Lightweight bugshirt

[Matthew / BPL]

After experiencing total mosquitopocalypse last summer in the Sierra I’ve been thinking more about how I’m going to deal with the pesky buggers next summer.

I’m not a deet guy and I haven’t found permethrin effective. A woven long sleeve shirt, bugnet and hat works but ends up being warm. I picked up a Original Bugshirt Elite on Lester Moore’s suggestion and cleverly left it in the car when there weren’t any mosquitos at the trailhead as I headed into my hikr of doom.

The Original Bugshirt is a great solution with mesh panels where the shirt is not on contact with your body but it is heavy, made out of very thick material that is too hot and has some unnecessary details. I’m going to have someone sew me a custom one.

Question:

What kind of fabric should it be sewn out of? I want the lightest weight, most breathable option that provides a reliable physical barrier to mosquitos. Specific recommendations of fabrics or suppliers would be appreciated.

I’d be curious to hear other suggestions from people about design details.

[David Thomas]

Could you put a big bag of mosquito netting over your whole head, trunk and pack?  Like an overgrown mosquito headset. Elastic at the waist. Wear a brimmed hat underneath. Maybe have small elbow pads of bite-proof fabric.  Your shirt could be as light as you want. Or non-existent.

[Matthew / BPL]

Ha! It would be like a personal bubble personified in bugnet form.

[Window walker]

There are “bug net shirts” and mitts, try sea to summit.

[Matthew / BPL]

Thanks for the response, Ben.

Perhaps I went on too long in my initial post. My question is what type of fabric makes an effective physical barrier for mosquitos. Assume the fabric is resting on my body, like on my shoulders…

[jimmy b]

test

matthew,

I have tried posting here to help you out and am having no success. maybe this post will stick. I will edit it later but for now I used supplex with a raglan sleeve design as a zip up with a #3 zip. It is pretty bullet proof material and bug proof in my experience with a bunch of hiking pants I have made from it. This will be my go to shirt this year until I prove the design and make more.

[David Thomas]

Okay, something is wonky about posting on BPL or at least this thread.  I posted a response, edited a typo and now I don’t see it.  I see 6 posts ending with Jimmy’s, but the index shows 7 posts ending with mine?

[jimmy b]

Yes Dave, I tried posting for about a half hour to Matthew’s post and it would not display. I gave up, took a walk, tried again and STILL had no luck. Also somewhere there is a post of mine that shows in the post count that surely ain’t on my screen. I guess no good deed goes unpunished :(

[Paul S.]

I was researching this very same issue. I found some post about bug shirts having 60 CFM. I’m not sure what the max CFM is to resist mosquitoes but I would love to find out.

I did a breath test on one of my bug shirts, an Ex Officio Breez’r shirt, and I found it much less breathable than my 35-40 CFM jackets.  I’m  considering replacing my bug shirt with a highly breathable when shirt.

[Matthew / BPL]

Weird that people’s posts are not showing. Feel free to PM me content and I can post it to the thread as longs as I’m able to continue posting!

Jimmy, thanks for the material recommendation.

[John S.]

Windshirt fabrics seems mosquito proof mostly. That and rain gear. Those are the only ones other than no seeum netting that I have noticed stopping them.

[Erica R]

I use a very loose fitting cotton kurta when hiking in hot weather. It seems to mostly stop mosquitos; it is about as tightly woven as a bed sheet. If that is bot bug proof enough, spray the DEET on the fabric. I use a wide brim hat, and if I just spray the DEET on the brim it seems to work well enough.

[jimmy b]

Problem with deet is that it destroys a lot of gear it comes in contact with from plastics to rain gear laminates. I learned the hard way with a marmot precip  years ago.

[Matthew / BPL]

Yeah I’m totally not down with DEET.

I talked to OWFINC today and they are sending me samples of Taslan and polyester microfiber. Any thoughts on the mosquito resistance of either of those? Google says Taslan is like Jimmy’s Supplex but feels more like cotton.

[John G]

If my memory is correct – one of Roger Caffin’s articles on BPL said that Taslan is the generic fabric name, and Supplex is the brand name for one of the mills – but the fabrics are essentially identical.

[jimmy b]

.,,,,, Taslan is the generic fabric name, and Supplex is the brand name for one of the mills – but the fabrics are essentially identical.

That’s my understanding as well.

[Colin M]

I’m in Oregon so take the mosquitoes you saw, make them twice the size and that was my summer! Had a 3 hour bike ride where I was covered in clothing and deet, never stopped moving and still had over 40 bites, many right through 2 layers of clothing! Another time fishing in the wilderness I had to wipe them off my bug net to be able to see, that was wild. All the backcountry rangers were talking about how bad this year was so hopefully next summer is better. Consensus was that it was a few warm winters in a row so long mild wet springs just right for the mosquito-Apocalypse!

I ended up with a pretty good system that seemed to work. I can’t handle the lack of breathability of most of the bug shirts so I went away from that. I’m not sure there’s any way to find a physical barrier that’s going to stop bites but allow airflow as the two are kind of counter to each other. They also don’t help all the other portions of me that aren’t covered so I found my system worked just as well.
I soaked my wool shirts in permethrin (wool seemed to work better than cotton for maintaining the life of the permethrin and I found the synthetics don’t seem to hold it at all) as well as upper portion of wool socks. Didn’t bother with shorts as the weave is really tight on my running shorts plus they are quite short so what’s the point? I then used Picaridin which works as well or better than deet and doesn’t wreck gear nor smell and also seems to stay on longer on my exposed areas just once a day, usually around lunch. Any time I stopped moving for the day and they got really bad I pulled out an UL rain jacket and sometimes even my bug net and rain pants. Helps that I don’t stop moving from breakfast until I set camp so this system might not work as well for people that like to take more breaks.

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