( Other research has found that knock downs might reduce biting rates in a specific geographical area.) The shirts we sprayed with deet didn’t cause any knock downs, however, because no bugs ever landed on them.Īnd what about ticks? Consumer Reports’ testing hasn’t evaluated how well permethrin-treated clothing works against ticks. The permethrin-treated clothing also resulted in “knock downs,” meaning mosquitoes were incapacitated or killed after contact with the clothing. “It’s like they landed on an electric grid.” Permethrin is “very irritating to ,” says Joe Conlon, a former Navy entomologist and technical adviser to the American Mosquito Control Association. A shirt we sprayed with a deet-based repellent, meanwhile, kept mosquitoes from biting and kept them from even landing, something none of the permethrin-treated clothing items did. Two types we tested kept mosquitoes from biting, but two didn’t.
Here, we’ll explain why permethrin-treated clothing might be an option you want to consider for protection against ticks and mosquitoes, how to make sure you get the best protection, and how to treat clothing with permethrin the right way.Ĭonsumer Reports has tested several brands of clothing pretreated with permethrin to find out how well they worked at stopping mosquitoes from biting. But the key, he says, is to use it correctly, which not everyone does. “If it’s used correctly, it works really well,” says Thomas Mather, Ph.D., director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease, of treating clothing with permethrin yourself. And you can do it yourself: Permethrin spray is available for consumers to buy and apply to their own clothing and gear. At least one company, Insect Shield, will treat your clothes with permethrin for you, if you mail them in. You can buy pretreated clothing from various manufacturers (especially those that specialize in outdoor gear). Permethrin-treated clothing, first developed by the military a few decades ago, has been available to consumers since 2003. (A repellent keeps bugs away a pesticide kills them on contact.) But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends another strategy on top of those two: treating your clothing with a pesticide called permethrin.