did us in. There where no less than 1000 of them spinning about our heads. They look at DEET as a sort of Hollandaise Sauce. We built a big fire, loaded it up with green pine branches, and basically stood in the middle of it. We spent one harrowing night there, I believe the insects actually picked up the tent and shook it trying to dislodge us at one point.

Anyway, we tried to fish in the morning, but the blood loss made us woosey. We threw everything in the VW and hightailed it back south. We didn't stop until we hit the St. Lawrence river. It worked out OK, the fishing there was great.

I once heard that black flies pollinate wild blueberries and that they are attracted by the color of blue jeans and will aggressively attach anything blue. Is this the same insect?

That may be true about the blueberries. They don't care what color you are. They're out for blood.

By the time blueberries turn blue it is too late for them to be pollinated. The FLOWERS, however, are white (at least they look white to me with my color difficiency).

This works great.

http://www.avon.com/1/3/177016-Avon-Skin-so-soft-Insect-repellent.html

Techno has a good one here. Some people I know who keep horses swear by a dilution of skin-so-soft (Avon).

You are right, I got the following off a website about it as well:-

The cosmetic company's Skin So Soft range does more than guarantee velvety-soft upper arms after a bath: it's also a powerful midge-repellent. The Soft & Fresh Dry Oil Body Spray (£2; avonshop.co.uk) provides an oily protective layer so effective that the soldiers buy it in bulk.

"Obviously we don't market our product as a midge-repellent, but its reputation has spread by word of mouth," says Lydia Durkan of Avon. "We know that film crews use it a lot when they are up in Scotland and Mel Gibson used it when he was making Braveheart here. We're very pleased that it's proving so popular."

The website (for the complete article) was here.

I was just E-mailed from a friend to try this.

Have you tried this yet? I'd be interested to know if works before dousing my deck with the stuff.

Hey Moose is I said it was just E-mailed to me before reading the post above. Apparently it not only repels them but will kill them. She said she sprays it on her deck and lawn when she has a cook out and it will last a couple days.

i was told by a friend to try listerine and it really works...safer than deets.

And your breath is so minty fresh!

Personally, this usually works for me...

There's an old trail hiker's trick - shower without any fragrances, then do not bath for three or four days. Many bugs will no longer bother you. Mosquitoes are still a bother, but there usually aren't that many in the mountain elevations. This seems to work better for guys than women, so it may be a natural secretion of some kind. BTW, this also keeps other campers from bothering you at rest areas.

If you do not mind I would like to add an alternative solution. I read in the TIME magazine that insects have the highest protein % and also the best food conversion ratio. (ie. efficiency of vegetation to meat conversion). Why not we find ways of turning them into food! a different kind of mosquito bite.. just imagine!!

Bravo! I have no problems eating these little &*@#$! Now I have to work out the long sticky tounge thing!

Bad Idea,

Many deadly viruses are spread by these blood suckers, such as malaria, West Nile disease. etc

Skin So Soft has often been around in my bug torments of life. Often I heard it was used by Marines, and when on some swamp sets of film we had it from First Aid, or Craft Service. Actually I don't have any in the house now and depend on Deet in my typical life, but seem to recollect some ingredients you mentioned as also of skin so soft. I do not know of deerfly repellent

In response to the "skin so soft' folks I will say I have a hard time trusting a product that began as an urban legend. Initially the sss folks were touting the avon skin cream product. Studies were done and it was found to be useless. In fact, two studies showed it attracted biting flies and wasps (just great). A number of years after this silly story began avon added some actual insect replant to the product. Perhaps it works, perhaps it doesn't. In the environments I had mentioned earlier in this post, you couldn't take the chance.

Often times Marines or other service men are used as examples of what product to use or not use. I have the greatest respect for Marines and all service people. Having spent the bulk of my life on wilderness jaunts I have found that Marines wine less then most people. In that the din of biting flies is already well intonated additional wining is never welcome.

