Fleas use their strong back legs to jump on the “host” (your dog) and then bite the animal. Dogs can catch fleas from other furry friends, or from the environment. It’s just that permethrin breaks down on your skin after 15 minutes, according to its manufacturer, so spraying it on your body rather than your clothes leaves you vulnerable.Dogs & other warm-blooded animals are especially prone to catching fleas in warm-weathered climates or during the summer months when air temperatures and humidity levels are high. That’s not because permethrin is unsafe in fact, the concentration of permethrin on pretreated clothing is “well below what the EPA calls the daily dermal, no-observable-effect level,” says Mather, meaning it’s functionally nontoxic. Spraying your sneakers or hiking boots before going into the woods is another solid tick-prevention technique, as is spraying gardening gloves, pants, shorts, and T-shirts.īut avoid applying it directly to your skin. But unlike pretreated clothing (which can be washed over and over and retain its tick-repelling ability), clothes you’ve sprayed with permethrin lose their ability to kill ticks after about six weeks or six washes (whichever comes first). “For tick repellent for myself and my field crew, we soak our clothes in permethrin and allow them to dry before wearing them,” says Williams. You can treat your own clothing (and camping gear like tents and backpacks) with permethrin using a spray. Instead, they’ve crawled all the way up your body.”Īctive ingredients: 0.5% permethrin | Safety: EPA registered | Efficacy: 6 washes “If they get to the top of your head, it’s not that they fell out of a tree. Mather, director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease and its TickEncounter Resource Center. A proper tick check starts with examining your feet then onto armpits, wrists, knees, and, yes, groin. Whatever products you’re using, Jeffrey Hammond of the New York State Department of Health’s public-affairs office recommends doing “a final full-body tick check at the end of the day and also checking children and pets” in order to protect against ticks and tick-borne illness. And as for furry friends, I took note of which products were best for long- and short-term use. For pesticide-treated clothing, I noted how many washes an item can withstand before its efficacy wears off. I also considered natural tick repellents such as lemon eucalyptus oil.įor tick repellents, I looked at how long products retain their tick-defying powers before reapplication is necessary and whether their efficacy is affected by the use of additional topical body products like sunscreen. Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Our experts say the best topical repellents use either DEET or picaridin as their primary ingredient when it comes to pesticides, they all recommended clothing treated with permethrin (the same chemical used in delousing shampoos like Nix), which acts as a “tick-killing agent,” according to Dr. Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.Īccording to Molaei, there are generally two types of chemicals that serve as the first line of defense against ticks: repellents, which can be applied directly to the skin, and pesticides, which can be applied to clothing. Experts told me that the best topical repellents use either DEET or picaridin as their primary ingredient when it comes to pesticides, they all recommended clothing treated with permethrin (the same chemical used in delousing shampoos like Nix), which acts as a “tick-killing agent,” according to Dr. According to Molaei, there are generally two types of chemicals that serve as the first line of defense against ticks: repellents, which can be applied directly to the skin, and pesticides, which can be applied to clothing.
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