The development of new insecticidal formulations is important to overcome the burgeoning hurdle of insecticide resistance in field populations of mosquitoes and other pest arthropods. In order to standardize the testing of current and future small molecule chemical agents as insecticides, specific protocols should be shared, broadly endorsed, and certified among public health entomologists to decrease the variability in toxicological endpoints observed between laboratories. As variability in toxicological data can result due to differences among sub-populations acquired from the field, experimenter, environment, etc., it is paramount to diminish the effect of factors that contribute to variability in scientific protocols, whenever possible. We propose the utilization of a single topical application protocol that will aid in the characterization of both current and future (in development) insecticidal active compounds. This protocol may be utilized to calculate the theoretical dose required to kill a specific percentage of a pest population (e. g. LD25, LD50 , LD95) and to compare the toxicity of insecticides in a given pest population or sub-sample. Moreover, it may allow for the evaluation of insecticide resistance to be quantified compared to a given susceptible strain. The adoption of this protocol by numerous testing laboratories should decrease the variability in data observed between different researchers and increase the translatability of toxicological characterizations within the scientific community.