Every summer sees the perennial pursuit of effective personal protection against insect pests, primarily mosquitoes, both above and below the equator, and in tropical areas the year round.
There is no shortage of insect repellents, in their various forms, on the market.
You can get your repellent in the form of slow-burning coils, sprays, topical lotions, slow-burning coils, or transdermal patches.
And, if you are like most people, it is not good enough for the particular product to work; you also want it to be easy and safe to use.
Mosquito coils (made popular in the 50s and 60s when they were sold at drive-in theaters) are fairly effective when they are fuming but they have some definite drawbacks.
The active ingredients in coils are pyrethrins (a common compound in professional insecticides) which are vaporized when the coil is set afire and hang in the air to drive off mosquitoes.
The pyrethrins in coils have been known to cause headaches in some users but it is the other components of the coil, mainly the binders, dyes, and additives that enable the coil to smolder, which have been blamed for severe upper respiratory inflammation and possible long term carcinogenic effect.
Probably more widely used are sprays and lotions, with active ingredient DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide) or another vegetal repellent, such as citronella.
These products are easily obtained from supermarkets, drugstores, and outdoors enthusiast outlets, as well as other retail businesses.
Recently, DEET has come under some scrutiny for safety concerns, and citronella has been reported to have precipitated remedial skin irritations in some people.
Because it is not advisable to apply DEET or citronella based products to the skin of younger children, there are obvious usage limitations for insect bite protection on family outings.
Even if coils, sprays, and lotions were completely free of possible harmful effects, the fact that they require repeat applications to maintain effectiveness would make them less than convenient.
And with coils, the user has to make sure they continue to smolder until they are completely consumed in order to enjoy their repellent properties and to get maximum usage.
DEET-based sprays and lotions will last 4-8 hours before a reapplication is required, whereas the citronella-based versions have to be reapplied every 30 minutes at the least or hourly at the most.
Frequent re-application can become a real damper on your enjoyment of the outdoors.
Keeping yourself covered, however, is much preferable to being caught miles away from your car with an exhausted application of insect repellent.
Another burden that comes with the effective use of sprays and lotions is the need to cover yourself completely and methodically.
repellent applied in a slapdash manner is as good as useless since foraging female mosquitoes are remarkably adroit at locating the unprotected areas of your skin! Add to that the often yucky smell of these sprays and lotions, and the feeling of stickiness an application invariably imparts, and neither product looks very good when compared to other alternatives.
One such alternative is the transdermal patch which, in contrast to coils, lotions, and sprays, capably protects you from biting insects while neither adversely affecting your health nor requiring frequent reapplications.
Patches introduce a natural insect-repelling substance into your circulatory system so that it is distributed evenly throughout your epidermal tissues, leaving absolutely no unprotected areas.
MosquitoPatch is the most effective transdermal patch that endures for 24-36 hours.
Visit mosquitopatch.
healthsuperior.
com to read how it works.