SMACK! Reviews: Up & Up DEET-free Insect Repellent

What better way to get back into the swing of things than with a product review! We'll be covering mosquitoes, insect repellents and the like here at SMACK! a lot, because, you know, 'tis the season. And DEET is a serious, serious chemical. So during a recent Target run, I saw this new insect repellent made with citronella oil and was super curious to see if it worked.

Crummy photo, but great product!

The price was right -- $3.99 I think? For a 7.5 oz bottle -- so I grabbed one and decided to give it a try. I spent some holiday time on a lake with plenty of biting bugs, plus hot humid weather, so I knew the conditions would be perfect to test it out.

One thing I liked right away about this product is that it has just 10 ingredients. That's it. And just a few of them fall into that 'unpronounceable' category. Besides the citronella oil, there are soybean and wintergreen oils and citric acid. Nice, garden-fresh stuff, right?

The scent is what you would expect of a citronella-based product. A bit better than the citronella candles, but along those lines. The product isn't greasy, but I can feel it on my skin.

But I'm not really complaining about the feel or the smell because THIS STUFF WORKS. I mean, it really works. A few sprays to exposed skin and I was good for hours. I wasn't even really careful applying it!

The instructions (which I'm just now reading closely, duh) say to be careful spraying on clothing because of possible staining. I didn't notice anything on my clothes afterwards, though, and, like I said, I wasn't careful.

My adventures in chemical-free living aren't the only reason I'm quickly loving this product. With my mastectomy earlier this year I had a sentinel node biopsy to test my lymph nodes for signs that my breast cancer had spread. It hadn't, but I'm still down a few lymph nodes which puts me at risk for lymph edema. And guess what is a huge trigger? Bug bites.

Oh the stress. I simply cannot wear enough insect repellent. And of course, some little black knat thing managed to bite my wrist (on my 'good' arm) and trigger swelling that covered the entire back of my hand and around my forearm. 

Now imagine that on my bad arm!?!?!?! I'm ready to bathe in this stuff, seriously.

SMACK! Grade:  B+

RETAIL NOTE:  The thing about Target's Up & Up line is that most of the products are available in stores only. So check your local Target (because you need the excuse). And if you don't see it, ASK. TELL. DEMAND. That's the only way we will get better, safer products, is by speaking up!!