ZEDAN

ZEDAN is a German brand of insect repellents and care products, made chiefly for horses but also for people. It belongs to MM Cosmetic GmbH, a small company based in Anhausen in the Westerwald region of Rhineland-Palatinate, and dates itself to 1988, the year the ZEDAN trademark was registered [2]. Its best-known product, the ZEDAN SP spray lotion, began as a repellent for humans and only later found its way into the stable, where it grew into a full range of fly sprays and equine skin, coat, mane and hoof care.

The brand presents ZEDAN SP as the first natural insect repellent on the market, a claim it makes on its own behalf [2]. Independent product testers have been less kind: The German consumer testing organisation Stiftung Warentest rated the human version of the repellent "mangelhaft" (poor) in both 2014 and 2017 [10]. ZEDAN remains active, selling insect protection for horses and people alongside a horse-care line certified to a natural cosmetics standard.

ZEDAN did not start with horses, and its parent company did not start with insects. According to the company's own account, MM Cosmetic's roots lie in skin care for people. Under the name ATABA it developed care products "long before horses were a topic at all", which is also where the name MM Cosmetic comes from [2].

ZEDAN SP was added later. The ZEDAN trademark was registered in 1988, and at that time the spray was not intended as a horse product. The company credits the change of direction to a veterinarian. She had been using ZEDAN SP to keep insects away while working outdoors at stables, and at some point she contacted the company to say it worked so well on horses that it ought to be sold in a one-litre bottle. The company sums up the episode in a single line: "And so we came to the horse."

That request, the company says, turned out to have far-reaching consequences. Once it was making insect protection for horses, new questions followed naturally: what stressed horse skin needs, how to care for coat and mane, what hooves need, and how to help horses that suffer most from insects in summer. The range grew step by step from those questions.

No individual founder of ZEDAN is publicly named. MM Cosmetic GmbH is represented by its managing directors, Armin Brietzke and Nikolai Piefel [3], but nothing in the company's own history identifies either as the person who created the brand.

The brand's history is told in broad strokes rather than in dated steps. The 1988 trademark registration is the only year the company attaches to its story, and its tagline, "Sinnvoll und wirksam – seit 1988" ("Sensible and effective – since 1988"), anchors the brand to it. Current copy describes ZEDAN SP as "the classic", sold for more than 35 years.

The move into equine products, prompted by the veterinarian's call, is undated. From there the range widened from a single repellent into several fly sprays and gels for different levels of insect pressure, followed by care products for skin, coat, mane and hooves, products for muscle recovery after training, and leather care for saddles and bridles. Over the same period, the company says, it carried knowledge and standards from modern natural cosmetics over into horse care.

The human side of the business never disappeared. ZEDAN still sells repellents for adults and children, and ATABA continues as a small line of skin and hair care for people.

ZEDAN is owned by MM Cosmetic GmbH, which today also owns BREMSENBREMSE, a second insect-repellent brand for horses [2]. ATABA, the human skin-care line with which the company began, is a sister brand under the same roof. The company is registered at Auf dem Löh 8 in Anhausen, Germany.

No acquisitions, sales or changes of ownership are documented. The company describes itself as still being "a small team from the Westerwald", despite the growth of its range over the years.

ZEDAN frames its product development around two plain questions, which it says it asks of every product: is it sensible, and is it effective? Only if both answers are yes, according to the company, does a product fit under the ZEDAN and BREMSENBREMSE names.

Notably for a brand that began with a natural repellent, ZEDAN says it is not trying to make every product sound as "natural" as possible. A product should be sensible, should work and should suit its purpose, so the company uses different active ingredients and formulas depending on the job. The homepage adds that when a product is not entirely natural, the company says so. It also states that it does not develop products just because there is space left on a shelf, and that its 35-plus years of experience help it learn from critical feedback as well as positive feedback.

The company argues that horses differ in how they are kept, where they live and how much insect pressure they face, and uses this to explain why it offers several fly sprays rather than one.

Behind the products sits a simple stated aim. Insect protection, skin care, shampoo or hoof care are, in the company's words, "in the end only products"; what matters is the time horse and owner can spend together, with fewer flies, mosquitoes, horseflies, blackflies and biting midges, and with straightforward everyday care.

### Insect protection for horses

ZEDAN SP spray lotion remains the brand's central product. It is an alcohol-free emulsion whose active ingredients are EC oil, derived from lemon eucalyptus (Eucalyptus citriodora), and geraniol, and the company positions it as an all-round repellent for normal insect pressure, particularly against flies and mosquitoes [8]. The same product can be used on horses and on people.

