The anti-midge repellent that I use claims good efficacy against ticks but this only lasts about 4 hours (see later for an explanation of why this might be the case, and why protection is generally much longer than this.) However that should be no major hardship if you have genuine concerns about getting a serious illness then reapplying every so often isn't going to be a show stopper. If you are stalking or working where ticks are a problem it might be worth lashing some onto areas where ticks might gain access or where they might crawl? I would do my hands up to my elbows for example with the intention that it would stop them crawling up my arms - it is not uncommon to put my hand on the ground and find them crawling about on the back of my hand so anything that encourages them to drop off can't be a bad idea.
I also found that probably the single thing I did that most reduced the number of ticks I got was wearing gaiters. I guess that most ticks I was picking up were coming from vegetation below knee height and when they grabbed on and found that my gaiters weren't to their taste then I'm assuming they dropped off again. Spraying the gaiters with some Icaridin is something I do now and again but I can't say if it works or not.
I use the Hedgewitch Icaridin for midges and ticks. It is available in big bottles and I decant it into small spray bottles and put one in every pocket, rucksack, etc. People get their knickers in an awful twist either because it contains "chemicals" or because they don't understand that the active chemical has many names including Saltidin, Icaridin, Bayrepel, Picaridin, and even Butan-2-yl 2-(2-hydroxyethyl)piperidine-1-carboxylate (yeah, I admit, I had to look it up on Wikipedia and I've no idea what it means) and so most of the commercial products are using the same active component. Icaridin is derived from pepper - the stuff you put on your dinner - and the Hedgewitch product contains Icaridin, water, and carbomer which is a sort of bulking agent used in medical applications, skin treatments, makeup (if you wear any when stalking), and so on. It doesn't have any smell or perfume (though like pepper will make you sneeze if you breath it in when spraying it) and isn't greasy so once it is on then you don't know it is there. I know some people remain fans of DEET and there is no question that DEET works but the evidence is that it is no better than icaridin plus DEET melts your car, glasses, rifle, varnish, fishing rod, phone, and possibly Stonehenge.
The EPA did some research on using icaridin against ticks and had great success with most people getting protection for over 15 hours (the max duration of the experiment) though there was one outlier result where protection seemed to break down after 3.4 hours, this may have been a problem with the test or similar but may be why icaridin is said to protect against ticks for 4 hours. It should be noted that with the two products tested the average duration of protection was over 15 hours for one, and over 11 hours for the other. The paper reporting the results can be seen here:
Document Display | NEPIS | US EPA
My source of icaridin is these people at Hedgewitch, initially they were selling it to use on horses to keep the flies away. As you know I've been punting it around as a good solution for a long time and they actually got in touch with me to say that I was generating a lot of orders and could they send me some at no cost - I refused this kind offer on the basis that I can claim to be unbiased and have no conflict but a lot of people are now using it
Don't forget to order a trigger spray applicator if you don't already have one from a prior purchase Hedgewitch icaridin is a human insect repellent that provides an effective alternative to DEET. It contains Icaridin at 20%, judged to be as effective as 50% DEET by...
hedgewitch.uk
www.zedmed.co.uk
