Sunday, September 13, 2009

Mosquito Repellent Experiment Installment 2

Is garlic an effective mosquito repellent? The short answer, "hells no!"
The long answer is, of course, a bit more complicated. If you read the first installment, you might have recalled I am the lifeblood of mosquitoes. They travel across miles of country to taste my blood. So, I figure if garlic works for me, it works for everyone. But, by the tools of logic, I deduce that if it doesn't work for me, it might still work for humans that are less than magically-delicious.

The hypothesis: Garlic is a mild mosquito repellent.
The experiment:A very tasty human will eat loads of garlic, allow 5 hours for digestive processing, and venture outside for 30 minutes.
For breakfast: a garlic bagel, 3 cloves of roasted garlic, 3 garlic pickles, garlic chive cream cheese
For lunch: and toast with roasted garlic spread on it like butter, more garlic pickles, another clove for good measure.
For snack just prior to outing: a small slice of margherita pizza smeared with minced garlic.
The family notices, and appropriately mocks her. Time to go outside. With stinky skin and breath, another 30 minutes in the mosquito habitat.

The result: 11 mosquito bites. At least 7 mosquitos died during this experiment. (This is about normal. Also, I tried really hard not to kill any, to preserve the sanctity of science, but instinct takes over, and I become a crazed mosquito death machine.)
The conclusion: Garlic may be a mild deterrent. Further testing necessary.

Takin' it up a notch, a la mythbusters: Allowed for mosquitos to get back to normal, as in to stop being frenzied by my presence, for about an hour.
The variable: With no one home to mock me, I feel free to indulge and go all out, my left arm and leg get spread with minced garlic and some garlic pickle brine. I then brush off the bits, cuz they feel weird. Even my garlic bombarded nose is offended by my left side.
The control: The right side gets the same treatment with a 15% DEET spray.
We know 40% DEET is a very effective repellent. 15% should also repel, but likely in less degree. Maybe some skin will remain unbitten. I left the central areas untreated. Smelling like a zombie, trudged back to the garden, but being out of "gardening" I just read a book and killed mosquitos for 30 minutes in the garden.

The results: 6 dead mosquitos.
The garlic side:4 new bites (since it is less than half the "testing" area, this works out to the same average # of bites per square inch of skin as just eating garlic.
The DEET side: 2 new bites, and watched a reluctant hoverer go for it and try to bit my forearm. He met his death.

So, since each of these new results is only on about 40% of the area as the first 2 tests, the garlic spread side had about the same # of bites per area as just eating garlic, and more than using 40% DEET. The 15% DEET side had obviously fewer than the garlic spread side, more than just eating garlic, and more than 40% DEET.

Conclusions:DEET works better in higher concentrations, but garlic does not provide an appreciable deterrent to mosquitos.

I may be sueded to retry in the interest of science, ya know repeatability and standard deviation and all that jazz, but as I like my skin, I will have to think about it, and at very least let it heal a bit. However, if anyone wants to be a subject, I would love to hear your results.

Next time I'd like to try catnip, as rumors suggest its better than DEET, but I need to find some first.