incognito mosquito spray
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Ecologically sound insect repellant.
UK price: £8.99
Pros: It works, it doesn't smell horrible, feel oily or give you skin diseases
Cons: Nine quid for 100ml!
Verdict: Brilliant new product for travellers
Rating: 
Available from: www.lessmosquito.com
Product Review
I like this. It's a new rival to all those Autan-type mosquito repellants that are like smearing chip fat and toxic chemicals all over your body. This one is supposedly 100% natural and has a 'revolutionary' approach that uses our natural anti-mosquito camouflage to make you invisible to all small things that bite, including mosquitoes, horseflies, sandflies, fleas, wasps and bees.
I sprayed it on - and the first good news is that it's light and non-greasy. You don't notice a film of oil all over your skin - it's more like spraying a perfume on. And the stink of it isn't too bad. It's hardly Calvin Klein after-shave but I didn't feel like I smell weird and repellant to humans.
Then the big test. I sat in the cat flea armchair. This is a harsh test for any anti-bite claimant as you normally get bitten by one of the cats' little friends within a second or so. Well, I'm still sitting in it writing this on my knee. No bites and I'd forgotten how comfy this chair is...
The makers have some pretty big celebrity endorsements that will probably count for a lot more than my cat-flea chair. Says Ewan McGregor's pal Charley Boorman: “We used incognito on Long Way Down and it was fantastic. It worked really really well against the mosquitoes and does everything it says on the bottle.” Charley is intending to go incognito again on his next trip when it begins filming later this year in Papua New Guinea. Davina McCall is currently using incognito in Africa during her filming for Comic Relief, saying “it’s brilliant”. The England Cricket team used incognito products on their tour to the West Indies to great effect. It has also been tested by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, they say.
incognito is a small, ethically-minded company based in West London and run by husband and wife team, Howard and Patricia Carter. So how does incognito work? Says Patricia: “A female mosquito can detect human kairomones (similar to pheromones) up to one kilometre away. Our products mask these kairomones, camouflaging the wearer so they remain incognito – unrecognisable – to the blood thirsty mosquito. They also do not have the unwanted negative side effects and health risks associated with chemical repellents such as DEET.” Incognito products use an organic citronella only found on the island of Java, which they say is much more effective against all biting insects than ordinary citronella found elsewhere.
The range includes a 100ml camouflage spray - which is the only one they've sent me so far to test - citronella incense sticks, after-sun moisturiser, and a 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner and camouflage, as well as soaps: jasmine rice, ginger and citronella; lemongrass and citronella; and luxury loofah soap, which contains skin conditioning loofah for exfoliation as well as cleansing, and therefore the perfect minimalistic product for light travelling - you can even recycle the loofah as a gentle pan scourer when all the soap is gone.
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Thanks for the review! Its actually only £7.99 from our web site. A new report was published today on the dangers of DEET it has been picked up by the BBC & many others. I don’t mind if you never buy any incognito product -just leave the DEET on the shelf http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1204370/Insect-repellent-ingredient-used-thousands-holidaymakers-cause-children-fit.html Happy travels, Howard