Mosquito Patch Keeps The Insects Away For 36 Hours
Posted May 15, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There are a lot of great things about summer.
The scourge of mosquitoes isn’t one of them.
If you’ve battled the bugs at some point in the warm season of the year, you’ve probably tried just about everything to keep them off you, including spray containing DEET.
But now there’s a new product you can put on that’s not toxic in any way, doesn’t really smell and claims to be able to keep the pesky pests away from you for up to 36 hours.
It’s a vitamin B1 patch you wear on your arm. It was developed at the University of Guelph and while it’s not as effective as DEET, it works pretty well.
“It absorbs into the skin and it comes out through your pores and it makes you distasteful to mosquitoes,” explains James Krane of the product Insect Defend.
“It’s safe for children right down to one-year-old and it’s great for kids because … they’re in the water, out of the water and you don’t have to keep re-applying because Health Canada says don’t apply DEET more than twice a day to children.”
His wife Leanne, the president of the Milton Horticultural Society, tested out the patch as she was working in her garden. She gives it a green thumb’s up. “The mosquitoes kind of fly around you but they don’t want to land on you,” she relates.
The patch remains effective for 36 hours and unlike DEET, you can’t sweat it off. “The more you’re perspiring, the better it works which is the opposite of every cream and spray on the market,” James explains. That also means a bonus when it comes to West Nile virus season.
A five pack of patches sell for about $6. You can find them at Europe Bound and Home Hardware stores. Find out more about product here.
