What is Picaridin?

When selecting a mosquito repellent for you and your family, you have many options to choose from. One of the most widely known is DEET, although there are controversial opinions surrounding the potential adverse side effects and risks. Meanwhile, many other all-natural bug repellent alternatives like eucalyptus may not be as effective in protecting you and your children from bites. Enter picaridin: an alternative to harmful chemical mosquito repellents that's more effective than essential oils. Picaridin is a mosquito repellent that offers an effective alternative to DEET. Also known as Picaridin, a synthetic chemical is made to emulate a natural compound known as piperidine found in the common black pepper plant, among other plants. Developed in the 1980s by Bayer, a German pharmaceutical company, it wasn't made available in Europe and Australia until 1998 and became available in the US in 2005.

As a DEET-free repellent, picaridin has no odor and will not leave the skin feeling greasy. It also offers greater protection than DEET, with approximately 12 hours of protection against mosquitoes and ticks per application compared with only eight to 10 hours with DEET. In addition to providing 12-hour protection against disease-carrying mosquitos, picaridin also provides eight-hour protection against:

1. Biting flies
2. Gnats
3. Chiggers
4. No-see-ums
5. Sandflies

In so doing, picaridin bug repellents protect against vector-borne diseases, such as:
- West Nile virus
- Lyme disease
- Powassan virus
- Zika virus

Picaridin is a non-plasticizer, meaning it does not eat through plastic, rubber, vinyl, leather, auto paint, elastic, rayon or spandex. Also, picaridin is not considered a neurotoxin and only has a 6% absorption rate into the skin.

Picaridin is also an effective mosquito repellent for children. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) does not recommend using insect repellent of any kind on babies under two months old, but does recommend picaridin mosquito repellents for children older than two years of age as well as adults.

Looking for a Picaridin bug spray to try? Proven Repellent is a picaridin bug repellent that comes in both a spray and a lotion. The spray provides 12-hour protection from mosquito and tick bites. The Proven Repellent lotion provides even longer-lasting 14-hour mosquito and tick protection, and is also a preferred application for bug repellent around the face, neck, ears and for children because of the reduced inhalation risk and easy targeted application. With picaridin-based Proven Repellent, you can keep your family protected from both disease-carrying bug bites and potentially harmful chemical bug repellents like DEET.