Best midge repellent??

Heading to Wales for a long weekend in a couple of weeks, got eaten alive last summer by the midges. What d’you recommend… Repellent, v light long sleeve layer??

Cheers.

“Smidge” is really good

High strength DEET is well proven and absolutly foul 50% plus at least

Smidge is new on the market and from my experience with it is as pretty much as good – maybe needs more careful apllication but is far far nicer to use

Nothing else is worth trying

Midge hoods are useful if you get really swarmed. mosquito coils to clear them out of your tent

Avon skin so soft works for me.

mrlugz – Member
Avon skin so soft works for me.

I’m another fan of Avon Skin So Soft.

I was at afan last weekend. Didn’t use any midge products.
They have settled down alot from a few weeks ago but I still wouldn’t camp there.
I wore a long sleeve top and full length skins over my legs. Have a buff handy to cover your neck and lower face when you stop.
The damn midges managed to find the small amount of exposed skin between the end of my long sleeve and my gloves – quite talented they are!
On a positive note the midges meant we went round skyline at a personal best for me due to not stopping at any opportunity.

Smidge is ace, having tried it for 10 days now through the worst midges up here in 3 years, it works. As TJ says, needs applying all over, but works and works a long time and works well.
I was stood on our high ropes course this week looking at 10+ guests and two instructors in midge nets – I was in t-shirt and no net and not one bite, I did work out they were getting in my helmet and so squirted some on helmet foam and it worked.
I and our guys are stocking up and waving goodbye to the skin-melting DEET stuff we used before.

Be scared – be very scared

Yep – the Avon stuff works great. Wore it in Turkey a few year ago where the hotel was by an estuary and a real mosquito haven – and we were fine. Keeps your skin nice and soft too… 😯

For sitting around enjoying a beer you don’t need the super-strength-melt-your-face DEET, just get a repellent with some DEET in it – it’s not more effective in higher concentrations, just lasts longer on the skin. if you were doing anything that meant you sweating then get the stronger stuff.

Used smidge at fort william last weekend . The midges were horrible but that worked well

Avon skin so soft is the best insect repellant you can get according to an ex royal marine I used to work with.

Used autan at fort William last week, midges were biting other people but I did not get one single bite
A lot cheaper than smidge with the same active incident

another one for Avon Skin So SOft.

remember you want the Dry Oil Spray.

and also remember it is not an anti mozzie! its just an anti midge.

Smidge + Skin So Soft FTW

Aye, Skin-so-soft can be combined with others. It’s not a repellant, it just stops them biting so much but being covered with midges is still grim. I double bag it with Jungle Formula which seems a pretty effective repellant.

Smidge seems fairly effective with low numbers of midges but it’s more like camoflague than repellant- if I’m in a cloud of midge, I still get bit because they don’t have to smell me- they just crash into me! Good stuff though, clever.

(can you combine Smidge and DEET?)

Stoner is spot on btw- not everything that people call a midge is a midge.

Lastly… If you’re somewhere really bad, get a net. You feel like an absolute spazz for the first 5 minutes til you realise everyone within a mile radius is massively jealous.

My folks (long retired) live for playing golf all over the west of Scotland, and they and all their friends all carry ‘Skin so Soft’ in their golf bags. Initially I was dismissive, maintaining that a proper, plastic melting DEET spray was best, but it works great, doesn’t melt your face, and you can stick it on babies (if you have the need).

Worked fine in the woods at Fort Bill last weekend.

Another vote for Autan; worked for me at Fort Bill last weekend.

Doesn’t seem to get mentioned often, so I suspect that many haven’t even tried it.

Have they changed the formula of Autan? We used to use it, didn’t really seem to do anything at all but that was years ago.

First line of defence – wash with simple non scented bar soap and dont use deoderant or aftershave

– cover up with clothes and a mozzie net on head

Deet on the clothes , not on your skin

Skin so soft is a placebo ime – i find it actually attracts them – they dont bite but they certanly come at me quicker

Take a sacrafice with you …..

You will be fine with avon skin so soft.It works up here in scotland(midge land)

Skin so Soft isn’t a repellent. It only works if you apply lots of it and then the greasy layer formed gums up the midge. On a really bad day, you will wipe a greasy layer of SSS/midge off you arms. there is an American version of Skin so Soft which you can buy through Amazon.com which has a repellent and a sun-block in it. I’ve used it a couple of times and it was “ok”.

High concentration DEET works but tastes foul, stings you eyes and will melt plastics (like your expensive sunnies).

Smidge definitely works as a repellent and works really well. I was able to sleep with my tent open in Glen Feshie last week despite thick clouds of midge flying around me.

It would appear that Autan shares the same active ingredient as Smidge but I’ve never found it to be of much use. Perhaps it has been re-formulated since I last tried it.

