Nick Reiter wrote: > > Where I live (North-West Scottish Highlands) the deaded Highland midge is > the scourge of the land. The only repellent I have ever found to help is, > in fact, not a repellent at all. It is a product made by Avon (the cosmetics > firm not the inflatable rafts!) called "skin so soft". I was introduced to > it by a friend who was police sergeant based in Kyle / Plockton. We used it > when we went mountain biking. It's sligthly oily and makes you smell like > the waiting room in a brothel (so I've been told - I wouldn't know, honest) > but the stuff really does make a difference. What seems to happen is that > the midges land on you, try to bite but the "skin so soft" seems to kill > them - maybe it clogs them up, or maybe the perfume does for them. We would > return absolutely palstered with dead midges, but without a single bite. I > don't know whether it would work against mosquitoes or blackfly, but it's > worth a try - hell, ANYTHING is worth a try against those little devils. > > Nick Yes, Skin So Soft is very good at repelling blackflies. Dead coho salmon wash up on the shores of Lake Michigan and they attract lots of blackflies. When you stop on the beach for a break you are quickly attacked and bitten by them. And they follow you into your boat. SSS washes off in water, so if you apply it to your feet and step in the water getting in or out of your boat, it will wash off and the blackflies will bite you. I haven't had as good of luck with SSS against mosquitoes. Maybe I was sweating and it was rinsing off. The active ingredient in SSS masks the smell of some chemical your body gives off so insects can't detect you. You are basically invisible to them. Once I was at an outdoor party and everyone was getting eaten up by mosquitoes but me. I attributed it to my eating heavily garlicked homemade spaghetti sauce for the previous two days. -Bob Matter Hammond, Indiana *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Apr 10 2001 - 09:32:28 PDT
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