Repellency of essential oils and their components to the human body louse, Pediculus humanus humanus

Abstract

Five essential oils and nine of their components were compared to diethyl toluamide (DEET) for their repellent activity against the human body louse, Pediculus humanus humanus. The absolute or intrinsic repellency of the compounds was tested by applying the repellent to corduroy patches and comparing them with untreated patches. It was found that the most effective repellents were DEET and citronella, whose activity lasted at least 29 days. The activity of rosemary lasted at least 18 days and that of eucalyptus more than 8 days. The repellent activity of the oil components such as citronellal and geraniol lasted more than 15 and 8 days, respectively. DEET remained effective at a dilution of 1:32, geraniol at 1:8, citronella at 1:4 and rosemary and citronellal at 1:1. The comparative or standard repellency of the candidate repellents was examined with the aid of a new screening technique using hairs treated with ammonium bicarbonate which is attractive to lice. Using this technique it could be shown that the repellent activity of citronella and geraniol lasted 2 days and that of rosemary and citronellal for only one day. DEET was active for less than one day. Serial dilutions of these substances also revealed that citronella was the most potent repellent for lice, followed by citronellal, rosemary, geraniol and DEET. The differences however, were not significant.

The fumigant and repellent activity of aliphatic lactones against Pediculus humanus capitis (Anoplura: Pediculidae)

“…Our results demonstrated that these lactones were as effective as the well known repellent piperonal, and showed higher repellent indexes (RI 68.46,60.50,and 76.68) than those previously reported for EO components (less than 50%) against P. h. humanus (Mumcuoglu et al 1996). These results also suggest that aliphatic lactones could be incorporated in formulations suitable for application to hair capable to produce an adequate slow release, and act as a repellent formulation applied directly to the hair of the persons protecting them from head lice infestation.…”

Evolution of camphor and others components in the essential oils of two labiate species during the biological cycle

“…In France, several pharmaceutical specialities (like Aromasol™, Humex Revulene™, …) are used in respiratory disease. New searches were run for the valuation of antimalarial [12], antifongic [13] and antiparasitic (Pediculus humanus) [14] activities.…”

Mosquito repellent from Thai essential oils against dengue fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti (L.)) and filarial mosquito vector (Culex quinquefasciatus (Say))

“…Citronella oil mosquito repellency has also been verified by Kim et al (2005), including effectiveness in repelling A. aegypti, but requires reapplication after 30 to 60 min. Research also indicates that citronella oil is an effective repellent for body louse, head louse and stable flies (Baldacchino et al, 2013;Mumcuoglu et al, 1996Mumcuoglu et al, , 2004.…”