An important aspect of any insect repellent is the active ingredient it is formulated with, commonly using DEET, IR3535®, picaridin, and oil of lemon eucalyptus. When choosing an insect repellent, consumers naturally compare these active ingredients to determine which product best meets their needs. But the active ingredient is only part of the story. Once a repellent is applied, several processes can immediately begin reducing its effectiveness: evaporation, rubbing off on clothing, coming off with sweat or water, and absorption into the skin. Even an excellent active ingredient cannot perform well if it disappears too quickly.
Modern repellent technology focuses not only on what the active ingredient is, but how it is delivered and retained on the skin. That is exactly what STAYTEC™ was designed for. STAYTEC™ is a controlled-release technology that vastly improves the performance of an insect repellent, providing long-lasting performance and consumer confidence in insect protection.
What is STAYTEC™?
Traditional insect repellents simply apply active ingredients on the skin, leaving the ingredient exposed to evaporation and other environmental factors that gradually reduce protection. Insect repellents formulated with STAYTEC™ stay effective for longer periods in comparison. STAYTEC™ works by placing tiny, microscopic protective shells around the active ingredient IR3535®. These microscopic capsules work in 3 ways:
- Protect the active ingredient
- Keep the active ingredient on the skin surface longer ( and reducing skin absorption)
- Slowly release the active ingredient over time
Think of STAYTEC™ as a protective time-release capsule for insect repellent. Scientists call this process microencapsulation, which simply means surrounding the tiny droplets of active ingredient inside a microscopic shell or matrix. While creating microscopic capsules makes STAYTEC™ unique in insect repellent formulation, the real innovation is how those capsules interact with your skin.
How STAYTEC™ Stays on Your Skin
Our skin naturally carries a slight electrical charge. STAYTEC™’s microscopic capsules carry the opposite charge. Because opposite electrical charges naturally attract each other, the capsules gently cling to the surface of your skin. This attachment helps keep the repellent where it belongs – even during conditions that normally remove repellents, such as sweating. By helping keep more of the active ingredient on the skin surface, STAYTEC™ also reduces unnecessary absorption into the skin, allowing more of the repellent to remain where it is intended to work.
Rather than releasing all of the active ingredient, IR3535®, immediately to try and repel insects, the STAYTEC™ capsules gradually release small amounts over time. This creates long-lasting protection without needing to constantly reapply the product. For consumers, that means fewer interruptions during the day, greater confidence in their protection, and an insect repellent that fits more naturally into everyday routines. The gradual, or controlled-release, technology of STAYTEC™ leads to a better overall product that combines longer-lasting protection, improved comfort, and greater confidence in insect protection. While this technology sounds impressive, did it actually perform well under scientific testing and what were the overall results?
What Were the Scientific Results of STAYTEC™ Usage?
Before any new insect repellent technology reaches consumer, researchers must determine whether it actually performs better than conventional formulations. For STAYTEC™, scientists focused on a simple question: Could the active ingredient remain on the skin longer while still providing effective protection? Rather than simply developing another repellent, the goal was to improve how a proven active ingredient behaves after it is applied to the skin.
Controlled Laboratory Protection Studies
One of the first ways scientists evaluate an insect repellent is through arm-in-cage studies. In these controlled laboratory tests, volunteers place a product-treated arm into a cage containing mosquitoes. Researchers then measure how long the repellent continues preventing mosquitoes from landing or biting. These studies provide standardized measurements of protection time through carefully controlling the number of mosquitoes and testing conditions.
Using testing methods that follow both Brazilian ANVISA and U.S. EPA guidelines, STAYTEC™-based repellent formulations demonstrated an average protection time of 14 hours. These studies helped verify that the controlled-release technology could provide long-lasting protection under standardized testing conditions.
Real-World Field Testing
In addition to laboratory testing, researchers wanted to know how the STAYTEC™ technology would perform where mosquito-borne diseases are an everyday concern. During an overnight semi-field study in a malaria-endemic region of Ghana, scientists measured how often mosquitoes landed on participants using the repellent. The results showed a 98% reduction in mosquito landing rates over a nine-hour period, including protection against mosquitoes known to have developed resistance to pyrethroid insecticides. These findings demonstrated that the technology remained highly effective under conditions that more closely represent everyday mosquito exposure.
Community Health Outcomes
An additional community intervention trial was conducted to examine the broader public health potential of daily insect repellent use. Participants who incorporated the STAYTEC™ formulated repellent, with 20% IR3535®, into their regular daily routine experienced no reported malaria cases during the trial, resulting in approximately 160 illness-related work or school days being avoided. Additionally, 93% of participants said they would “definitely want” to keep using the product after the trial, and 100% said they never, or rarely, had bites with the repellent, leading to a 99% satisfaction rate with this group.
Rather than simply demonstrating that mosquitoes were repelled, this study highlighted how consistent personal protection may contribute to reducing mosquito-borne disease when used as part of a daily health routine.
Why Everyday Use Matters
Scientists note that personal insect repellents have often struggled to achieve widespread success in many malaria-endemic regions, not necessarily because they don’t work, but because they are difficult for people to use consistently. Frequent reapplication, inconvenient application schedules, unpleasant odors, and uncomfortable formulas can all discourage long-term, consistent use.
The goal behind STAYTEC™ was therefore not only to extend protection time, but also to create a repellent that could become part of a person’s daily hygiene and wellness routine. By providing long-lasting protection without frequent reapplication, the STAYTEC™ technology was designed to encourage more consistent use – an important factor in improving both individual protection and broader public health.
STAYTEC™ + IR3535® = The Complete System With IMPEDE
IMPEDE combines the power of STAYTEC™ technology with the proven effective active ingredient, IR3535®, to deliver a premium insect repellent product. IR3535®, an active ingredient based on a naturally occurring amino acid, has an established safety profile and is suitable for use by pregnant women and babies 2 months of age or older. The IR3535® molecule has an excellent environmental safety profile, being nontoxic to aquatic organisms, avoids bioaccumulation in the environment, and is biodegradable. Studies have shown that IR3535® alone provides repellency lasting between 4 and 10 hours. Combining IR3535® with the controlled-release technology of STAYTEC™ gives IMPEDE a protection time of up to 14 hours, providing safe and effective protection from insects for everyone.
By keeping the active ingredient, IR3535®, where it belongs on the skin and gradually releasing it over time, STAYTEC™ ensures safe and long-lasting protection with IMPEDE. The lotion-based formula of IMPEDE is not only safe and long-lasting, but also comfortable for prolonged, everyday use. IMPEDE is skin-friendly with no strong odors or oily residue. The hypoallergenic formula of IMPEDE is also designed to be sweat- and water-resistant. IMPEDE is proven to repel biting insects commonly found throughout the Caribbean like mosquitoes, fleas, sand flies, chiggers, ticks, and no-see-ums. Working together rather than replacing one another, the technologies of IR3535® and STAYTEC™ make IMPEDE the ideal everyday insect protection.
The best insect repellent isn’t simply one with a proven active ingredient – it’s one that delivers that ingredient effectively throughout the day. By combining the trusted protection of IR3535® with the innovative controlled-release technology of STAYTEC™, IMPEDE was designed to provide dependable protection that fits naturally into everyday life. When insect protection is comfortable, long-lasting, and easy to use, it becomes easier for consumers to make it part of their daily routine – supporting healthier individuals, healthier communities, and a stronger, more resilient Caribbean.
Technical information in this article is based on STAYTEC™ technology documentation provided by LivFul, the developer of STAYTEC™, and is used with permission