However, Marines are people, average folks. Not research scientist and not familiar with the scientific method of determining the effectiveness of a product. Neither am I for that matter. But, I can say without any second guessing that I have never been bitten while protected by DEET. NEVER!

Though I myself have never trusted sss. I have from time to time been forced to use another product, always with the same results. I get bitten. Often many times. I have been with people while cat fishing in Mississippi who were wearing sss. Comical the degree of ineffectiveness of the product on that occasion. However, this may have been back when it was only a hand cream. They were all very glad I had the industrial size bottle of DEET on hand.

Recently I have heard that keeping a dryer sheet in your front shirt pocket has the same mystical properties as this avon hand cream. I can't tell you how glad I am that there are still people writing fresh knee slappers. It keeps life interesting!

It is a fact that a good deal of the biting bugs are attracted to our co2 from our breath. That is a place to start looking.

Ah ha!

So if I can only decrease my CO2 footprint, the critters will no longer be able to track me?

Bill Morrow

I have used and still use a 50% mixture of Skin-so-soft and water in a spray bottle. It works for me. When I lived in SC, if you worked outside, the no-see-ums were brutal; douching yourself down with the spray kept them off. I seem to recall it also worked for mosquitos. I firmly believe in this; urban legend or not. Proof positive beats urban legend.

See also this thread
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/22177

Here's an old Indian trick we used to do that worked great for biting flies, mosquitoes, and gnats.

Put green branches of pine or cedar into a smoldering camp fire and bathe yourself in the smoke given off. Works great as a cheap deodorant too!

I have never been bitten by Mosquitoes when I have rubbed a few drops of Lavender oil on any exposed skin.

I have not tried it with midges up to now....

I actually meant the Lavender oil!!! DUUUUUHHHHH!!!

Trust you to take it the wrong way!!!

I have just arrived back from an Italian/Switzerland holiday. We watched the Germany / Spain football match outside on a camping site near (relatively!) to Florence (Firenze), all except my wife an I (we had the lavender oil already on!) got attacked by Mossies and the like, but after giving everyone a dose of the same stuff to rub in, nobody was bothered anymore!!!

But as I previously mentioned, I have not used it a place like the Highlands where Midges rule the roost!! Maybe someone else has the chance to test Lavender oil under such circumstances....

Hi, Andy,

Good to see you back - hope you all enjoyed.

BTW - who won?

Sadly, not Germany!!!

But its only a game, as we say in Germany rather strangely but accurately:-

"after the game is before the game!"

(If anyone needs an explanation, just ask!)

?

... guess it's like "The King is dead - Long Live the King"

JohnDG, as usual spot on!

German humor is relatively easy to understand I feel......

Please tell Vermin.....

Oh yeah. It's like saying a man who's short is a "three cheese guy."

Yep! Makes a lot of sense to me.

answer is very simple. dive underwater blackflies haven't learned to swim, yet.

'da ber

I have lots of dogs at home and these bugs are a problem. I have tried frontline and though effective, sometimes i sense that sooner or later, these pestering bugs will develop a resistance.

Another local product i tried is Venoma. It contains madre de cacao (Gliricidia sepium), Mayana (Coleus scutellarioides), Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) and Fipronil.

I've also consulted a good vet here. She reccomends that if i want a cheap and natural alternative products to fight these pests, using cacao ( i dunno what proccess she's describing to me) in one of their experiments produced good results. I dunno if any of you guys have tried that.

I have also heard that Listerine works, but have not tried it yet. My son says he read that catnip oil works 10 times better than Deet. Personally I can't stand the smell of Deet.

Sorry I don't know about repellents but if you're bitten by no-so-ums use preparation H on the bite to stop the itch.

I believe the name is "no-see-ums".....at least according to a web site I posted here recently....one could maybe say "so-and-so" as well.....

Start with the Original Flavor Listerine mouth wash =

Works -

Never knew why.

spray bottle - spray around area / tables etc.

rcb

OK. Exactly what is a No-See-Um?

A Midge.

Please look at this link for further info.

So that's how my tongue got that color!!!