There is a suggestion that high concentrations of Vitamin B in your bloodstream work and this can be arrived at by eating Marmite – but you need to start weeks before your trip.

I pick up a 100ml bottle of ‘lifesystems’ 100+ (red label) DEET spray.

It used to come in a plastic bottle, but if you leave it on its side it will eat the way through the spray valve and leak everywhere, wrecking everything it touchs.

Just been up at fort bill for DH, and could wear shorts + tee without being bothered by them. meanwhile the 4x riders were being eaten alive inside their helmets (then had the gate fail on them and all ended up in a painful heap of midge fueled hell).

But yeah, DEET 100+, its properly rancid stuff, hours and hours later if any gets in your mouth/nose/eyes you WILL know about it. I have quite sensitive skin, and yeah, on open skin it does not do you much good, but its 5000x better than having midges bugging you all day.

Don’t get it near ANY synthetic material, even shoes, glasses, nylon, anything!
Safe to put in your hair though, I find thats the most effective place as it properly stinks out the air around you and keeps them off.

Skin so soft works so well because it’s loaded with citronella.

citronella is ineffective as a midge repellent – avon works as druidh explains above – and in back to back tests not nearly as well as Deet or Smidge

Avon Skin So Soft does not work – I got eaten alive a couple of weeks ago at Gisburn, so last week found and used my old bottle of Autan, and lo and behold no bites at all.
I reckon the people who say Avon works are the ones who don’t actually react to bites anyway.

Gorehound – Member
Skin so soft works so well because it’s loaded with citronella.

That might be true because citronella is also pish at keeping midges away.

TandemJeremy – Member
citronella is ineffective as a midge repellent – avon works as druidh explains above – and in back to back arm to arm tests not nearly as well as Deet or Smidge

FTFY

have used Skin so Soft for yrs here in west of Scotland. Converted to Smidge this year and it is much better. Autan goes on the legs when mtb’ing as it is a very good tick repelant, but haven’t found it as good for midges.

I don’t use Deet anymore, nasty stuff.

I now mostly use Prevent – it uses an extract of Chrysanthemum that repels insects and also kills them. If the little bleeders are stubborn and try to take a bite it apparently shuts down the bite reflex and then kills them. The little spray pump bottle is great for holidays and in tents as it can be used as a knock down spray.

http://www.safariquip.co.uk/all-categories/insect-protection/insect-repellent/prevent-insect-repellent-pump-spray/

If I know it’s going to be really bad I double up with Care Plus Repel-It Spray – also non-Deet but judged by the WHO to be as good as or better than Deet.

http://www.tamarackoutdoors.co.uk/PBSCProduct.asp?ItmID=9070751&AccID=67222&PGFLngID=1

Care Plus Repel-it, Smidge and Autan all use the same active ingredient, so will work equally well.

jungle formula sensitive skin works well also see if you can get hold of a midgie jacket (it zips right over your head

Cheers guys, ordered some Smidge and will use long sleeves etc round the campfire.

The best deterrent by a long, long way is to stop breathing 🙂

The little buggers home in on the CO2 trail until they find the source

Glad to hear that Smidge seems to work as I’ll be trying some in the Cairngorms in a couple of weeks. Another vote for bug head net…my MLD head net was a godsend on the welsh ride thing this year. Oh, and me & a mate found Skin So Soft all but useless, whilst the two guys on deet were pretty much fine.

OK here it is:

Midges hate breeze and sunshine, which is why they bite mostly on dull, still days. They are attracted by body heat and exhaled CO2.

Anything with DEET will work fine, the difference is the dosage and the product base. Some are based on very sticky materials and will feel unpleasantly tacky on your skin. When travelling overseas I use the Boots roll-on mossie repellent in a yellow bottle, it works well. However if you apply DEET to your skin it comes out in your urine for a day or two afterwards.

Avon Skin so Soft works but it has a strong odour, nobody knows why it works (not even Avon) and my belief is that the strong green ferny smell confuses the midges. Also possible that some citrus molecules in the perfume may mimic citronella oil.

Citronella works but evaporates within about 30 minutes off the skin.

Around the campsite you can’t beat mosquito coils, set a couple upwind and allow the smoke to hang around the tent and you’ll be bothered much less.

Midges hate breeze and sunshine, which is why they bite mostly on dull, still days.

You forgot the bit about it only being the female that bites, when ready to mate. 😉
And please can you tell our local midges about not liking sunshine, that frost is meant to kill them, that rain is meant to keep them on the floor and breezes over 4mph means they should hit the deck, not shoot the breeze till they splat into you to bite please.

I think there’s a lot of midges haven’t been told about the hating sunshine and breezes thing!

they were even out in the rain today at fort bill , savage in the car park