Anybody using Picaridin?

Picaridin is supposed to be an alternative to DEET. Anybody tried it out? Cutter uses it in some of their repellants. Their website however does not say what percentage of the chemical is active ingredient. If picaridin is as good as some people say, I would love to find a 100% version of it, mix it with Ben's 100% DEET, and use that as my repellant of choice.

Comments?

oldfogie said:

Picaridin is supposed to be an alternative to DEET. Anybody tried it out? Cutter uses it in some of their repellants. Their website however does not say what percentage of the chemical is active ingredient. If picaridin is as good as some people say, I would love to find a 100% version of it, mix it with Ben's 100% DEET, and use that as my repellant of choice.

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IIRC, Consumer Reports reports that 7% picaridin is equivalent to ~30% DEET. Info can be found in the EPA factsheet: http://www.epa.gov/opprd001/factsheets/picaridin.pdf

I have tried it--seemed to work against mosquitoes.

Cutter Advanced is 7% picaridin and Cutter Advanced Outdoorsman is 15%. (Info from REI website.)

It appears that picaridin must be dissolved in a solvent for use on skin. If this is true, it cannot ever be 100%. And the safety of high concentrations must be established befor they become available to the public. It would also be helpful if stronger concentrations were shown to be better than weaker ones--stronger concentrations increase the risk of problems. (Picaridin shows some toxicity to fish.)

DEET is a solvent and therefore can be delivered in 100% concentraion. I have no idea if picaridin can be dissolved in DEET and if mixed it is possible that they might react with and destroy one/each other. It would also need to be demonstrated that the mixture is better than either one alone.

DEET dissolves some plastics, picaridin does not--the mixture would likely also damage some plastics.

Doug

Works great for me, though it wears off perhaps just a bit faster than DEET. I like how it doesn't dissolve things, and doesn't repel humans as much.

Weatherman