Last year I made a bug repellant for work. Try to keep the mosquitoes from eating me. Used mainly citronella oil for it and when I went outside, I got raped by mosquitoes.. worse than any other time. So I stopped using it. So this year I'm tick bait. I have to walk through a lot of dry leaves and grass and the ticks hop on. I put straight citronella oil on my shoes and legs and haven't been getting as many ticks, barely.. which is cool. But the mosquitoes.. god damn. Sitting outside for lunch, I watch as one lands on my shoe, right beside where I dropped the oil. I killed it and a couple minutes later another lands right on the drop.. So I'm thinking, these jerks evolved to be attracted to citronella rather than repelled, maybe. It just seems odd that when I use citronella, I actually get bit more by mosquitoes. That'd be crazy if that's the case.. here we are thinking we're repelling them when all we are doing is lighting up the runway for them..
An old military trick, for keeping ticks from attaching, was to wear panty hose while on woods maneuvers. I always used Cutters for mosquitoes and midges.
I lived in SW Florida and have been camping in the Everglades so I feel your pain with those fuckers. I would not dare to walk 3 feet away from the fire which seemed to be the only thing that kept them away
My wife had horses for some years, and of course flies were always a problem. Citronella only worked in the short term, and ended up as a fruity coating that I think flies found attractive. MelT
Lol, I considered that once.. but I can't stand tight fitting clothes. I heat up pretty fast, usually find me wearing shorts when it's 50 and above. There are times where I take my shoes off though and they're trying to bite me through my socks. I like wearing shorts though cause I can feel them crawling on my leg, usually. Knowing my luck, I wouldn't feel them with panty hose and they'd just make their way up my body. Most times when I find them crawling on me, they're making a mad dash up. Fuckers can more pretty quick at times. I heard they're pretty bad down there too. Lol, just don't use any citronella.. I have a few different kinds of oils to try out and see if any of them work. Peppermint, basil, and thyme seems bout useless against them too. Ticks, mosquitoes, and flies are about the only insects I'll kill without thought. Hell, I went to war with the flies at my old job last year. I'd go out for a smoke and just go to town, leaving tons of dead flies all over the place. I liked to be in my own lil world at work, half the time people couldn't find me, but they could tell I was there by looking at the carnage. I made stuff to spray on them too, but I rotated what I used. Lemongrass and peppermint sends them into a flurry. Citronella was bout pointless cause they had horses there too and they overused it.
I don't even know what to say to that.. lol, but most bugs that like to feed on humans are attracted by our scent, our pheromones.
Lol, although the body produces chemicals that they are attracted to, it also creates chemicals that repel bugs. Using the chemical in bug spray has potential.
You're going to have to provide an article on the human body producing chemicals that repel bugs.. cause I've never heard that outside over eating foods that bugs don't like so the scent gets in your skin.
If it's good enough to fool a Predator, then it might be worth a shot.. It's bittersweet really. There's only a couple insects I don't enjoy the company of, so I can't let the jerk bugs sway me away from the not-so-jerk bugs.. I'd say once a week I make a new bug friend, some lasting longer than others. Once had a katydid land on my shoulder at work and just chilled on me for hours. It was weird cause I had a black shirt on, so it's not like it was trying to find a place to hide. Would wander around on me, then just sit there, move to a new spot, sit there, then it flew off never to be seen again.. felt so abandoned
I once had a strange katydid moth looking thing chilling on my glasses, but I got scared and threw my glasses at a door. That probably describes most of my interactions with bugs.
Fuck that, I'll love it when it gets the fuck out of my face. I would avoid kiling it though. Unless it's in my house... actually I would probably get it outside without harming it.
I would have bought myself some lab-grade totally synthetic insect repellant the week before I went to wherever the fuck you live. Hate mosquitoes, never want to know what a tick is like...