On the topic of DEET(N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide) insect repellent, people have widely varying opinions of the stuff. Some regard it as liquid gold, won't leave the house without it and slather it on any chance they can get, while others won't touch it with a ten foot pole and treat it like it's nuclear waste. Myself, I am mostly middle ground. I try not to use it as much as possible since it is a nasty chemical, oily on your skin and it will even dissolve some plastics. I only use it when the bugs are completely insane such as Algonquin Park in June. Luckily at least for myself, I am not affected by mosquito bites, only the pinch when they are actually biting and them buzzing around my head is annoying. I don’t even get red bumps or itchy afterwards, let alone get a much worse blister reaction as some people do get after mosquito bites. In my opinion citronella and all other ‘natural’ DEET-free repellents don’t do a thing for bug repellency and are just a scam plain and simple. Last year in Algonquin I even tried some Insect Defend brand vitamin B / thiamine patches you apply to your skin that supposedly naturally repels insects as you excrete vitamin B through perspiration, but all it did was annoyingly make my sweat smell like Alpha Bit cereal (yes seriously), and did absolutely nothing to repel mosquitos - I was still getting eaten alive like I was a piece of steak thrown to famished sled dogs after they had run the Iditerod. So that said, I certainly don’t love DEET but I will use it on occasion.
When I use it I would prefer to use the strongest stuff I can get. In preparing to go to Borneo that definitely is the case. Unlike in Canada where mosquitos don’t transfer many diseases other than West Nile, which I personally think is much overhyped, mosquitos in the tropics have the potential to transmit a whole slew of terrible diseases, some of them being incurable and don’t even have a vaccination for. Japanese encephalitis, malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever are among some of the mosquito borne diseases and can attack either day or night. Not only that, jungle leeches are repelled and can be removed with DEET. So, I would like to have the strongest DEET available for the short period of time I’m going to be in Borneo. However, Canada decided to limit DEET products for sale to 30% DEET in 2002 due to health concerns. DEET in very rare cases has the potential to cause seizures, and there is some evidence that long term exposure to the stuff can cause insomnia, irritability and other ill effects, but again I only use the stuff when needed and for short periods of time.
Luckily you can still get 100% DEET products in the US. Canada has banned the sale of higher than 30% DEET in Canada but not the importation is my understanding. So I bought a couple bottles of the Ben’s 100 (98.1% DEET) from EBay from the US – it arrived with no problems at my house. You can only get Ben’s 30 here in Canadian stores, Muskol as well only is 30% DEET. Just thought I would share this little trick if you are looking for the strong stuff and have no qualms about using it... sparingly.
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