Picardin is a next generation insect repellent designed to replace DEET. 🐜Invented in the 1980s, carefully studied for toxicity in the 1990s it became on the market in the United States in the early 2000s after first being approved in Europe first.

I stumbled upon an article a while back talking about the virtues of Picardin over the long standing insect repellent known as DEET. Unlike DEET it won’t stain most clothing, isn’t as greasy, doesn’t cause the same level of allergic reactions and actually smells fairly nice when first applied. Almost like an apple smell or maybe buttery popcorn.

I find Picardin takes somewhat longer to work then DEET but it’s a whole lot nicer to use, and doesn’t give me the annoying allergic reactions like tingling lips that sometimes I have with DEET. Supposedly Picardin is more effective at repelling ticks than DEET but I find it works well with mosquitoes and horse flies too but not so much black flies – which also aren’t that repealed by DEET.

Over the years I’ve bought many containers of DEET so I still use that to a certain extent, because I already have that on hand. But now my go to really is Picardin as it’s much more pleasant to use. Picardin is frequently sold as Repel Tick Defense at Walmart but I’m sure there are other brands out there.