- Hi, I'm Parris, here to talk to you
about insect repellents.
Not the most exciting topic but this year,
I think it's one you may really want to
pay attention to.
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- Last night, I was out, watering the garden.
I got my first mosquito bite of the year
which means it's time to start using these repellents.
Now, Consumer Reports did a study
of top mosquito repellents and how well
they work against the Aedes mosquito,
that's the type of mosquito that carries
Zika virus, West Nile virus, Dengue Fever,
a whole bunch of scourges of mankind
and so because it's a public service type thing,
they actually released the results of those publicly,
you don't have to subscribe to get those results.
And I'll put a link to that right down below this video.
Based on Consumer Reports ratings,
I went out and bought the top three mosquito repellents.
They're each different from one another.
You have your traditional DEET repellent.
For people who have concerns about the safety of that,
especially putting it on their kids,
there's a Picaridin type repellent,
which I'm also supposed to work very well.
Endorsed by fishermen, and they should know
about getting mosquito bites.
The one that we've used most is this one,
it is a lemon eucalyptus, which you would think,
well, it doesn't have any really strong chemical.
How's that gonna repel the mosquitoes?
When we went to the fair a few weeks ago,
my daughter got a little bit of this in her eye,
or she rubbed it into her eye, and I got a little
bit of it in my mouth, and I can tell you,
if mosquitoes have any effect from this like we do,
I understand why they wouldn't bother to
stay around and bite you.
So these are the Consumer Report's top three
mosquito repellents, especially for the type
of mosquito that carries those viruses.
I'll have again the link to the report about these
down below the video.
Also, a link to each of these three.
A couple of them were really hard to track down,
and I'll tell you briefly about my experience
with mosquito borne viruses, and why I think
you really do need to take the warnings
this year seriously.
Before saying anything medical, I will tell you
I am not a doctor, I am not a scientist but I do
have some first hand experience because
my daughter was infected by West Nile virus
about 10 years ago now,
and most people who were infected by it
when it was spreading very rapidly,
didn't even know.
They thought they had some virus,
maybe they had a fever, felt like they had the flu,
went away after a few days.
But a small percentage, about one out of every
hundred to 150 people who were bitten
by that mosquito and contracted West Nile virus,
the virus was able to pass through the blood-brain
barrier and get in to do things in your brain
and in your spinal cord, and in her case,
it attacked the motor nerves that led to her
right arm and left her arm completely paralyzed.
Did some other upper body weakness things as well,
which, through a year of physical and occupational
therapy, she was able to recover a lot from,
but her right arm remains paralyzed and they
don't have a fix for that.
You may remember 10, 12 years ago,
that West Nile virus was big in the news
because it spread very quickly because people
didn't have any immunity to it.
It had come across from Africa,
and now we have the Zika virus doing the same thing,
which has spread so quickly through
Central and South America and now that
mosquito season is starting here in the North,
it's possible that we'll see a wide spread
outbreak of it here as well.
Now, with the West Nile virus, if you were
going to have the symptoms like my daughter had,
they showed up within a couple weeks after
you were infected so
if it was going to happen, it was going to happen
relatively quickly.
With the Zika virus, as I'm sure you've
heard in the news, the problem is you may be
infected with it, you may not even show symptoms of it,
but if you happen to be pregnant, that it can
damage the developing brain of the child.
So that outcome has the potential to be very tragic.
In addition, there are some reports, they're still
working on this, of people who've had
immediate neurological effects from Zika virus as well.
So, it's not something that you want to take lightly.
Not something that you would want to say,
well, I'm a guy or I'm not of child-bearing age,
I don't have to worry about it.
I think everyone should be worrying about it.
There is no vaccine against it.
There's really nothing you can do except
try to limit your exposure to mosquitoes.
Keep the mosquitoes out of your neighborhood
as much as you can.
Don't leave the standing water, all of those
typical rules, but your best defense is going to
be diligence when you go out to use a repellent,
so let me tell you about my experience with these three.