A no see um is a very tiny flying insect that packs a substantial bite. Some people actually get welts after being bitten. I think the term covers several species, depending where you live.

It does cover several species (I expect because they are so tiny and most people do not carry a microscope to identify them exactly when taking a walk ), but according to the link I posted, only one type actually bites......

From my experience, they are flying teeth.

for mosquitoes, i grow catnip. then have it distilled. i use both the water and the oil. it is better than deet. non toxic.

OK. This whole thread hinges on one fact - an insect's taste buds are in the bottom of their feet. No bulls#*t!!!

With that in mind, you have to develop something that either completely masks the taste of skin or put something on that tastes really bad to insects. Think that one over.

This has changed my world radically, I am not sure that I can live with this, from what you have said then we can deduce that:-

"Insects ALSO have feet that smell!!!!!!"

That was really reaching for it... Any further and you would have fallen off!!!

Hello Guest #50,

thank you for your posting. i also have been working on essential oil mosquito repellents. i had the opportunity to try it on a fairly large scale, non scientific basis. we went to the rainbow gathering 2009 in northern new mexico. just got back. while there, i promoted the vanilla mosquito repellant concept. i also provided all of the free vanilla mosquito repellant they wanted. i had it available most of the times, when i was not out having fun. the feedback results were uniformly favorable.

my "methodology" was to have available 8 oz bottles of spray applicators. talking people into trying it and asking them to report back their results. i explained to them what it was. i explained to them that my costs for the contents of the 8 oz bottle was 4 cents. i was putting approx. one half oz of vanilla extract into the bottle. that is it. filling the bottle the rest of the way with water. during the 9 days we were there and providing this, i used one quart of vanilla obtained in Laredo, tx at a cost of $4.00.

i made up approx. 60 bottles of the repellant. made it available between noon and dark 60. all of the bottles were used, as i was mixing them up as i needed them. i estimate that this provided about 2,000 applications.

some people were trying it just because of the smell. some very humorous scenes were witnessed by myself. mostly involving using it as a deodorant.

reported results were: that it worked thru out the evening. most people were out and about until midnight or 1 to 2 am. by morning the protection had disappeared, and people reported getting bitten again by mosquito's as the came out in the early am, looking for coffee and food.

one thing that i did, is that when i would talk to someone for the first time, i would try to get them to let me put the first application on. this was to insure that sufficient material was deposited on all exposed skin and hair. if not, they just were not putting enough on. results were very good.

I was told that spraying Listerine on yourself works, or Vanilla. I am going to try the Listerine next time I go outside!

Ahh! The sent of Listerine... Now that's a real date cologne!

Years ago I new an old-timer who had grown up in the backwoods in a log cabin. In the summer the windows were open day and night. I asked him how they avoided being eaten alive by mosquitos back in those days. He told me that on summer evenings his dad would set a pot of burning sulfur at each corner of the house. That effectively kept the mosquitoes away all night.

Bill Morrow

I am not sure that it was particularly good to breathe though for humans or any other life form!! The Mossies were not stupid!!!

Here is a good article for those of you interested in this topic:

http://www.livescience.com/health/080626-mosquito-control.html

An excerpt:

There are only four active ingredients currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to effectively and safely repel mosquitoes: DEET, picaridin, ir3535, and, for those who prefer a plant-based option, oil of lemon eucalyptus. Conlon said it's important to look for these ingredients because there are many mosquito repellents on the market that simply don't work.

"Popular folk remedies like garlic and Vitamin B-1 have been shown to be useless in double blind studies," he said. Others, such as oil of clove, are known repellents, but only at high concentrations that would burn human skin. "So it works, but not at the low levels used in any product. There, it just smells nice," he said.

Here's an interesting little piece of truth... If you want to reduce your incidence of mosquito bites, especially while sleeping, DO NOT EAT BANANAS!!!

Not sure why, but was told this years ago, and it does work!

Mosquitos are attracted to the potassium. So...if you substitute another form of potassium when you stop eating the bananas, you won't elimate the problem.