By Ian Scott

We're not talking about stopping the fish from biting. But for those of us who live in areas where mosquitoes are a real biting problem, and hate the smell of DEET, there may be another solution. On a trip to Toronto recently, I came upon a booth at City Hall, where I met with a woman selling natural products for skin and hair. The base of some of these products is neem oil. Neem oil comes from the Indian Neem Tree, which is regarded as a natural pharmacy to some. All sorts of claims are made about Neem Oil - one of which is that it repels mosquitoes. I picked up a product called "Neem Body Bar," which contains Neem Oil and Catnip, another herb that has been claimed to repel mosquitoes. The proprietor of the products originally formulated Neem Body Bar as a mosquito repellant but due to some government regulations was not allowed to use the name "repellant" in the product. So how well does it work? The other day while sitting in a back yard, we were being swarmed by mosquitoes that were biting hard. I had my Neem Body Bar with me, and decided to give it a try. I ended up rubbing the creamy mixture over all exposed skin as well as that of others who there. What happened was interesting. I watched as mosquitoes would fly towards my arm, now covered with Neem Body Bar, but then move away. They did get very close to my skin, but wouldn't bite my flesh after I had applied the Neem Body Bar. The repellent effect was not such that I didn't have mosquitoes flying around me - in fact, I could hear them buzzing around my ears, but they did not land on my ears as I had applied Neem Body Bar to them as well. In that regard, the amount of Neem Body Bar I had applied did not repel the mosquitoes completely away from my body - but it did seem to stop them from biting my exposed skin. The one thing I wasn't sure about was putting this stuff into my hair - as I was going to be travelling, I didn't want to have totally greased up looking hair and I didn't know what would happen if I used it in my hair or scalp. So the mosquitoes were into my hair - perhaps next time I'll try putting it in my hair as well. There is also citronella in the bar, and after applying, my skin and the others that I had applied it to did have a scent of citronella. This of course is more pleasant usually to the human nose than DEET. A couple of other observations: Before applying the Body Bar, I had been bitten by mosquitoes, but after applying, the normal "itch" that goes with mosquito bites was noticeably absent. As well, there was no greasy feeling on my skin after a few hours - instead, my skin felt moisturized. I had kind of hoped that Neem Body Bar would repel mosquitoes so much that they wouldn't even come close to my skin. Perhaps some additional Neem Oil might help with that, but Neem Oil itself is not really all that pleasant smelling. By the same token, I was quite pleased that the mosquitoes, even though they still would come in for the bite for blood, backed off and didn't actually bite. The body bar comes in a container similar to what you find deodorant bars in. Although it seems pricy at CDN$14.00 for 75 ml, I found that it didn't take much at all to cover exposed skin, including face, arms and legs. If you'd like to try a non-DEET product, perhaps NEEM is something for you. If you're interested in this product, take a look at it here at the Earth To Body website. Do you have any natural remedies that you use to repel mosquitoes? Talk about them in the Forum.

Previous Features

From The Bench: The Muncher is a favorite of Ian James for carp, smallies, more.    Tie This!

The Doc's Rx: Thoughts of a Chicken Rancher. Doc tells it like it is.    The Doc's Rx