Skin So Soft

[Buanán]

Another observation is wearing tweed or tight nit wool on the outer layer. The midge has more to dig herself into with wool and can stay preoccupied far longer than they do on non hairy garments. Works with ticks too, they just keep digging to the lining and thats them stuck  :

Any safe to use oil works well too. It doesn't repel them but they can't break the surface tension of the oil on the skin, also why not washing works well and why the eskimos can handle the summer tundra, as they have a very high oil diet eating lots of blubber, midge, mosquito, sand birch & black fly heaven, or hell depending on your perspective.

Discover this when I worked at the fishing where not washing for a week (well, always washed the feet and knackers everyday, changing socks and trollies daily too) was a regular occurrence. Once made the mistake of going to the Mallaig fisherman's mission for a shower during a short break when mending a blootered net on the pier. From being not too bothered to being eaten alive in 15 mins, the only thing that had changed was my cleanliness. Didn't make that mistake agin, once bitten, and all that  :lol:   

[Buanán]

Get the oil and make up your own.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bog-Myrtle-Essential-Oil-10ml/dp/B004613MEK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339407763&sr=8-1

Thats what the guys who worked in the wood did years ago, some of them and some estate workers still do. Everybody had their own formulas, baby oil being the base oil, often it was just a bottle of baby oil with a few drops of diesel mixed through. But it's the oil that does it.

Thanks for the link Sandy, and Otter Spotter; thats the very gear 

[east wind]

When an attack force or two got into my tent recently I sprayed the canvas with SSS above the tent lamp which was also where my head, and consequently my breathing was. Huge numbers of deid midges stuck to the canvas next day.

[Otter Spotter]

Dont you have a bio by product that may be of use as a base?

Up at Torridon on the weekend, Scott offered me some of his Bog Myrtle Stop Bite... I was using SSS (& have been for yrs) so I did the Pepsi / Coke challenge and sprayed the back of my left hand with the Bog Myrtle while the right hand got SSS... Gave it 5 mins and have to say the results were quite astounding; the Bog Myrtle had next to no midgies at all - while the SSS had plenty - but fair enough they were probably stuck in the SSS surface oil - but given a choice now, I'd probably buy this Bog stuff if I saw it for sale  (might have seen it at Uig ferry port on Skye a few yrs ago, next to the head nets...
  Curious about making my own though - The pure oil is available from the same folks on Amazon - on Ebay but cheaper: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bog-Myrtle-Essential-Oil-100-Pure-10ml-/220953486969?pt=UK_Health_Beauty_Natural_AlternativeTherapies&hash=item3371daa679

I used to sell pure essential oils in a former life, I vaguely remember that they can be dissolved in an alcohol when made into a spray; otherwise you have to mix them with a base oil - but you'll get a very oily skin going that way... Now then, what about 'Surgical Spirit' (aka ethyl alcohol-isopropyl ) - that should be safe enough to rub on the skin... I see some experiments coming up... Maybe Fred can stock a WFF Midge repellent... just need to get the mixture right... 

E.

[Wildfisher]

I see some experiments coming up... Maybe Fred can stock a WFF Midge repellent... just need to get the mixture right... 

Any chance of developing  a salmon fisher repellent? I'd certainly stock that.  :lol:

[Otter Spotter]

I have methanol - which is an alcohol sure enough; but its seriously nasty stuff & you'd not only kill midgies after a while of applying it! I think the ethyl alcohol route is a safer one...
Otherwise the only by products are soap & glycerol and they'd be of little use...
E.

I was thinking bog myrtle soap and if all else fails add a little nitro to the glycerol whilst drinking the meths 

[Inchlaggan]

as it happens... I can make nitro... (shadows of a former life...)  and nitrocellulose...  : but these are a little drastic as midge repellants...

E.

Work pretty well with salmon fishers though, which is what Fred wants to stock.......

[Spindrift]

For what its worth I still swear by Autan...the only stuff I find that works - I react badly to midge bites these days so I appreciate the longer lasting effect.  Have to confess I have never actually used SSS  :roll:   Definitely wouldn't use Methanol which is toxic and is absorbed via the skin!

Cheers all..nice to see the forum is going well still...been a while since I dropped in.

[the_beach_caster]

Just as a wee aside regarding the SSS.

Just found out that AVON supplies this stuff to the Army apparently.

Now as an ex-jock I have nightmares regarding the mozzie repellant they used to issue us , I remember using it once and accidentally dripping some of it onto my SA80 plastic stock and green rubbery butt piece.

The next day it coloured and visibly reacted with the plastic and the rubber was pitted.  :shock:
But it left the barrel and metal parts nice and shiny  .

Dont know if its the same stuff we used in the 90s though.

[Allan Crawford]

I and others where I stay (Dornie) have started thinking that SSS is not that good ( better than nothing), in the last year Smidge has got popular in the shops around us and I find it better.
Also agree with the not washing, went to a wedding dance in a marque last time home, all washed up with kilt on and got bitten too pieces, had to go to the car and put the smidge on which helped alot. Drink probably helped most folk but I had my daughter to look after and take home so was sobber. Now that I come to think about it, my daughter who is 2 survived better than me, could this be to do with the fact that we usually dont use much soap in her bath and I used some sort of shower gel ?