Sandflies Mozzies - Good Protection

Oils such as baby oil, dieseline etc will work to a certain extent but you have to apply them frequently to keep a good cover on the skin – but this also comes off on your clothing and bedding and doesn’t suit everybody.

DEET based repellent creams and lotions are used by the American and Australian armies at about 40% concentration. It’s a very safe chemical and has been around for over 50 years.

DEET in the cream form, rather than spray cans, is best and the stronger it is the longer it lasts (it doesn’t kill the sandflies or mozzies – just repels them).
80% DEET cream has a life of 12 to 15 hours so it needs to be applied twice a day.

Never put sunscreen over the repellent as it only masks it – put your sunscreen on first, let it dry and apply the repellent on top.
If you do get bitten the first thing to do is to deaden the bite with a local anaesthetic such as Lignocaine (so that you don’t scratch and cause infection) and then if you get an allergic reaction to the bite, take antihistamine tablets.

The strongest chemicals I’ve found are as follows:
DEET cream at 80% is available direct from BUSHMAN at about $100 a litre.
Lignocaine 5% cream in the form of Itcheze Plus Cream is available from some online Queensland Pharmacies at about $13 per 50 gram tube.

PS: I am a West Aussie who spends a lot of time at Port Smith – the mozzie capital of WA - but I have to admit I can’t get the 1 litre DEET or the Itcheze, anywhere but online from the Banana-benders.

Regards Dennis