ethical finance

Incognito a 100% natural protection from moquitoes 30.06.09

incognito spray

Holiday time is upon us once again, time to pack the tent, book the train or bus and wobble off precariously off into the countryside on the bike to enjoy the wide big outdoors and dodge the dusk arrival of the bugs that bite. Anyone who has ever been camping in Scotland can tell you that midges can take all the fun out of an adventure. Luckily there is now a 100% natural, and vegan, solution to 90% of the problem.

Nothing short of living inside a thick plastic sack and breathing through a filtered snorkel is going to stop you getting bit by mosquitoes if they are around. A female mosquito is apparently able to detect her ’prey’s’ varying kairomones and carbon dioxide emissions at distances of up to a kilometer, so if there are mozzies in the area they will find you eventually.

There are a number of ways to try and avoid being bitten, or bitten a lot, as I say there a very few fail safe ways to not be bitten.

most biting insects have a particular time of the day when they are most active. Mozzies love dawn and dusk

Many biting insects find it difficult to fly in wind, mozzies and midges do, but horseflies seem to have mastered the art of finding their prey in wind. So find a spot with a breeze for the aperitif.

Rainfall defeats many- though midges seem to make it through, probably just sheer weight of numbers.

Some insects never stray far from land, midges are a case in question, a few meters out in a loch and the black clouds disappear.

Insects find you through smell, a hot and sweaty body smells delicious to your average hungry beastie, there are kairomones in perspiration so no shower dodging when you get home of an evening

A mozzie net over the bed is always a good idea, even if they don’t find you the buzz of a mossie in the bedroom can bring on a form of insanity that causes people to jump around the room naked in the middle of the night waving holiday romances madly above their heads.
Dark coloured clothing, and floral patterns seem to attract more than plain light ones, so nice light coloured organic linen- the thicker the better

Biting insects like thin skin, so wrists, ankles and hands need particular attention, either by covering or protecting with products

None of the above is going to stop them, just cut it down. The next step is chemical warfare. Modern insect repellents are just that, they cover your skin in a DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide ) based layer, which means that the insects although attracted to you find it difficult to land. Repellents with a strong DEET content do work as long as every part of your exposed body is covered 24 hours a day. One other problem with DEET, apart from it being incredibly poisonous, is that it stains clothes and melts synthetic materials.

There is now however an alternative to covering yourself head to toe in poison, which you then wash off in the sea, or into the water table when you shower, or sweat off into that wonderful ecological system that you are on holiday to admire and enjoy.

Incognito works like a stealth system, it doesn’t try and repel insects, it uses natural products to mask the key smells that attracts the insects in the first place. The key ingredients in incognito are organic citronella, along with eucalyptus and camphor. The Java citronella (cymbopogan winterianus) used is only available from one tiny island in the whole world and is the most effective you can get because unlike the ordinary type insects elsewhere are not used to this most elusive of citronellas. The end result is a pleasant smelling, skin friendly product that will niether ruin your clothes nor the environment when washed off.

Because it is not glued to your skin in the same way as a chemical repellent you do have to use more regularly, the company recommends working on a formula of a bottle per adult per week, and half a bottle per child. At 7.99 a bottle incognito is a cost effective solution as well,

One thing I found was that because incognito is not chemically nailed to your body you need to respray hands after washing them, and if it hot watch for perspiration washing it off necks and heads. Other than that minor inconvenience I found incognito to be the best protection I have ever used, and as someone who once suffered from dengue I have tried most products to avoid that experience again.

If you are going to a particularly insect intense area, or just wish for as much protection and natural products then the same company produces aftersuns, 3 in 1 body and shampoos, soaps, incense sticks all based on the same approach.

The last thing is that all incognito products are also vegan, so one more gold star there.

Incognito products are available direct from their website or through many mainstream retail outlets such as Holland and Barrett, see the full list on their website.

Whether you buy their products or not, the incognito site is full of information on the hows, whys and what to do with biting insects.

Incognito e-commerce and information website

Peter Shield