![]() At the end of the day, wash treated skin with soap and water, and wash treated clothing in a separate wash before wearing again.Don’t use near food, and wash hands after application and before eating or drinking.Limit use on children’s hands because they often put their hands in their eyes and mouths. Instead, put it on your own hands, then rub it on. When applying to your face, spray first on your hands, then rub in, avoiding your eyes and mouth, and using sparingly around ears. Don’t apply repellents over cuts, wounds, or irritated skin.Use just enough to cover and only for as long as needed heavier doses don’t work better and can increase risks.Apply repellent only to exposed skin or clothing (as directed on the product label).Proper application and use is essential, both for maximum protection and to avoid possible side effects, including skin or eye irritation. We’re not fans of these combo products-sunscreen should be reapplied every 2 hours, which could overexpose the user to the chemicals in repellents. Our tests have shown that products with deet, in concentrations of 15 to 30 percent, are more likely to provide reliable protection.ĭon’t Use Combination Sunscreen-Insect Repellent Products Concentration and form probably explain some of that difference: High-scoring products are sprays that contain 20 percent picaridin, and the low-scoring ones contain less picaridin or come in a lotion or wipe form. Some of our top-rated products contain picaridin, but so do some of our lower-rated ones. But our tests show that these active ingredients aren’t very effective, often failing in our tests within half an hour.ĭon’t Buy Based Only on Ingredient or Concentration Several makers of “natural” insect repellents (which typically contain essential plant oils such as cedar, citronella, clove, lemongrass, peppermint, and rosemary) claim that their products can help ward off mosquitoes, including those that carry the Zika virus. ![]() We consider a failure to be a “confirmed mosquito bite”-two bites in one 5-minute session inside the cage, or one bite in each of two consecutive 5-minute sessions. Half an hour later, this procedure is repeated once, and then again once every hour after that until a repellent fails our test, or until 8 hours have passed since it was applied. The subjects then walk around for about 10 minutes, to stimulate sweating-this is to mimic a real-world setting, in which users might be active while wearing repellent. Our testers watch closely to see what happens inside the cage, and they count up every time a mosquito lands on a subject’s arm, uses its proboscis (its long mouth) to probe the skin in an attempt to find a capillary, or bites the subject’s arm and begins to feed-which the testers can tell by watching for the insect’s abdomen to turn from gray to red or brown.Īfter 5 minutes, the subjects withdraw their arms, then repeat the process by placing their arms into a second pair of cages of disease-free mosquitoes of a different species, for another 5 minutes. (The standard dose is determined from the Environmental Protection Agency’s product testing guidelines.)Īfter 30 minutes, these brave volunteers place their arms into the first two of four cages of 200 disease-free mosquitoes for 5 minutes. We begin our insect repellent tests by applying a standard dose of repellent to a measured area of skin on our test subjects’ arms.
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