For higher insect pressure the brand offers ZEDAN SP Extra Stark, including a gel applied with a built-in sponge that the company recommends for horses prone to summer eczema, a seasonal itchy skin condition. BREMSENBREMSE, the sister brand, covers heavy insect pressure from horseflies.

### Care for horses

Under the ZEDAN Care name the company sells shampoos, mane sprays and plaiting products, care for itchy and irritated skin, hoof care for problems such as thrush and dry or slow-growing hooves, and a cooling gel for muscles after intensive training, which it describes as doping-free and compliant with equestrian anti-doping rules. Product names include the Bio-Ginko Shampoo, Schubber Gel for itching, Mähnenglanz for mane detangling and Strahl-Fit intensiv for hooves. A leather-care range, including Lederglanz for smooth leather, rounds out the equestrian side, alongside an odour neutraliser for home, car and clothing and refill packs for its sprays.

The company publishes a plain-language glossary of the ingredients in its horse care, ranging from aloe vera, avocado oil and beeswax to bisabolol, a component of chamomile oil, broccoli seed oil, calendula, hemp seed oil and jojoba. It declares the full ingredient list of its care products, saying owners should know what they are putting on their horse.

### Insect protection for people

ZEDAN's human repellents include the original SP spray lotion for normal insect pressure, the SP Intensiv spray lotion, which the company says can be used on children from six months old, and the SP Zecken & Mücken Abwehr lotion for strong protection against ticks and mosquitoes, which it markets as suitable for tropical travel [5]. A care stick for use after insect bites is meant to cool and soothe the skin. The brand says the sprays come in different concentrations of active ingredient.

Although ZEDAN SP is built around plant-derived EC oil, the current range is not entirely plant-based. On its own page about repellent actives, the company states that it uses icaridin and IR3535, both synthetic repellents, as well as EC oil in its insect protection products [9].

The repellents are sold mainly through pharmacies, health food stores and organic retailers.

Nearly all of the ZEDAN Care horse-care products are certified to the Natural Cosmetic Standard (NCS), with compliance checked every year by the certification body ECOCONTROL GmbH [4]. The standard excludes, among other things, silicones, paraffins, microplastics, synthetic fragrances, organic-synthetic dyes and genetically modified ingredients.

The company presents the certification as a way of moving beyond vague talk of "naturalness": a defined standard with outside checks, combined with full ingredient labelling, so that customers do not have to rely on the brand's own description alone. The certification applies to the care line; the human repellents are not described as NCS-certified. The site also refers to certified leather care.

ZEDAN's human repellent has a poor record in independent laboratory testing. In its 6/2014 test of 21 products, Stiftung Warentest rated Zedan Natürlicher Insektenschutz SP "mangelhaft" (5.1), with the same grade for mosquito protection, the criterion carrying half the weight of the overall score [10]. The Austrian consumer magazine Konsument, testing in the same year, rated it "nicht zufriedenstellend" (not satisfactory), with 8 out of 100 points and tenth place out of eleven [10].

The 2017 Stiftung Warentest comparison of 14 products again graded it "mangelhaft" (5.0), with poor marks for six-hour tick protection and for mosquito protection and a "befriedigend" (satisfactory) for health effects [10]. In a 2015 field trial, Survival Magazin gave no final grade but reported that the repellent kept mosquitoes away only briefly and with moderate success, with the first insects landing after about an hour.

The results continued to circulate. In May 2022, the regional news site HEIDELBERG24 revisited the 2017 comparison and listed ZEDAN's 100 ml natural repellent against mosquitoes, ticks and horseflies as one of two products that failed completely [11]. The same article relayed Stiftung Warentest's broader finding that blends of essential oils smell more pleasant but work considerably less well than synthetic actives.

User opinion has been more favourable. The test aggregator testberichte.de, which combines magazine results into an overall "befriedigend" (3.3) score, summarises customer reviews as largely positive, while noting that specialist magazines rated the product's efficacy as poor [10]. No awards are documented for the brand.

ZEDAN is active. Its German-language website carries a current range of fly sprays, horse care and repellents for people, and its copy counts more than 35 years since the brand's 1988 start. Germany is its primary market, although the Konsument test shows the repellent has also been on sale in Austria. The brand is run by a small team in the Westerwald under MM Cosmetic GmbH, alongside BREMSENBREMSE and ATABA.