First of all, these all sell for about $7 to $10 but
they're tricky to find.
So your best bet might be to shop for them online.
The repellent we've been using when we've been
going out is this Repel Lemon Eucalyptus
and as I mentioned, get a little in your eye,
a little in your mouth and you'll know why
it drives the insects away.
It has a (sniffing) lemony smell to it,
not something really offensive except
hopefully to the bugs but we've used
when we went to the fair, when we went hiking,
a number of times everyone in the family
has sprayed that on and perhaps you can see,
we really haven't used much of it so for $7 or $8,
this will probably last us the year.
This is the number two rated Consumer Report
mosquito repellent.
It's rated at an 87, the number one rated is this
fisherman mosquito repellent by Sawyer.
This is a smaller version of it,
so clever, they actually made it so it had
three ounces so you could bring it on
the airplane with you.
So this is a pump, and I have not opened this one yet.
Let me see how it feels on the skin
and how it smells.
I don't think I've used this type of repellent before.
Pretty much, since my daughter had West Nile virus,
we've stuck with DEET because that one
seemed to always work the best, even though
I know some people are concerned about
other effects that can have on you.
(spraying)
(sniffing)
Boy, you wouldn't even know you're wearing anything.
The smell is so faint.
It just feels like water, really.
A little bit stickier.
I'm not going to taste it.
So, if you don't want to go with DEET,
this is actually the number one rated one
by Consumer Reports both in the effectiveness
of keeping the mosquitoes away and in the
number of hours that it remains effective on your skin.
I think all of these are six to eight hours
and then you need to reapply them.
Now, if you want to go with DEET because
you know it works, this is the highest
rated one that Consumer Reports checked.
It's 15% DEET, 15% is supposed to be
enough to do the job.
Let's see what this one smells like.
(spraying)
If you like the aerosol better.
That's not bad, I could use it as an aftershave
but it's burning my skin right now, I can tell you.
With the fan on low, I'm guessing it's the
propellant or the alcohol evaporating
that's burning skin but people can be
sensitive to this, it's better to put it on
uncovered skin and actually to put it on
the outside of your clothes.
Spray some over your pants, over your shirt,
because the bugs will bite through there.
I waited a couple minutes for this to dry,
and I can tell you they feel fine, they didn't
get sticky, there's no rash on them so you would
hardly know that you're wearing them
once they've dried.
As for buying them, that was the tricky part.
I originally went to Academy Outdoors Store
here in North Austin, and I thought, oh,
I'll find all three especially since they're
the top three rated by Consumer Reports but no,
the one that I found there was this Repel
Lemon and Eucalyptus, so then I went to REI.
REI also had this and they had the Sawyer,
the top-rated one, but they didn't have this one.
So I went online at that point.
I'm not gonna drive around town looking for this.
Target, Target has this Repel Scented Family Formula
with the DEET, but they don't have it where they
originally sent me.
The pharmacist sent me to a section of insect
repellent over by the sunscreen.
But that isn't where they keep the strong stuff.
The strong stuff, you have to go into the
camping and camping gear part of Target
and that's where I was able to find this.
Whether you go to the store to pick these up
or whether you order them online,
I just strongly urge you to get something
or take a look at that Consumer Reports list.
If there's something else you're looking for
in an insect repellent, maybe you want more DEET,
well they have some of those reviewed as well
so check that out and pick something.
Don't just assume this will all blow over
and nothing much will come of the Zika virus
in the United States.
If that happens, it would be great, but if you've
gone out and bought insect repellent and used it
very diligently, this year, this mosquito season,
at least you don't have the irritation
of all those mosquito bites to deal with,
and you can rest a little easier knowing
what you've done to reduce the chances
of something more tragic.
Hope you get outside and have a great
spring and summer.
I'll be doing more outdoor product reviews soon.
You can keep checking back for those
or you can click that Subscribe button down below
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See you on the next review.
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