ST PAUL, Minn. — Mosquitos can quickly ruin your day, but with so many options to keep them away, what works and what doesn't?
Consumer Reports recently tested several mosquito repellents and remedies to keep the bugs away. Their testing process started in the lab with a handful of brave volunteers.
“It’s actually a pretty cool process,” Kevin Loria from Consumer Reports said.
“We apply the insect repellent to their arms. They wait 30 minutes and then they put their arms into a cage that has 200 disease-free mosquitos.”
The lab team counts how many mosquitos land on their arms and how many times they bite. After five minutes in the cage, the volunteers place their arms into a second cage with a different species of mosquito.
Loria says the research team will repeat this process every hour until the repellent fails. The research team also simulates sweating and physical activity by having the test subjects walk around and do physical activities.
“Because sweat and water can affect the repellent and they wanted to accommodate for that,” Loria said.
The research team tested several different types and brands of mosquito repellent, and they discovered the best performing repellents all contained one of three main ingredients.
"DEET, oil of lemon eucalyptus or picaridin,” Loria said.
At the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District (MMCD), they agree that all three offer great protection.
"One of my favorites is actually picaridin, because it works just as effectively as DEET, but it doesn't leave as much residue or as much of a smell,” MMCD spokesman Alex Carlson said.
Carlson says oil of lemon eucalyptus is a great natural option.
Consumer Reports tested several other natural repellents and most only lasted an hour or less. Testing showed that the concentration of these active ingredients also made a difference.
Consumer Reports says testing showed higher concentrations of DEET didn't offer greater protection. The optimum range of concentration for DEET products was 15% to 30%.
For products that contain picaridin, Consumer Reports say sprays with concentrations of 10% and 20% were the most effective. Consumer Reports says four products that contain 30% Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus (OLE) also performed well in their tests.
Researchers at Consumer Reports also recently tested citronella candles, personal fans that claim to keep bugs away, and bug repellent bracelets, and the lab team says none of these alternative options performed well in their testing.
"When it comes to these spatial type of products often we have found that they don't tend to do what people really want them to,” Loria said.
Bug repellent stickers are also being marketed as an alternative to bug spray.
Consumer Reports has not tested these products yet, and therefore does not have an opinion on the efficacy of these products. However, Consumer Reports did recently test rotating fans to see if they were an effective deterrent for mosquitos, and the fans did provide a significant amount of protection.
"Mosquitos are not super powerful flyers and so even just that air current can help keep them away," Loria says.
So, a rotating fan and a good bottle of bug repellent may be your best protection against the swarm.
Watch more local news:
Watch the latest local news from the Twin Cities and across Minnesota in our YouTube playlist:
WATCH MORE ON KARE 11+
Download the free KARE 11+ app for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV and other smart TV platforms to watch more from KARE 11 anytime! The KARE 11+ app includes live streams of all of KARE 11's newscasts. You'll also find on-demand replays of newscasts; the latest from KARE 11 Investigates, Breaking the News and the Land of 10,000 Stories; exclusive programs like Verify and HeartThreads; and Minnesota sports talk from our partners at Locked On Minnesota.
- Add KARE 11+ on Roku here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Roku Channel Store.
- Add KARE 11+ on Fire TV here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Amazon App Store.
- Learn more about the KARE 11+ app for Apple TV in the Apple App Store.
- Learn more about KARE 11+ here.