HOMEFRONT: Man stalks ‘holy grail’ of gnat foilers
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By Alma Gaul | Thursday, July 03, 2008 |
In response to our question last week about “home remedies” for annoying gnats, Aaron Osborne of Bettendorf e-mailed a detailed account of his quest for a mysterious — and effective — elixir that he first encountered several years ago on Davenport’s Emeis Golf Course.
The thread begins as Osborne is golfing with a threesome. They catch up to a single golfer and ask him to join them, making introductions and complaining about how bad the gnats are. In response, Mr. X shares a repellent that he says, “works great.”
“Having tried most everything from vanilla extract to Skin So Soft and every other bug repellent with only limited success, I was skeptical,” Osborne says.
“The whitish liquid had a smell that immediately reminded me of my childhood doctor’s office. To my amazement, after being directed to apply some of this liquid to my neck and ears and on the bill of my cap, the gnats immediately fled. Although I could see them flying around, they stayed several feet away, almost like there was now an invisible force field that prevented them from coming closer.”
The effectiveness lasted about two hours and then they reapplied the substance.
“I asked what was in the liquid, (but) much to my disappointment, no answer was forthcoming. Mr. X had been given some of the magic liquid by another golfer. He could not remember what it was called.
“Over the years, I tried to find out what this magical product was,” Osborne says. “I saw more attempts to repel gnats than I can count. Products like Listerine or Absorbine Jr. I even saw a guy clip a dryer sheet to the back of his shirt collar. Yes, it looked as silly as it sounds.”
Osborne finally happened upon a man who knew what the substance was: an old, multi-use antiseptic product. This other man even had some in its original bottle. The faded label identified it as McNess Formula 1046, which Osborne traced via the Internet to a manufacturer in Freeport, Ill. The company still exists, but it discontinued the product in the 1990s.
Undeterred, Osborne decided to concentrate on the product’s active ingredients to see whether he could find something else with the same contents — and the same effectiveness against gnats.
He honed in on PCMX (parachlorometaxylenol), which is used as an antiseptic/disinfectant. That would explain his memory of the doctor’s office scent when he first encountered it at Emeis.
“One search led to another and another, but, finally, success!” Osborne says.
He found a product with most of the same key ingredients called Dettol Liquid First Aid Antiseptic, which is made by Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare in Great Britain.
He ordered a small bottle over the Internet (type in the product name and you’ll come up with lots of choices) and has been using it for most of the year.
“I am not sure if it is the PCMX that repels the gnats or the combination of the ingredients,” Osborne says. “I do know that for $6-$7, after shipping, the small bottle will probably last several years and is well worth the effort.”
So there you go. Osborne’s story makes Vicks VapoRub sound way too easy.
Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.
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