cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/45283933

If you ride in during the summer (who doesn’t???), there may be times when you’re putting bug repellent spray on.

DEET-based products harm synthetic fabric, so opt for a DEET-free bug spray if you don’t want any surprises.

I’ve used picaridin-based products, and they seem to work as good, if not better, than DEET.

  • _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works
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    9 days ago

    Like I said in the OP:

    Use DEET or picaridin on skin.

    Use Permethrin on your gear (just keep the liquid you use to treat your gear away from cats).

    DEET will melt a lot of other synthetic stuff too like tents, tarps, straps, etc.

  • ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    Reminds me of the time I travelled through Asia backpacking and was in need of a bug spray. Found something that said some high amount of DEET was in it, don’t remember exactly. I’d say it said 80% but that’s probably not possible, not sure.

    Anyway, after using it a bit the drips from the spray slowly melted the sticker on the bottle. Somehow the plastic bottle itself was OK. But it got me a bit worried what I was spraying on my skin…

      • ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 days ago

        Oi, then maybe it was even 100%. I actually wrote that first then thought, nah, someone is going to reply that 100% is not possible, so corrected it to 80%.

    • _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works
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      9 days ago

      80% is totally possible, it can go up to 100% for deep woods protection.

      As I recall, it doesn’t melt every single type of plastic, just some to most of them as well as probably things like dyes, adhesives, etc.