I have used Avon So Soft for a few years, but what else works well?
Looking for body stuff and also whats good for putting around the tent?
Cheers 🙂
Smidge
DEET.
Nets and smoking.
a not-particularly-stiff-breeze.
Not visiting Scotland between April and October
Careful wth DEETn- it's an excellent solvent, wrecks clothes and paint, and stings like #%#% when you start sweating or it goes in your eyes.
Buts it's very effective...
Smidge
Running round in circles screaming and waving your arms about wildly..
Wasabi
Eat a lot of Marmite and garlic.
Nothing.
Smidge is about as effective as 50% Deet IME, but no where near as nasty. It's all I used and I'm out and about in midges all summer without too much drama.
If you're static for any length of time (camping, belaying etc), then a head net is essential.
DEET works but is pure evil stuff that eats clothes.
Avon skin so soft works for me.
smidge is good, when that fails, 100% clothing coverage of your skin including face.
They are going to be fierce this year, i go bitten a wee bit camping out south of Loch awe last week.
I've always found that Jungle Formula works and (the standard stuff) is natural. You can also get 50% DEET extra strength stuff.
Winter
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try Products with picaridin as the Active ingredient
Walls, windows, doors and a roof.
NB - the doors and windows will need to be closed.
spiders
apparently bats eat the most midges.mudshark - Member
spiders
another smidge vote.
have they changed the skin so soft recipe - or are they getting used to it?
have they changed the skin so soft recipe - or are they getting used to it?
It never worked (well, maybe back in the 50's it did).
If midges were not biting you while wearing SSS, it's not because of the SSS.
Tennis Racquets.
Skin So Soft is hippy bollocks.
Skin so soft works by virtue of the midges drowning in the oily film left behind..... Presuming you didnt rub it in .it in no way repells them
I find the same things that stop me getting attacked by mozzies in africa work on the midge.
That is non scented soap , no deoderant and garlic tabs
have they changed the skin so soft recipe - or are they getting used to it?
There are several different versions of skin so soft most of them don't have any Active ingredients for bugs....
picaridin was the Active ingredient in some versions and is a v effective alternative to DEET without some of the nasty side effects.
It doesn't last as long as deet but other than that I've founnd it to be effective with midges etc
spray on factor 2 sun tan oil with a few drops of tea tree oil and a cap full of dettol repels biting insects and members of the opposite sex.
SSS worked a bit for me - as above it's not a repellant though. Smidge is by far the best thing I've tried.
Skin so soft as said only seems to work to the extent that it drowns the buggers.
Smidge really does work. Last year we were waiting outside for a tour of Kinloch castle on the Isle of Rum. We were wearing Smidge and the grey mist was all around us but we were not bothered at all. Other people waiting were being bitten to pieces.
Smidge is also a lot more pleasant to wear than most credible alternatives
Smidge.
Which reminds me, need to buy some more. Whatever it was that bit me on the knee on Tuesday night has left me with a swollen calf and ankle, as well as a course of antibiotics to get through.
Dog urine
Smidge has made bivvying in Scotland in summer possible.
Smidge is very good.
I'd still want a head net for any sitting about in areas with lots of midges though.
Smidge really does work. Last year we were waiting outside for a tour of Kinloch castle on the Isle of Rum. We were wearing Smidge and the grey mist was all around us but we were not bothered at all. Other people waiting were being bitten to pieces.
One of the odd things I've noticed about smidge, is that the midges still hang around and even land on you, but don't bite (especially in bad areas). It's odd at first because you tingle, expecting the bites, but they never come.
Best test for me was at glen nevis a couple of years ago. long sleeve/trousers, hood up and smidge on my face and hands.
Tried to pitch the tent in quite possibly the worst midge swarm I have ever seen. I had scores of midges hanging from my eyelids, where I couldn't put smidge. Then, once in the tent, I had a huge red ring around the bottom of my back where my top had ridden up whilst pitching. Not a single bite on my hands or face though (well, other than my eyelids!).
Get a midge catching machine then make burgers out of them. No idea what they'd taste like but seen a tribe on telly doing this with swarming insects.
A good thick layer of goose fat solves most of life's problems I've found.
Rookie mistake, always spray around around your waist line! Agree about them still swarming you though, they do, but least they don't bite.peterfile - Member
Then, once in the tent, I had a huge red ring around the bottom of my back where my top had ridden up whilst pitching.
Tried to pitch the tent in quite possibly the worst midge swarm I have ever seen. I had scores of midges hanging from my eyelids
That doesn't sound like my idea of fun.
Smidge has transformed summer up here.
Avon just drowns the beggars one at a time it seems.
Anything with deet/monster chemicals in burns my poor gentle skin and only lasts a couple of hours.
Smidge just works, and for a long time.
Sit on the beach with an offshore wind.
Or buy a boat and admire the Scottish countryside whilst afloat
Love from Ayrshire
Smidge just works, and for a long time.
How much do you need to use?
Just a sm...
IGMC 😀
Considering camping around Argyll/Loch Fyne and the Western Highlands sometime June/July - how bad is it likely to be? Worth putting off the trip or just go for it? Have survived South Florida but it took a loooong time for the buzzing blighters to go off me.
[i]Nothing[/i] really works, but the tantalising possibility that [i]something[/i] might torments us as we scratch furiously.
🙂
Malvern, in all honesty, not coming to Scotland because of midges is like not going to New York because you dont like hotdogs.
Get some smidge and you'll be fine. Honestly.
Some of us manage camping in the NW every weekend (heck, some of us even work outside!) without much more than a few sweary words now and then.
Midges don't like direct sunlight, wind or smidge. You'll almost always have at least one of those at your disposal.
Folks say Skin So Soft doesn't work, I did some Science and put some on one arm not the other while camping in midge hell at inverarnan, left me in no doubt at all that it works, they still landed on both arms but they bit the **** out of the un-lubed arm... Also, you can combine it- SSS then a spray of some evil chemical over the top.
[quote=Northwind ]Folks say Skin So Soft doesn't work, I did some Science and put some on one arm not the other while camping in midge hell at inverarnan, left me in no doubt at all that it works, they still landed on both arms but they bit the **** out of the un-lubed arm... Also, you can combine it- SSS then a spray of some evil chemical over the top.
It does work - if applied liberally and often. As you've spotted, it's not actually a repellant, it's a barrier.
The downside of SSS is you end up with a film of dead midges up your arms and legs.
Face net. Tuck it in.
They won't leave you alone so protect the fragile bits that get bitten anyway: ears, eyelids, nose.
Although I would no more camp in damp, overgrown vegetation next to still water in July than I would put my head in the oven.
For the campsite, we had good results with mosquito coils. The midgies may just not have been present that night, although the pitter-patter of hungry midgies against tent fabric the next morning suggests otherwise...
Whatever you think works take a net for when it doesn't.
my sweat, scientifically tested and found to repel them.