Product Review: All Natural Insect Repellent
If a product could provide relief from biting bugs while being all-natural and safe to use, it would be a boon to the sport (or almost any outdoor sport). Crocodile!® is an all natural, herbal 'bug discouragent' ointment which claims to be able to do just that. The product is new and we were sent several bottles for testing. The company is promoting the all-natural organically grown aspect and based on the reaction to DEET (the most common insect repellent ingredient) the world is ready for that.
Crocodile!® is a mixture of essential oils of plants in a base of canola. It does not contain citronella.
First things first. When first applied this stuff has a definite odor. Whether you find the odor pleasant will be a matter of personal taste, I kind of like it. The only way I can describe it is to say it smells like menthol. There is an undertone (undersmell?) of rosemary and sage (two of the ingredients) and after a short time the smell becomes virtually unnoticeable and the remaining smell seems more like drying hay which is very pleasant (to me anyway). Also it is an oil so you will want to wipe your hands after applying it. The bottle calls it a 'bug discouragement.' Whether this is different than a repellent I am not sure. The recommended procedure is to apply to the skin, then re-apply every three to five hours as needed.
How does it work? Well, for the first test I applied some to one arm and walked around a mosquito-infested area. The difference was definite. The mosquitoes avoided the arm with Crocodile!® and wen for the unprotected arm almost every time. Proof to me that it is better than bare skin.
Next I applied some commercial insect repellent containing DEET to one arm and Crocodile!® to the other and repeated the test. After about 15 minutes I had several mosquito bites on my unprotected neck and none on either arm. OK, slap some Crocodile!® on my neck and try again. This time, with only Crocodile!® protected skin or DEET protected skin, the bugs tended more toward the Crocodile!® areas than the DEET areas, but to my surprise it really did seem to be working. The bugs generally stayed away. A later test on a fishing trip showed the same thing. Crocodile!® works, not as well as my 100% DEET product, but pretty well. This made me think of another test.
Some people use Avon Skin So Soft as a bug repellent and Off has a product called Skintastic for kids without any DEET. A quick trip to my closet turned up both products. I tried them each along with Crocodile!® and found that Crocodile!®, in my admittedly unscientific testing was just as good as either product, plus, in my opinion it smells better. Bottom line, if you would like to patronize companies that make natural products, that use organically grown products, or just don't want to use chemicals on your skin, Crocodile!® provides a very good degree of insect protection compared to other products without DEET.