Essential Oils: Mosquito Repellent Study, 2-4 hr Coverage

This is rather cool that 2-4 hrs mosquito repellency occurred with 4 essential oils.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16041723?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2....


Phytother Res. 2005 Apr;19(4):303-9.Click here to read Links
Comparative repellency of 38 essential oils against mosquito bites.
Trongtokit Y, Rongsriyam Y, Komalamisra N, Apiwathnasorn C.

Department of Medical Entomology, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.

The mosquito repellent activity of 38 essential oils from plants at three concentrations was screened against the mosquito Aedes aegypti under laboratory conditions using human subjects. On a volunteer's forearm, 0.1 mL of oil was applied per 30 cm2 of exposed skin. When the tested oils were applied at a 10% or 50% concentration, none of them prevented mosquito bites for as long as 2 h, but the undiluted oils of Cymbopogon nardus (citronella), Pogostemon cablin (patchuli), Syzygium aromaticum (clove) and Zanthoxylum limonella (Thai name: makaen) were the most effective and provided 2 h of complete repellency.From these initial results, three concentrations (10%, 50% and undiluted) of citronella, patchouli, clove and makaen were selected for repellency tests against Culex quinquefasciatus and Anopheles dirus. As expected, the undiluted oil showed the highest protection in each case. Clove oil gave the longest duration of 100% repellency (2-4 h) against all three species of mosquito. (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PMID: 16041723 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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